Being able to identify Kanji at all is one thing, but not being able to see what Kanji it is because the font is too small is another.

Do you guys increase the size of your browser fonts? Or do you just pick it up from context which kanjis you are reading? Because my browser or just the fonts make them really small...

Depends on how bad it is. Usually I can make it out by context, but if not, I'll make it bigger, and reset it when I'm done with that page.

Also, if I know I'm going to be rikaichanning a lot, I like to keep it small, because increasing the font size increases the rikaichan box as well, which is annoying (or is that just in Chrome?)

I'm glad this was a 'what do you guys do' as opposed to a 'how do i make the font bigger' thread.

Oh yeah. you see I have no problem with increasing the size of the fonts, although the fact that it makes english bigger is a nuisance, however I was wondering if I was the only one with this issue or not.

Using my netbook: with one finger already on the touchpad, I double tap another finger. This brings up a temporary magnifying box. Perhaps, you could find an app or plugin which has a similar function. Have you tried zoomit? Zoomit will zoom in the entire screen until you hit escape. Of course, neither of these programs allow you to use rikaichan while zoomed in. For that I usually resort to ctrl + and ctrl -. But reading lines of kanji using magnifying apps has worked fine for me.

Short answer: Yes, others find it a bit frustrating too.

I have been wondering about that for a long time too... either all people fluent in Japanese are eagle-eyed or there is some secret trick to it

My workaround was to get a bigger monitor and (nearly permanently) enlarge the view with ctrl + in the browser I use most for reading japanese. I only wish I could apply that method to printed media too. We sometimes get worksheets that are really crammed with information and copied over and over until they are almost illegible. By the way - trying to perform those typical zoom-gestures on a piece of paper won´t get you anywhere, other than being looked at in a very funny way...

For me, the biggest help has been changing the default font used for Japanese text rendering to Meiryo. This font is freely available in Windows 7 and Vista, and is about 100x more legible than the standard asian windows fonts, due to it being properly true-type and scalable.

Of course if you're using MacOSX, forget this tip as you already have the best kanji fonts..

I'm not sure why web-browsers can't use a different font size for different types of text though, so that when kanji is detected it makes them bigger. There must be a firefox plugin for this..

Playing Japanese games on my DS got me used to reading tiny, squashed, pixelated kanji.

pudding cat Wrote:Playing Japanese games on my DS got me used to reading tiny, squashed, pixelated kanji.

I've been playing through FF7 in Japanese and games on my DS as well(namely pokemon right now). And that has gotten me very used to seeing pixelated somewhat distorted tiny Kanji. I find the Kanji in browsers to be very clear now.