Preferences Dialog

If the size of text in Family Historian is too small, rather than changing the size of particular fonts used in the various different components of the program, a better and easier option is just to adjust screen font scaling.  This will change the displayed size of screen fonts used throughout the program.  "Screen fonts" means fonts that are used, and only used, within the program, to display information on your screen - as opposed to fonts which are used in reports, books, charts, diagrams or websites.  Fonts used for any kind of program output are of course configurable, but are not affected by changes to screen font scaling.

Many open windows will automatically adjust themselves appropriately if you change the value of Screen Font Scaling, but some won't, and some will only partially adjust.  If there are any windows open that will not fully automatically adjust when you change font scaling, a message will be displayed warning you that you will need to close and reopen these windows, to force them to update themselves.  An easy alternative to closing and reopening these windows is to simply close and reopen Family Historian itself.

These are screen fonts affected by Screen Font Scaling:

• The Default Font, set on this tab of Preference.  This font is used in record and place listings.
• The Focus Window fonts, set on the Focus Window tab of Preferences.
• The Property Box fonts, set on the Property Box tab of Preferences.  The Property Box text font is used not just by the Property Box, but also by all satellite windows of the Property Box, and the Citation Window.  The Property Box text font is also used as the default font (the 'automatic' font) for the Note Window, and is also the font used in most ordinary dialogs, and in fields and buttons on many workspace windows.
• The Query Window Results font, set in the Query Window tab of Preferences.

Changing screen font scaling will not affect the recorded point size of any of these fonts.  So, for example, if your Property Box font (set on the Property Box tab of Preferences) is Tahoma, 10 pt, you will still see "Tahoma 10 pt" as the value for this font on that tab, even if you change Screen Font Scaling to 150%.  However the actual font that will be displayed in the Property Box in that case will be 15pt (10 pt scaled 150%).

Tip: You may notice that when you increase Screen Font Scaling, the size of fonts previously selected by you in the Note Window may appear to get bigger.  You may be wondering if this will not affect output, if these notes are subsequently included within a report, say.  The answer is that output will not be affected.  This is because Family Historian maintains all font sizes in notes as relative sizes - that is, the size of the font relative to (bigger than, or smaller than) a given default.

This option will be greyed if all screen fonts already have their default sizes.

One good reason to use Screen Font Scaling (the previous command discussed above) is that it is a very easy way to change a number of screen font sizes, while keeping them all in proportion relative to one another.  But what if they are not already in the correct proportions before you change the scale?  This can easily happen if you change some screen font sizes but not others, or give them non-proportionate sizes.  One quick and easy way to ensure that all screen fonts are in the correct size proportions, is to use Reset Screen Font Sizes, to reset them all to their installation default sizes.  Resetting screen font sizes sets their sizes as recorded in Preferences - that is, before any scaling is applied.  It doesn't change or reset the Screen Font Scaling value.

Reset Screen Font Sizes, as the name suggests, only affects the recorded font sizes.  Other aspects of a font (such as the name of the font, and whether it is bold or not) are not reset.

Choose your preferred size for toolbar images.

Choose your preferred option for text on application toolbars (that is, toolbars which appear at the top of the main application window):

• Minimal: text appears to the right of the first 4 items on the main application toolbar only
• Standard: text appears to the right of 8 items on the main application toolbar only
• Below Button: (the default) text appears below all items on all application toolbars

If ticked (the default), buttons for the 4 main diagrams are displayed on the main application toolbar.  If not ticked, these become the first 4 items in the dropdown menu that appears when you click on the Chart button.

If this option is ticked (the default), an icon for the Records Window will always be displayed in the Navigation Bar, even if the Records Window is closed. This is to provide faster, easier access to the Records Window.

This option has no effect if the Records Window is the 'Startup' window (see Startup tab) as the Startup Window cannot be closed and its icon is always the first icon in the Navigation Bar.