Emacs: Changing the font size on the fly

Posted on September 15th, 2006 by Sacha Chua

I have a tiny laptop: 8.9″ diagonally. With a 1024×768 pixels screen
resolution, things can get *pretty* small. The following functions use
the gnome-terminal-style shortcuts (Ctrl-plus, Ctrl-minus) to change
the font size without the mouse:

(defun sacha/increase-font-size ()
  (interactive)
  (set-face-attribute 'default
                      nil
                      :height
                      (ceiling (* 1.10
                                  (face-attribute 'default :height)))))
(defun sacha/decrease-font-size ()
  (interactive)
  (set-face-attribute 'default
                      nil
                      :height
                      (floor (* 0.9
                                  (face-attribute 'default :height)))))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-+") 'sacha/increase-font-size)
(global-set-key (kbd "C--") 'sacha/decrease-font-size)

On Technorati: emacs, pimpmyemacs

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Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/3859

13 Responses to “Emacs: Changing the font size on the fly”

Eric Kofoid // Nov 26, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Sacha –

Thanks very much for this tip. It works perfectly and does exactly what I needed!

Cheers,

Eric.
schuerm // Jan 27, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Great,

exactly what I needed!

Thanks for sharing.
Dean // Apr 8, 2009 at 2:35 pm

Decrease works, but increase does not – whether I call from keybinding or invoke directly. Emacs 23 on Ubuntu 8.10
Han // Apr 22, 2009 at 2:35 pm

works perfectly, this is so neat.
works on emacs 23 on Ubuntu 8.10
Dean, I think u need to hold down the shift key for +, because + is a cap
Cómo cambiar al vuelo el tamaño del texto en Emacs | lobo_tuerto // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:32 am

[...] Emacs: Changing the font size on the fly [...]
Bernardo M. Rocha // Jul 30, 2009 at 5:13 pm

Excellent! Worked out of the box!
le // Aug 2, 2009 at 9:40 am

thanks, works great!
Yangqing // Aug 7, 2009 at 11:19 am

Works perfectly!!! Thanks!
lexsphere // Aug 7, 2009 at 11:47 am

great, works perfect, exactly what I needed
jhapk // Nov 4, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Hi,
it works for me, but it takes emacs hangs for around 5-6 seconds before it changes the font.
Does anyone know why?
I am running emacs 21.4.1 on fedora
Thanks
jhapk // Nov 4, 2009 at 5:50 pm

Hi,
I figured it out. The delay can be stopped by adding the following line to .emacs file
(modify-frame-parameters nil ‘((wait-for-wm . nil)))
thanks again.
Alex // Aug 6, 2010 at 8:30 am

Did not work for me. I copied the code in my .emacs file. Did I do anything wrong? Any suggestion?

I have to say that I rather new to linux.

/Alex
Alex // Aug 6, 2010 at 8:49 am

Correction:
It works now but not with the plus and minus that are located in the right most part of the keyboard (next to numbers). Those were the one I was initially trying with.

There is also one small issue. When I use ctrl-plus, the font size increases step by step (total 3 steps). However, when I use ctrl-minus, it shrinks the font to the smallest possible directly. A minor issue but just thougth to share it.

/Alex

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Emacs: Changing the font size on the fly

13 Responses to “Emacs: Changing the font size on the fly”

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