Three Ways to Change the Text Size on Debian 10 Desktop

If you have a problem reading text on your Debian screen, you can easily adjust the text size. In some situations, the font is too small to see it properly, and there are different options to change the font size on a Debian GNOME Desktop.

In this article, we will explain how to change the text size on your screen using the following methods:

1. Through Debian Settings Utility
2. Through Gnome Tweaks Tool
3. Through the Terminal

We have run the commands and procedure mentioned in this article on a Debian10 OS.

Method 1: Through Debian Settings Utility

The size of the text on the screen can be changed from the Debian Settings utility. To open the Settings utility, go to the top right corner of your desktop and click on the downward arrow. It will open up a drop-down menu, click on the Settings icon as shown below:

When the Settings window opens, select the Universal Access menu from the left pane. On the right pane, you will see the Large Text slider button. It by default enlarges the text by 1.2 times for better readability. Click on the button to toggle it to on position. By doing so, you will notice the increased text size on your screen.

Method 2: Through Gnome Tweaks Tool

There is another way of changing the text size using the Gnome Tweaks Tool. You can install it using the Terminal. To launch the Terminal application in your system, go to the Activities tab in the top left corner of your desktop. Then in the search bar, type terminal. When the Terminal icon appears, click on it to launch it.

Now to install Gnome Tweaks Tool, run the following command as sudo in Terminal:

$ sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

When prompted for the password, enter the sudo password.

Once the installation is completed, you can launch the Tweaks tool from the Dash menu or the from the Applications list.

When the Tweaks tool is opened, select the Fonts tab from the left pane. Here, you can configure text settings for your system.

Method 3: Through the Terminal

The size of the text can also be changed directly from the Terminal application in your Debian system. To do so, use the following command syntax in Terminal:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor <scaling_factor-value>

For instance to scale the text size 1.5 times, run the following command in Terminal:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.5

To reset the text size back to default settings, you can run the following command in Terminal:

$ gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor

That's all there is to it! I hope it will be helpful if you ever need to change the size of the text in your Debian OS.