Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Weird Safari 11 doings

I've been chugging along quite nicely for years with Safari > Prefs > Advanced > Accessibility: Never use font sizes smaller than 10 as my setting, but a few days ago, 11 became my minimum allowable setting, but only when I'm at FTM.

I've trashed my plist (correctly), but the new one has still got me stuck at 11.

The change seems to have come simultaneously with my having switched from Lucida Fax to Calibri (which is a much smaller font than LF) as my preferred font in Mail and TextEdit, but as I type this post, it's rendering in Calibri in Safari, although neither the actual post nor FTM, itself, does.

Is there a setting of which I'm unaware, or has anybody got any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks.

The MacOS specified fonts effect only Safari's menus and headings, not the rendered text of a web site. The website specifies the desired typeface, size, and characteristics for that site in the HTML and CSS code. If the specified typeface is not available on the system the rendering engine will attempt to choose a close alternate from among the standard web fonts. You can override the HTML and CSS specifications by creating a custom style sheet and selecting that style sheet in Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Style Sheet. (You can also make sites un-viewable that way but don't ask how I found that out. )

By-the-way in Safari Technology Preview 11.2 the minimum font size for all sites is 9 but my setting is 14 and I have the site settings for FineTunedMac set to a Page Zoom of 150%. (My eyes are not as young as they used to be.)

Wow, that's major! (The thought of declining vision is my worst nightmare; the only doctor I ever see is my ophthalmologist; take care of your eyes.)

Well, I cleared my font cache, but with no joy, so I booted into safe mode where FTM looked normal, at which point I decided to do a clean install rather than undertake what promised to be a difficult troubleshooting task, and my FTM screen is back to what I expect to see. (My deuced Mac(hina) had been sluggish for a while, but macOS wouldn't allow me to run the 10.12.6 Combo...even in safe mode.)

The minimum font setting in Safari 11.0.3 prefs is 9, but as respects FTM, 9 and 10 don't work at all, and 11 works only in some instances...curious.

That is strange. I don't have the time or patience to dig through all the HTML and CSS associated with FTM but it is possible there is an overriding command there.

You have discovered the reason I find the site-bysote zoom setting so useful and don't fool with minimum font size settings or custom Style Sheets. There is no risk of overly large font settings overwriting adjacent text boxes or being too big to appear in the specified space. Too high zoom settings can cause graphic images to blur or even pixelate but that is rare and only at very high zoom settings. In general sites always look exactly the way the site designer intended only larger. Of course it helps that when I am "at home" I am using a 27" Thunderbolt 2 display, but even when I am limited to the 13" monitor on the MacBook Pro it still seems display well without having to change the zoom setting. Even better I have the site settings on the Safari Tool Bar, so I don't even have to open a menu to change the setting if I need to.

I played with that setting when FTM was out of sorts, but it's just not the same as changing font size, which enables "finer tuning".

I've had the "Websites" icon in my menu bar since about 5 seconds after I stumbled on it; you'd think that such an important and useful tool would be there by default!