Many traders struggle with seeing the small fonts that applications sometimes use in order to pack as much data into a small space as possible. When you find the font or text is too small to easily read, there are some things you can do to help. Most applications have a font size adjustment that will increase the size of text. For example, thinkorswim has an application-wide font size selector in the Application Settings dialog (click the Setup menu at the upper right of the main display, then choose Application Settings / Look and feel / and choose your desired Font size).
Other platforms have features that affect just a single chart, such as NinjaTrader, though you can set some of the changes to be the default so newly-opened charts will have larger fonts by default. But you'll find that not all text can be increased. TradeStation often provides font size adjustments in the properties dialog. For example, to increase the font size in a radar screen, click in the upper left corner of the radar screen and select Format Page. You'll find options to change the font size there. Other objects in TradeStation, such as line labels, can be adjusted in the line's properties using the Label tab.
Increasing a specific chart's font size in NinjaTrader 8
You can increase the font size in NinjaTrader 8 so that the numbers in the axes, as well as within the Chart Trader display. This affects the popup value menu you get when clicking the middle mouse button over a bar, too. To do this, follow the instructions as described in this NinjaTrader support forum article:
You can save this as the default for your charts so that new charts will also have this preferred font size.
Note that while this affects some of the fonts, not all of the fonts will be changed - such as the fonts in user interfaces such as the DataSeries.
If increasing the font size of the application isn't making enough of an adjustment, then you may find some operating system settings that can help.
Decrease windows display resolution
If you're using a very high-resolution monitor, such as a 4K monitor that's smaller (that is, not 60 inches or so), you may find that the high resolution makes the dots very small. That would make the fonts very difficult to see. Most monitors allow you to decrease the resolution, and that would make the displayed dots bigger, effectively enlarging the fonts. You can try this out using the Display control panel in windows. If you don't need the higher resolution, you may find this will make text easier to see. Here's an example of setting the display resolution of the selected monitor to HD, rather than UHD. HD would be 1920 x 1080. UHD (Ultra HD) has a resolution of 3840 x 2160, which is 2x both of the HD dimensions. There are other resolutions you could experiment with to see what works best.
Windows Display Scaling
Windows has a "scaling" factor that you can apply to fonts (text) across all applications, but not every application honors an increase in scaling. Unfortunately, NinjaTrader doesn't appear to adjust its fonts based on the scaling factor (you can find the scaling settings under the Display control panel). While this may not help with NinjaTrader, it could help with other applications. When using scaling, you'll find that some windows applications update immediately when scaling is changed, while some require the app to be restarted for the scaling change to take effect.
Windows Magnifier
There is one more thing that might help with being able to see smaller fonts, and that's using Windows Magnifier. It's a built-in tool that allows you to enlarge a portion of the screen in various ways. One mode of the tool lets you view the screen as if you're holding a magnifying glass. Another mode enlarges the whole screen so you see just a portion of the screen, zoomed in, and then you can pan across the whole screen to see different parts of your display. You can find out more about this built-in tool at the following link:
Apple Mac Users
Apple's OS also has a built-in magnification tool, which can be enabled under System Preferences / Accessibility / Zoom. Check Apple's documentation for more information on using this tool, at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210978
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