Large Fonts

[GimpKnowHow]

Hi, recently Gimp started having huge menu fonts, (To what I'm used to)
Here is an example.


It's the font where it says: File, Edit, Select, View, Image, ect.
It's not unduly bothering, but it is slightly annoying. Changing Gimp themes does nothing to help. One day, it randomly got bigger. Any way to fix this? I checked in the preferences, but I cannot find any setting for font sizes.

[~suv]

Did the change happen after you updated your system to 10.5.7 or after installing a newer XQuartz/X11 version?

Assuming you are using GIMP 2.6.6 with the default theme, you can change the gui font size thus:

Open finder, goto '~/Library/Application Support/Gimp', open 'gtkrc' with TextEdit or create a new file called 'gtkrc' (important: no hidden '.txt' ending) if it doesn't exist. Add the following lines:

Code: Select all

# gtkrc for GIMP on OS X
#
# changed:  2009-06-09
# smaller gui font size for GIMP 2.6.6 on Xquartz-1.4.2-apple31 or newer

# for themes without explicit font settings (Default, Small)
# same size as upcoming inkscape 0.47
gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 10"

# for themes like Leopard & ProApp, you need to make changes in those
# theme-specific gtkrc files

restart GIMP.

If the font size doesn't fit yet, you can to try different values like

Code: Select all

gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 8"      # really small gui font


or

Code: Select all

gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 12"     # this is a bigger one


hth, ~suv

[GimpKnowHow]

Did the change happen after you updated your system to 10.5.7 or after installing a newer XQuartz/X11 version?

Assuming you are using GIMP 2.6.6 with the default theme, you can change the gui font size thus:

Open finder, goto '~/Library/Application Support/Gimp', open 'gtkrc' with TextEdit or create a new file called 'gtkrc' (important: no hidden '.txt' ending) if it doesn't exist. Add the following lines:

Code: Select all

# gtkrc for GIMP on OS X
#
# changed:  2009-06-09
# smaller gui font size for GIMP 2.6.6 on Xquartz-1.4.2-apple31 or newer

# for themes without explicit font settings (Default, Small)
# same size as upcoming inkscape 0.47
gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 10"

# for themes like Leopard & ProApp, you need to make changes in those
# theme-specific gtkrc files

restart GIMP.

If the font size doesn't fit yet, you can to try different values like

Code: Select all

gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 8"      # really small gui font


or

Code: Select all

gtk-font-name = "Lucida Grande 12"     # this is a bigger one


hth, ~suv

Hey thanks for your response, I'll try it out tonight. For now, dinner. (=

[DoctorLes]

Hi,

I've had a very similar problem. Gimp 2.6.6 was working fine until I loaded Inkscape 0.46 and XQuartz, 2.2.3. Then I got the gigantic fonts thing; I'm not talking huge, I'm talking the tops of only one or two letters per screen, on my new iMac, running OSX Leopard, 10.5.8 I've tweaked and re-tweaked and now can't remember all I've done, but I can either get Inkscape OR Gimp running OK, but not both (I don't mean simultaneously, I mean sequentially). And I have to fool with XQuartz to do that much.

After opening the gtkrc file, I found the last line said Lucinda Grande was set at 936.0. So I changed that to 12.0. Right now, I've got Gimp kind of working with this, and the font size seems fixed, but now I've got other problems that I either could not see before or are new. What I think is the canvas size is now huge; the grid markers range from -9600 on the left, to 9600 on the right; I can barely find the image of an old file I loaded because I couldn't scroll far enough to find it, even though it was very large too. When I finally did, I tried to shrink the image by zooming out. This did shrink the image but only after making the canvas size even larger. And it took lots of time for my processor to make these changes. I cannot use Gimp in this condition.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Les

[~suv]

After opening the gtkrc file, I found the last line said Lucinda Grande was set at 936.0.

This indicates that you are not using GIMP 2.6.6 but downloaded and installed the first version of GIMP 2.6.7 which had a small bug that wrongly calculated the font size for the gui.

Please read the corresponding topic GIMP 2.6.7 for Leopard (universal binary) where the issue is explained and follow the steps to reset the wrong preference settings for GIMP before installing and running the new build version GIMP 2.6.7-p1.

This GIMP glitch itself and modifying GIMP gtkrc files (in ~/Library/Application Support/Gimp) can in no way have an influence on Inkscape - both packages are selfcontained and have separate GTK+ libraries and configuration files.

So you have either changed X11/XQuartz preference settings (stored in '~/Library/Preferences/org.x.X11.plist') or created a '~/.gtkrc-2.0' file which is a default configuration file of all GTK+ application. Both of these files can be renamed or removed to reset any changes made therein.

the canvas size is now huge; the grid markers range from -9600 on the left, to 9600 on the right;

Here you need a GIMP expert - I don't have a clue ATM what happened here.

hth, ~suv

[DoctorLes]

Thanks, ~suv, especially for the prompt reply!

