Talk:Editing/Projects/Font size in the editing window

I now have a massive discrepancy (20% size change) between font size normally displayed on a page and font size in the edit window.

To clarify: I edit on both PC (Windows) and Mac (OSX), and this issue affects both. The two systems are on different networks. I use Firefox nearly all the time, but find the problem exists in Safari as well. I have access to large screen monitors, and have set my font to display for preferred readability, but as of about a week ago I now get a severely reduced font size when I open an edit window. It is so small that I cannot read it without enlarging the font size two steps in my browser, and so I estimate the edit window is displaying about 75-85% of the size in regular display.

This issue affects all MW projects. It is not skin-specific, as I have tried several skins now.

The issue appears in serif fonts, but not in monospaced fonts. For Wikipedia editing and Commons editing, monospace edit font is a workable solution, but for Wikisource it is not. Why? First, on Wikisource proofreading is side-by-side comparing contents of the edit window against a source text, which is almost always in a serif font. Having the contents of the edit window in a similar font to the comparison text makes the job many times easier. Secondly, I work primarily with bilingual texts where the second language (Greek) is not written in the Latin script. Polytonic Greek script is virtually unreadable in a monospaced font. So I need to use a Serif font for that reason as well.

And while I have managed for a few days by repeatedly scaling the browser font size up and down every time I go in or out of edit, preview a text, etc., I find that this is definitely NOT a long-term solution.

If this issue cannot be resolved I will have to give up editing on Wikisource. I am getting older, and my vision cannot cope with the tiny script. Toggling the font size in the browser is cumbersome and has caused me to lose significant work more than once because of the differences between my PC and Mac keyboard commands and the difference in scrolling directions. I have ended up leaving pages instead of adjusting the font size.

It baffles me that after all this time there is no "Preference" allowing a user to adjust their font-size in the edit window.

Sorry for the late response!

If you want to match the size of 'serif' and 'sans-serif' font to the main content font size, you can use the following code added to your global.css (adapted from the "Choose your own font size" section):

.mw-editfont-sans-serif,
.mw-editfont-serif {
	font-size: inherit !important;
}

Please note the caveat that this may not work well with wikitext syntax highlighting due to fractional font sizes, depending on your skin (for example, MonoBook uses approximately 12.7px font; Vector uses 14px though so it should be fine).

This might actually be a better default for all users… (for non-monospace fonts). I'll file a task to consider this.

Just one anecdotal data point, but I am using Firefox for Mac OS, and on en.WP, the text got noticeably larger for me, even though this page said that I would see no change. Adding the recommended 13px setting to my css did not fix it. I had to adjust the text down to 98% to see a difference. FWIW.

Why is any font size in MediaWiki set in pixels? Fonts are probably the thing about page rendering that differs the most across different users (and sometimes for good reason, like accessibility). Shouldn't relative sizes (em, %) be used everywhere? (If fractional sizes are a problem, just use 100% and let users set the absolute sizes in their browsers — hardly anyone intentionally sets font sizes in fractions of a px.)