Despite Apple’s leading efforts in accessibility technology, I have always found iTunes extremely hard to use. Apple’s major focus has been on VoiceOver and screen reader software compatibility. There are many visually impaired computer users out there (and right here) who have not made the switch to a non-visual interface, preferring to rely on large font sizes, high contrast color schemes and zooming. iTunes is just as beautiful as all of Apple’s software. It has a lovely color scheme and its layout is aesthetically pleasing. The program is very resistant to large fonts and alternate color schemes. Until today, I have had to rely on zooming, squinting and my low vision aids to navigate my songs and playlists. Now, I have found a hack to fix the problem.

Buried in a comment on a earlier post, I found a link to Teridon’s Resource file hacks for iTunes for Windows. This unhappily named site offers a free bit of software, the iTunes Font Size Editor, that does one and only one thing. It allows you to customize the font size of the song list in iTunes.

Teridon puts it this way: “iTunes gives you two font sizes: “small” (which is 8pt) and “large” (which is 10pt). The last time I checked, 10 pt is not “large”! You have no option to specify your own font size. After helping various people on the Apple Discussions Forums edit the required files by hand, I decided to automate the process. This program allows you to change the iTunes font sizes for the song and source list. Sorry, it only works on Windows.”

Here is what iTunes looks like with the larger font.

iTunes with a large font

You can join the related Google Group, Teridon’s iTunes Programs Updates, to receive news about the editor.

Thank you , Teridon, whoever you are.

P.S. I had some trouble getting this to work on Windows Vista Home. I had to use the trick from the following site: Disable User Account Control (UAC) the Easy Way on Win 7 or Vista.

Tags: accessibility, accessible, apple, color scheme, computer, font, font sizes, fonts, hack, high contrast, itunes, low vision, screen reader, size, software, visually impaired, voiceover, windows, zoom

This entry was posted on February 3, 2010 at 4:31 pm and is filed under large print. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.