Q. My question is how do I enlarge the fonts on the sites like the baiduhai Web edition? I just upgraded to a computer with Windows XP after using a machine with Windows 95 for eight years. I tried clicking on View in the browser software and then Text Size and picking largest, but it’s not much help.
Using Windows 95 I was able enlarge the font size enough so these old eyes could see comfortably. Pete Samuiloff @comcast.net
A. I share your pain, Mr. S., and so I looked into this text issue a few years back and found that the best way to blow things up is to ratchet down the resolution settings for the computer’s video card.
It’s a trick that helps younger folks resolve display problems with games and lets their elders see text better.
More Top Picks Best Tablets For Toddlers Learning
If you look at many Web sites like ChicagoTribune.com you will notice that they occupy only about two-thirds of the screen, leaving a wide blank space on the right. This is done to make sure that people with the widest variety of equipment can view everything on the page, including formatting, placement of images and such. Also behind the phenomenon is the desire by Web masters to display as much content as possible before stuff starts scrolling off the bottom of the screen.
My suggestion uses that white space to permit larger displays. So right-click on the desktop and select Properties and then click on the tab for Settings in the display that pops up. You will find a slider arrow that can be dragged from the right toward the left to reduce the resolution of the screen.
Nearly all new PCs come with resolutions set for at least 1024 x 780 pixels. If you drag your slider to show 800 x 600 pixels or fewer you will find that the Web pages now fill the entire screen and that the text is larger.
You’ll probably be dismayed to see that a much smaller amount of the content can be seen before you need to start scrolling. You will find that the same thing happens with e-mail and even word processing, but maybe that’s good news instead of bad.
While we’re on the topic, people with really serious vision problems can use the Windows Magnifier feature to enlarge the screen up to nine times. This tool creates a horizontally split screen with the magnified stuff on top and the regular display below. As you move the mouse over the regular display, that part of the screen gets displayed in the top pane.
Click on Start and Accessories, then Accessibility to find the magnifier.
Q. Ever since we upgraded to Windows XP, our CD-burning capability is gone. We can read and hear audio or data CDs, but we can no longer burn them just using Windows XP. Before we installed XP, it was no problem to do either.
But when installing XP, we were told we needed to Remove/Uninstall our Easy CD Creator 3 software, as it was incompatible with XP. We understood that Windows XP had its own CD-burning software (CD Writing Wizard), so it would be OK. Well, ever since we’ve had Windows XP, we can no longer burn CDs of any kind using Windows XP.
The only way my husband can burn a music CD is by going in through his iTunes interface on our PC. But we still cannot burn a data CD. Marcy Greeley, San Jose, Calif.
A. You and your husband can count yourselves among the mounting list of folks who got in trouble removing the Roxio CD recording software that came bundled with their machines because they got a message warning that Windows XP doesn’t support it.
The idea had been that Microsoft would include in Windows XP all of the drivers needed for Roxio-supported CDs. Your family is living proof that the idea flopped in too many households.
You need to update the drivers for your CD burner to get Windows XP to work with the specific CD-R/RW drive in your machine.
To do that, click on Start and Control Panel, then open the System panel. Click on the Hardware tab in the display that appears and then click on Device Manager. Now scroll down the list of equipment connected to your computer and find the CD drive. Right-click on it and pick Properties.
The display this summons includes a Drivers tab. That tab includes a command to update the driver that will either find a driver on your own hard drive or show you the way to reach out to the Web and download it.
Meanwhile, my compliments to your husband for figuring out that Apple’s iTunes for Windows software gives Microsoft a run for the money when it comes to music playing and recording software on CDs.
Q. I read your column religiously, but this morning’s column had reference to running the Command Prompt by going Start/Programs/Accessories and then Command Prompt. I don’t have one there.
I am running Windows XP. I have another computer, one that has more recent installation because I upgraded from ME to Windows XP. That one has it. How did I lose it on this computer and how do I get it back? Thanks in advance for your help. Chip Maloney, Saratoga, Calif.
A. Let’s start with the lazy hacker’s solution to this problem, and then I’ll work up the energy to explain how to fix things as they should be in the XP Accessories display, Mr. M.
Click on Start and pick Run instead of hunting for the Command Prompt icon. In Run, type command and hit the Enter key and you’ll get an open DOS-type window.
You can also type cmd in the Run button to get another version of the outmoded DOS operating system. This is harder to remember but easier than clicking on the two extra Start folders required to call up the Command Prompt.
Windows XP’s Command Prompt emulates the older DOS operating system commands. They amount to a language of text commands that can order the same moves one makes with a mouse.
If you want to restore the actual icon for the Command Prompt, you’ll need to set your computer so it can see system files and then go to the actual program and make a shortcut for it, which is more difficult than just typing cmd in the Run line. Start by clicking on Start and Control Panel; then open Folder Options and click the View tab to find the show hidden command.
Now click on Start and Search. Type cmd.exe as a search term.
More Top Picks Wakeboards
When the Command Prompt icon appears in the Search display, right-click on the words “cmd.exe” and chose to make a shortcut. One will be placed on the desktop.
Finally right-click on Start and pick Explore. You will see a folder for Programs. Open it and you will find Accessories. Drag the cmd.exe shortcut from the desktop into that folder to return things to the out-of-the-box condition.
I’d just use Run from now on and save myself the trouble.
———-
Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.