Comments on: Okay, here’s a question for all you Mac experts out there

By: Burke

Burke — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:49:19 +0000

Neo, I’m using Safari on an 4 year old MacBook laptop. One of the first Intel Macs they made, and RealClearPolitics.com isn’t doing that text wrapping to me, unless I have Zoom Text Only checked in the View menu in Safari, or I set a minium font size under Preferences > Advanced.
This particular problem isn’t a windows vs. mac one. It’s just how the website designers layed out the page (combined with using a different size/resolution screen than they anticipated). Usually developers specify particular size elements such as images, column widths, fonts, font sizes, etc. When you change these is when you get the weird wrapping.
I find that using the minimum font thing or zooming text leads to these problems. The best way to deal with this is to use the command and + key to make the whole page bigger. This has the benefit of not distorting things (the way increasing the font size does) or bluring things (the way lowing the screen resolution does)

By: Burke

Burke — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:36:28 +0000

OK. First of all, way to many people try to increase the size of the text on their screen by lowering the resolution of the monitor. This is a bad idea, especially on flat panels monitor and laptops. LCDs actually have a native resolution. Lowering will make everything “bigger” but it does that by blowing everything up and making it fuzzy.
The right way to fix something like that is to tell windows and the programs to use larger fonts/icons. This

By: RK

RK — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:16:12 +0000

It is close to impossible to diagnose problems without seeing them up close. If you have an Apple store nearby, go to visit the Genius bar. If you don’t, find a friend with lots of MAC experience. I use regularly a mac mini on a 24″ display, a macbook pro, and a macbook air (with different screen sizes and resolutions), I do not see the problem you described. Good luck.

By: Steve G

Steve G — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:41:52 +0000

Have you tried expanding (or contracting) your column width a letter or two in Safari? A small thing like this is often all that it takes to resolve hours of frustration. You know, like forgetting to check a box in the fourth level of imbedded menus and spending days trying to fix a problem that just won’t go away. Someone above suggested the reference book for the version of OSX you are running. Not a bad idea. Sometimes while researching the solution of one problem the answer to another (that you gave up on long ago) is right there.

Fonts look to be the same from computer to computer but the size of, say, times roman 18px, might be infinitesimally larger or smaller in mac than in windows. While they may look alike they may not be exactly identical. A lot depends on the source(s) of the software fonts and whether Apple went out of its way to spruce up the font to make it look “better” than windows.

Good luck.

I have been playing with computers since the VIC-20 and ATARI, grudgingly moving to DOS and then windows (through Vista) because that is what we used at the office. I got an Apple powerbook about 6 years ago and immediately liked its stability and relative ease of use. But, I bought the reference book and spent some time with it, which helped to understand the differences. I suffer the pc with XP at work as it is slow, clunky and fire walled to protect it from viruses. The iMac is great in comparison.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:41:07 +0000

Steve G: I will try the Camino thing when I get a chance. Right now I’m mega-busy! I also somehow doubt it will help (but I know, I need to get a better attitude!). Thanks for the suggestion.

By: Steve G

Steve G — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:44:36 +0000

I suggested Camino twice above and it seems to have gone by you without consideration. Camino is the Mozilla emulation of its mac-like browser. It’s firefox for the mac. I have been using it for years. This morning I ran Camino side by side with Safari on my iMac running Snow Leopard and noticed the following:
1. The white background for the same web page is noticeably brighter in Camino than in Safari. Remember, this is also on the very same computer screen. I have no idea why.
2. The page layout was pretty much identical at the same type size settings but the type was noticeably sharper in Camino than Safari. Again, I have no idea why.
3. My experience has been that Camino is more stable than Safari, even the latest emulation of Safari.
3. As with Safari, in the preferences menu there is an appearance submenu that allows you to set the minimum type size for proportional and fixed spacing fonts. If this was not a help in Safari it will most likely be frustrating in Camino. But, I would play with it to see what happens when you set larger minimum font sizes.
4. I port over to Safari every time Apple releases a new update and quickly go back to Camino.
5. My impression, without actually doing a time test, is that Camino loads pages faster.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:23:45 +0000

csimon: Thanks, but I already did all of that on my own—I tried every possible resolution. That was one of the first things I did. It did not fix the problem.

I can’t explain it the way the guy at Best Buy explained it, but he actually seemed to know what he was talking about (he wasn’t just the salesperson, he was some special tech guy they directed me to).

By: csimon

csimon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:12:50 +0000

Re: Best Buy guy’s theory: Wrong! The screen size should NOT make a difference. BUT the screen RESOLUTION (as denoted in pixels) can make a difference. It changes the font size, and it makes a difference in clarity and definition of what’s on screen.

If you click on System Preferences in your Dock (it’s usually right next to the Finder, or you can click on Finder -> Macintosh HD -> Applications. List of applications appear and they are listed in alphabetical order. Click on System Preferences (it is equivalent of Control Panel in Windows) Click on Display in System Preferences. You will see list of dimensions, i.e. A pixels x B pixels (denoting length and width of window). The higher the numbers, the smaller things will appear, but they are sharpest with more clarity. i.e. more pixels allow more refined resolution.

If you want to compare your Mac’s resolution to your Gateway PC’s, after you see what resolution your Mac setting is (the set of nos. that is highlighted when you open Display; and which you can change simply by clicking on an alternate set of pixel dimensions (nos.) You might want to try a few to see which you like best.), on your PC, go to Start-> Control Panel -> Display and you will see a similar list of pixel dimensions. They may or may not match your Mac’s available settings, depending on how old each computer is.

I’m sure you will find this will help you adjust your Mac so you can best read what is on screen.

By the way, if you don’t know where something (an Applic., a file, etc.) is located, you can always click Command Key + Space Bar and a white rect. box appears in upper right hand corner. Type in what you’re looking for (can be application, file, utility…even group of words that you remember writing but can’t remember name of file in which you saved it) & box drops down with anything that has the word/words you typed in. (Note: In System Preferences -> Spotlight, you can choose the order in which Spotlight lists all places in which words you typed appear: i.e. Applications, Files, Web Pages, etc.) Click on anything on Spotlight list and it will open whatever it is you’re searching for (whether it’s Applic., File, Document, Webpage). You don’t need to worry about having browser or application or Finder window open — Spotlight does it automatically.

By: rickl

rickl — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:55:49 +0000

I don’t know about “zoom text only”. I haven’t heard of that, but in the top button bar in Safari are a small and large letter “A”. I can change the size of the text by clicking them. On most sites I don’t have to.

You can also choose Safari > Preferences > Appearance in the menu bar at the top of the screen and experiment with different fonts and sizes.

By: rickl

rickl — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:48:09 +0000

Neo: Actually, my Mac is five years old. It’s a G5 that was the top of the line when I bought it. I’ve upgraded the OS as new upgrades have come out, and I’ve also kept up with the free software updates. It’s been mostly trouble-free.