Experience reading just the way you want to

Feb 6, 2015 15:09 GMT  ·  By

With the release of iOS 7 in 2013, Apple introduced Dynamic Type, which makes text look just the way you want it in apps like Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Phone, and Notes.

Dynamic Type enables automatic adjustments to letter spacing and line height for every font size and produces text that responds appropriately when the preferred text size is changed in the Settings.

It also lets you specify different text styles for blocks of text that are semantically distinct (i.e body, footnote, or headline).

How to tweak your text

To adjust the font size on your iDevice, follow these steps exactly:

1. Unlock your handset and visit the Settings, then tap on General > Text Size. 2. You should see a slider. Drag it to the preferred size and watch the text on the screen adjusting its size accordingly. When you find the one that fits your taste, stop sliding. 3. For larger fonts, visit Settings > General > Accessibility > Larger Type. 4. Turn on Larger Dynamic Type. 5. To turn on Bold Text, Increase Contrast, and Invert Colors, go to Settings > General > Accessibility.

For third-party apps to mirror these changes, you need to check whether or not Dynamic Type is supported.

iOS includes hundreds of different fonts, including AlNile, American Typewriter, Apple Color Emoji, Apple SD Gothic Neo, ArialMT, Avenir (and all its subsequent forms), BanglaSangamMN, Baskerville, Cochin, Copperplate, Courier, GeezaPro, Georgia, Helvetica, Kailasa, etc.

Use this short guide to make text more visible for you in apps like WhatsApp Messenger, which coincidentally just got support for Dynamic Type in the latest update. You might not know this, but the text font has the power to induce a distinct state of mind, simply because of certain particularities. For example, italic text always makes it seem like something intelligent is being said, like a quote or something. Keep that in mind the next time you want to woo someone with your texts.