Tutorial: Changing the GSAS-II Font Size

Intro

GSAS-II has customizable settings which are called preference settings. These are found in a menu command, as described below and are saved with other GSAS-II settings. As of January 3, 2025 (in version #5802) a new feature was added that allows the GSAS-II font size to be changed via these settings. The font size will also be determined by settings on the local computer, so this size is relative to the the local OS settings. Not all parts of the GUI will be affected by this setting. Note that some of the modal windows (these are windows used to get input such as file names) that GSAS-II opens are created by your operating system and thus will have font sizes determined by system settings. Others may need changes to utilize this setting. If your use of GSAS-II is impared by this font setting not being applied to a section of GSAS-II please open a GitHub ticket and provide an example of what could be improved.

The font size setting is applied when GSAS-II is started, so changing it requires restarting GSAS-II before the effect of this setting is seen.

Finding the preferences settings

The font setting is determined by preference variable FontSize_incr and this is set inside the File menu (File->Preferences). On MacOS, preference settings are also found in the usual App menu (labeled GSAS-II or python, depending on how the GSAS-II GUI is started), as shown here.

Change the font preference value

When the Preferences menu is selected a window is opened where any of the preference variables can be selected. Select from the pull-down list the variable FontSize_incr as shown here.

This will open a window where the value can be set for the font size. Note that a value of 0 (the default) provides the system-default size for the font. A positive value provides a larger font and a negative value provides a smaller font. Only integer values can be used.

As noted before, the value set for FontSize_incr is applied only when the GSAS-II application is started, so when the “Save current settings” button is pressed, a window is displayed asking if GSAS-II should be restarted so that the change can take effect. It is fine to choose “No” here; the change will take effect the next time that GSAS-II is started. If “Yes” is selected, you will get the chance to save the current GSAS-II project.

When “Yes” is above, the window here is shown to ask if you want to save any changes made to the current GSAS-II project file.

• If “Cancel” is chosen, GSAS-II will not restart (but the change to the font size will be saved).
• If “No” is selected, GSAS-II will end; any changes made since the file was last saved will be lost. GSAS-II will then restart without reading a .gpx file.
• If “Yes” is selected the current .gpx file will be overwritten with the current project contents (if the project has never been saved, you will be asked for a location and name for the .gpx file. GSAS-II will then restart with the saved version of the project loaded.

Example with the changed font size

Below are two examples of GSAS-II with two different font size settings.

FontSize_incr	Example
0
3

Note that not all text (for example the status message at the bottom of the window) has the font size changed.