How to Make Text Bigger on Windows 11

Text on a Windows 11 screen can be made larger without changing anything else, or the whole screen can be scaled up so icons, buttons, and text all grow together. Both take under a minute.

Open Text size

Press Windows + I to open Settings, then go to Accessibility, Text size.

Drag the slider and apply

Drag the Text size slider to the right. The sample text at the top of the page grows as you move it, so stop when it looks comfortable. Click Apply. Windows takes a few seconds, then text in menus, Settings, File Explorer, and most apps is larger. Icons, buttons, and images stay the same size.

Make everything larger with Display scale

If text alone is not enough, scale the whole screen. Go to Settings, System, Display. Under Scale & layout, open the Scale dropdown and choose 125% or 150%. Everything on screen grows, including icons and app windows. Pick a value marked Recommended if you are unsure; that is the size Windows chose for the monitor.

Zoom inside a single app

For a page or document that is too small right now, zoom the app instead of changing Windows. In a browser, Word, Excel, or Outlook, press Ctrl + Plus to zoom in and Ctrl + Minus to zoom out. Ctrl + 0 resets. Holding Ctrl and rolling the mouse wheel does the same thing. This affects only that app and, in browsers, only that website.

If some apps look the same after changing Scale. A few older apps only pick up the new scale after you sign out and back in. Windows shows a "Sign out now" link on the Display page when that is needed.

If the mouse pointer is hard to see. Pointer size is separate from text size. Go to Settings, Accessibility, Mouse pointer and touch, and drag the Size slider. You can also change the pointer color on the same page.