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As a Boomer who lives and breathes social media, SEO, and all things internet marketing, I'm constantly on my computer and I find that I'm struggling more and more with this one itty bitty problem -- itty bitty type! It is a pain, and it seems that smaller graphic design choices, devices, and apps are appearing every day! So I've concentrated on finding a few cheats for myself, and thought I'd share with you who are at or approaching the same stage:
Outlook - Zoom is your friend. Whenever you open or compose an email, click on Zoom in the upper right corner and increase to 125% or more. Similarly, when checking email via the Outlook Reading Pane, notice the zoom slider in the lower right corner. Grab and slide the pointer upward to 125%, 150%, or whatever's more comfortable for you to read.
Word - The standard convention for documents is 10 point type, which somehow seems to be shrinking! :^) So - if you're feeling feisty, just set your font size at 11 from now on and don't worry about what others think. Don't go larger than this, though, or others might feel that you're shouting in your documents. In the alternative, make it a habit to click on View and then Zoom and then choose 150% to make your document easily readable.
Your monitor - If you work on a laptop, I don't care what it is, your monitor is smaller than it should be for your poor eyes. Purchase a free-standing monitor at least 20 inches in size, plug it into your serial port, then go into Windows Start, Control Panel, Display,and Settings. Click on Monitor 2 and adjust the screen resolution until Monitors 1 and 2 appear roughly the same size. Then Click "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor." Now do your main work on your big monitor. Everything will automatically be bigger, clearer and brighter.
Lighting - My wonderful eyedoctor, a woman my own age, explained to me what was happening when I started to complain of more difficulty reading the newspaper several years ago. She told me that the reason we all end up needing glasses for reading and close-up work is that the lens of the eye builds tissue all during life. For that reason it becomes less elastic, and cannot adjust focus for far/near as well as it used to. Eventually we can't adjust for close-up work and we need reading glasses. Also, because of the growing thickness of the lens, it allows less light to pass through and we find we can't read in dim lighting, and we can't see as well at night.
So - don't fight it, work around it!