I think Inkscape works best with the XQuartz thing and GIMP works best with the native X11 Windows thing, but I may be wrong.

I know you aren't a GIMP expert, but just for the record:
I mislabeled my second GIMP problem; it's not the canvas size but the image window size that I meant. In other words, the gray background window that has the grid markings displayed on it. It's so HUGE I usually can't even find my opened or even a new file on it, unless I open a small one, with low resolution. And I can't scroll down far enough to find the sizing handle to shrink it up to a workable size. If I could do that now I have fixed the font thing.

Well, thanks again; I'm off to find a GIMP expert somewhere to help me with the second problem. I have a feeling it's "simple" once I read about it, but I've not found any way to adjust the image window size in preferences or otherwise.

[lisanet]

I think Inkscape works best with the XQuartz thing and GIMP works best with the native X11 Windows thing, but I may be wrong.

GIMP runs fine on Leopard's X11, on Snow Leopard's X11 and on Xquartz.

After some discussion in the developer forum I decided to link GIMP against a standard Leopard installation, so that every user can run GIMP without the need to search for any additional sofware (XQuartz) and without the need to keep this additional software up to date and running.

AFAIK, Inkscape needs XQuartz to run. This may leed to some trouble if Mac OS X is updated. XQuartz has to be installed again after each Software Update of Leopard. On SnowLeopard it's IMO just a bit more complicated. Currently there's no XQuartz running on SnowLeopard. That's the reason why Inkscape 0.46 doesn't run on SnowLeopard.

So if I would have linked GIMP against the latest XQuartz release, GIMP won't run on SnowLeopard. ... you see, there are some advantages to use the X11 version shipped with the OS.

And I can't scroll down far enough to find the sizing handle to shrink it up to a workable size. If I could do that now I have fixed the font thing.

... what about clicking on the maximize button (you know, the shiny, little green bubble in the upper left corner of the window ) and then resizing the window?

-skl

[DoctorLes]

OK, ya got me. I figured this out myself, finally.
Obviously, I'm new to Mac. But it took awhile to get it to work even with the magic green button. Below, is my last post to Gimp Talk:

"Well, after hassling with GIMP for several more hours I think I stumbled upon a fix--at least it's acting useable now.

I clicked the green, "+" on the window and it shrank the image window just enough that, after closing my mac menu bar and moving the window around as much as I could, and scrolling as far as I could I was barely able to reach the sizing handle. I shrank the image window to a realistic size. But when I tried to save it that way it reverted. I did this process a few more times, and then opened a small blank canvas before closing the app again. Then I shrank the whole thing down once more, this time to about 2X2 inches. I made a scribble and saved the file, just to test it; after re-opening it, it came back this time the right size. Since then, I've been able to make and save a few more images and modified some photos successfully."

Thanks Again!

Anyway, just in case this helps someone else . . .

[~suv]

AFAIK, Inkscape needs XQuartz to run.

No. Inkscape runs fine with the X11/XQuartz version installed from Apple (10.5.7 upgraded to X11/XQuartz 2.1.6 which is the same as XQuartz 2.3.2). I don't understand the distinction here between X11 and XQuartz - on current OS X system (10.5.8, 10.6) Apple's X11 is XQuartz, just with some added closed source stuff. But all development on XQuartz is driven by developers that work for Apple and all bug fixes and changes eventually land in Apple's X11 distribution. Only on Tiger there is a major difference because its X11 is ancient, Apple provides no updates and macosforge.org no binary installers - only the macPorts portfiles.

Currently there's no XQuartz running on SnowLeopard.

That's not how I understand it: X11/XQuartz on Snow Leopard is XQuartz 2.3.4, which was not released for 10.5.8, and the next available upgrade on Snow Leopard will be XQuartz 2.4.1 later this year. It is only XQuartz 2.4.0, an optional install for 10.5.8 Leopard, that will never be available for Snow Leopard. XQuartz 2.4.1 will be released for both 10.5.8 and 10.6.

there are some advantages to use the X11 version shipped with the OS. ;)

Yep - the GIMP way is not susceptible to such library version conflicts - be it with X11 libs or OS X libs (like '/usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib' which causes Inkscape to fail on SL - and not X11/XQuartz).

Sorry for the off-topic rant here, will move the discussion elsewhere ;-)

I figured this out myself, finally.

Glad to know ;-) BTW - there's a preference which sets the initial scale for an image (Image Windows > Inital zoom ratio), and another one you might have tinkered with - to set the ppi/dpi value independent of the monitor resolution (Display > Monitor resolution), you might consider to (re)set it to 'detect automatically'.

hth, ~suv

[DoctorLes]

As the title suggests, thanks once again. At least I learned a lot. So far, GIMP is holding steady with the combination of settings I have now. I'm so grateful to all the humanitarian folks who play a role in making GIMP available, and work, for the rest of us. For that matter, the whole Open Source thing is a ray of hope in a world otherwise dominated by capitalism at its worst.

Regards,

Les