So I want to get started with Unity but at 1680x1050 the interface is way too small. I am not seeing anything in the preferences for making the interface larger. Searching on here returns a lot of in-game interface stuff. I am asking about Unity’s interface, not the game I plan to make with Unity. Thank you so much for helping and of course for making Unity available for me to use!
I am also looking for this information.
Any chance there is a formal feature request area, to ask the devs for such a feature?
I run Unity at 1920x1080 and I can clearly see everything…
You could always adjust your screen’s DPI setting, in the control panel (for PC, not sure about MAC).
However this adjusts your display for every program, but enlarges / reduces everything by a certain percentage.
It would be nice I suppose for Unity to have a ‘Scale’ setting that adjusts the fonts and controls inside Unity by a factor, but not sure how many people would need this.
My eyes would greatly appreciate a means of enlarging the 8 pt font or whatever ridiculous size it is. I’ll try changing dpi but in Windows 7 all it has is the “make text and other items larger” presets that have zero effect on the unity interface. I’m assuming that does the same as the dpi settings did in XP but I am a little suspicious because whenever I adjust it my “window color” settings (icon spacing, title/tooltip font sizes) are reset to defaults. Maybe ati control panel has a dpi setting I can adjust. Also I now have 1920x1080 screen at 23" so eye strain is probably worse than before.
I’m happy for you. Would you like a cookie?
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This is what I did to deal with the size of the UI:
For the notebook screen, I use this accessory:
Haha yeah I might just do that
Yes, PLEASE, I absolutely need an option for scaling the fonts inside Unity. The current font size is totally ridiculous and my eyes become strained after a bit of work. Changing the Windows DPI has no effect. Disabling “XP Style DPI Scaling” actually changes the font size, but the text renders blurry, which it’s even worse. Any clue, please?
Unluckily not everybody is young and somebody have problems with eyes.
In example I am 43 and I work on a 42" tv. I couldn’t bear anymore working on a 22" monitor, my eyes simply get tired in no time.
My suggestion is to increase the Windows font size. I don’t know if this affects the Unity interface but it’s worth a try maybe.
Also because, I guess your Windows OS is in the same condition, with very small characters, so you could have a good outcome also there.
To be concise:
Changing DPI settings in Windows control panel effectively changes the overall font size (desktop, etc.), however:
- With “XP Style DPI Scaling” setting checked, Unity’s font size is not affected and remains with the tiny fonts.
- With “XP Style DPI Scaling” setting unchecked, fonts in Unity renders bigger BUT blurry, which is even worse for readability.
As far I can see, it seems to be a bug in the DPI-awareness of Unity.
Edit: An interesting reading about this annoying issue: http://www.kynosarges.org/WindowsDpi.html
After a bit of experimentation, I’ve solved it using this method (tested on Windows 7, unsure on W8 or XP):
Step #0: Control Panel → Appearance and Personalization → Display → Set custom text size (DPI), scale up to 125%, and uncheck “Use Windows XP Style DPI Scaling”. Reboot or close session and login again. This step is only needed to do once.
Every time you need to open Unity, do:
Step #1: Control Panel → System → Advanced system settings → Performance Settings → Visual Effects and uncheck “Smooth edges of screen fonts”. Click on Apply.
Step #2: Open Unity.
Step #3. Undo the Step #1 (check “Smooth edges of screen fonts” and click on Apply).
If any application shows blurry, you can right-click on its icon, select “Compatibility” tab and check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”. This only works for 32bit apps. See http://www.kynosarges.org/WindowsDpi.html for more info.
Good luck!
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I hope they add a panel font size in the next versions… Not to mention the small unity preferences panel. 
Thanks for the info Sothoth. The problem is that guys working in Unity Technologies have perfect eye sight and don’t care about us near sighted folks
also on 1920x1080… cant really see anything. especially the lock icon or that squiggle next to it.
it also doesnt help, that theres like no contrast in the interface. everything is just different levels of grey.
The funny thing is i actually have a dual monitor setup. I could easily put the Project/Heirarchy/Inspector panels in my second monitor and increase their font sizes by 3-4 times and still easily see everything without scrolling. Instead I’m staring into a few pixels in the edges of one screen.
