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Tiny font sizes on high resolution screens make SPSS unusable

  • 1.  Tiny font sizes on high resolution screens make SPSS unusable

    Posted Tue October 25, 2022 10:47 AM
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    Hello,

    while this has been an ongoing issue for many years and I am hoping IBM would address the issue sooner than later, I am wondering if there was now a solution I am just not aware of.

    How can I permanently control the font sizes of the GUI and Output? On 4k displays the font size must be somewhere around 4pts. There is no option in the General Settings or the View->Fonts settings where users could adjust the font sizes. Your customers can simply not read SPSS menu texts or any statistical outputs! I spent weeks trying to trouble shoot once again, but no matter what DPI / scale factor settings I adjust at the OS level, what _JAVA_OPTIONS I declare, SPSS ignores them all and defaults to 4pt as a font size. Is there some config file that controls the Java GUI directly? I am fine with hardcoding the fontsize and don't need it to be adjustable, but I would like to be able to actually use the software.


    This is Version 27.0.0.0 and the issue is platform independent, i.e. I have exactly the same problem under Windows as I am having under Linux. Under Windows there is somewhat of a workaround by scaling, but that makes everything very blurry.

    Thanks,
    Aicko



    ------------------------------
    Aicko Yves Schumann
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    #SPSSStatistics


  • 2.  RE: Tiny font sizes on high resolution screens make SPSS unusable

    Posted Wed October 26, 2022 10:25 AM
    Hello Aicko. Sorry you're running into difficulties with your 4k display and Statistics font sizes. Because the Statistics client is written in Java, there are hurdles to overcome when it comes to respecting the Windows font scaling settings.

    I see you are using Statistics version 27. It is important to note that prior to version 28 there was a problem with font scaling for Statistics output and data editor font sizes. There had been a well-intentioned but errant effort many years ago to make fonts the same size regardless of display DPI setting prior to release 28, and that caused font size problems under different display resolutions. 

    Starting with release 28 the font sizes you see in the data editor and in output should match the same settings in applications such as those in MS-Office. Below is a screen shot from version 29 demonstrating font sizes in MS-Word and SPSS Statistics:
    Here one can see that the font sizes declared in v29 look the same as the same font and size in MS-Word


    It is surprising to hear that the default menu font size is 4pt on your 4k system. The menu font that Java provides on standard systems is 14pt, and we do not currently change that (but perhaps we should be for high DPI displays).

    After a brief research on this topic this morning, I was able to get my Windows VM system (I normally use a Macbook) to use larger fonts for all text in the product with the notable exception of the font used for the output creation dialogs. I am noting the steps below in the hope that it will help on your 4k display:

    1. To set the menu font:
    - Go to the General tab of Statistics Options and change the Look and Feel dropdown to the native Windows look and feel:
    - Go to the Windows display settings and adjust the text scaling factor to something greater than 100%:
    - Restart Statistics

    2. To set the pivot table font:
    - Create a pivot table and adjust the font sizes to something you like
    - Save the pivot table styling as a TableLook by selecting Tablelooks from the table editor's Format menu and saving the new look from there.
    - Set the new tablelook as the default, either from the above Tablelooks UI or from the Pivot Tables tab in SPSS Options.

    3. To set the Title/Page Title/Text output fonts:
    - Set the font sizes for these elements from the Viewer tab in Statistics Options.

    4. To set the Outline font:
    - From an output document select "Outline Size" from the View menu and choose one of the larger size options.

    5. To set the Data Editor font:
    - From a data editor document, select "Fonts" from the View menu and set the size there.

    Here is what Statistics output in my Windows VM looks like after taking the above steps (I don't have a 4k display here):
    Note the dropped menu in the upper right of the image.


    Granted, this is a less-than-elegant way to set all this, and it still falls short in the area of dialog fonts, but hopefully it will provide some relief on your 4k display.

    Regards,


    ------------------------------
    Curtis Browning
    SPSS Statistics Architect
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Tiny font sizes on high resolution screens make SPSS unusable

    Posted Wed October 26, 2022 10:31 AM
    Adding to Curtis's thorough explanation.

    Do you have multiple monitors?  If so, setting the default monitor to a different one might help.  I recall having a similar problem with one part of Statistics where that was a problem.

    --



    Original Message