Even if i had only one monitor. i wouldnt really mind having to scroll a little bit as long as the submenus in the panels were collapsable (as they are)
With the increasing resolutions it would be great if Unity would support scaling on Windows 8. Currently Unity is very blurry, when scaling is active. I hate to use Unity on my notebook, because it’s blurry when scaling is active or everything is incredible small
Unity really needs to fix this urgently.
Add a config option for font base size… how freaking HARD could it be?
I just switched to a new high-DPI machine. This is 2880x1620 pixels on a 15" IPS display.
Why did I choose so? So I can enjoy a higher-resolution game preview and no longer work under 1920x1080 which gives me a game-view of around 1136x640 since I don’t like maximizing it, because tweaking in the inspector and hierarchy while running etc.
Well guess what, this is only possible for me if I tick the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check-box option on the Compatibility tab of Unity’s editor.exe Properties dialog.
If I do so: nothing, nothing is legible in Inspector/Hierarchy/Project/dialogs etc. I do have great eyesight! But high-DPI is, well, lots of dots per inch! News at eleven, right?
If I don’t: then I don’t even get full-HD (1080p) but less and worse: I get half-native resolution (1440x810!!) upscaled blurrily. Yes that’s sadly how it works with Windows’ hi-DPI scaling. So I upgraded to a shiny new high-resolution workhorse in order for Unity to downgrade my visual work experience and in-editor and Game View resolution.
Guys, this is getting ridiculous… this is really super-embarrassing! Even before high-DPI displays (though they’ve been around for a few years if we’re being honest) a simple font-size option would have been in order since dunno perhaps 2009? But now it’s LONG EFFIN OVERDUE.
Now I don’t suggest to be clever and put this into U5 as a “powerful new feature” like the LOOONG-OVERDUE 64-bit editor! This should have been a given years ago! Now you finally made it work and then some sales&marketing crook comes along and says “this is pretty crucial nowadays, so better put it in the v5 upgrade path”?
Now, this other long-overdue need for a “super simple base-font-size option” (you already ARE using some hardcoded font-size, just expose it, in the Windows registry or an .ini file if necessary, we mostly don’t care for cosmetics here I think) should really arrive in 4.5.2 or 4.6 worst-case…
Sheeesh… guess I just throw out my marvellous brand-new Quadro-powered mobile workstation and grab a 3rd-hand ca. 2009 laptop so I can work with freaking Unity Engine and be able to read its GUI…
By the way I have two Pro licenses and many thousands invested in Asset Store over the last year. So my frustration is subjectively perhaps even say 8000 times as high as I would feel as a Free Indie user. But that’s a subjective guess.
Dude have you considered using 2 monitors? 
What kind of solution is that. Throw more hardware at the lack of the most basic of features. I happen to enjoy working with a portable laptop on the terrace or in a cafe, instead of staring at a fixed installed monitor in the basement
I reiterate… Unity already chooses some hardcoded font-size by default. Expose that shoot somehow. An INI file, a registry key, if I need to restart Unity no prob. Just don’t hardcode the 8px size for YEARS despite TONS of requests (Google is witness) time and again by users who want to change this default font size.
It’s ridiculous how switching to a QHD display lowers the effective resolution I get compared to FHD if I want to be able to read things which means having to allow Windows’ naive and blurry upscaling.
I understand your fun in developing at the cafe, you probably hit also one girl or two while there, nonetheless, 2 monitors are a PERFECT solution for working, I know because I use them
Of course you can’t bring a second monitor into the cafe, but you shouldn’t also be so pushy in asking this.
The software is what it is, and the devs probably considered other priorities than giving somebody the fun to work in a cafe… also Photoshop, for what I know, doesn’t offer font scaling, and that software is used by MILLIONS since more than 15 years, if I’m right.
Not that it mustn’t be done, but for v.5 looks ok to me.
Adding a config that lets you choose a font size is trivial, obviously. Changing the whole of the editor layout code to work with different font sizes is not trivial. This is on our Editor team roadmap, but hasn’t been started yet.
(Just to illustrate better. Suppose you’ve created your game menuing system using the GUI class. Your designer says “oh, let’s use this shiny font instead” and that font is larger than the one you’ve designed the menus with. You now need to go back and change the size of every rectangle in the layout code. Do-able, just not easy. And yes, the editor uses the GUI class for the user interface. And yes, hard coding the layout was a bad decision.)
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