How to increase font size in the Xcode editor?

Solution 1:

For Xcode 4.1

Still a huge pain. Poor UI design (But my mindset does not seem to match the mindset of software engineers that make 100+ character variable and method names. Enough of my complaining)

I'll modify a previous post for the current version.

1. Close any projects you have open in Xcode (Otherwise the Font window will be inaccessible while a project is open.)
2. Go to XCode > Preferences > Fonts & Color
3. From the 'Theme' box select the theme you want to modify (or select the theme you want to modify and click the "+" button at the bottom of the theme list to clone it first for backup, for there is no undo option)

4. In the source editor box there is a list of types of text that you may set the font for: Plain text Comments Documentation Comments . . .

5. Select any or all items from the source editor list and the name and size of the font for that particular text will show up in the 'Font' window below the 'Source Editor' window. (If you happen to skip highlighting one of these, you will be able to get to the Font Inspector and select new sizes, but will wonder why the changes you make are not being applied!)

6. In the 'Font' window, click the small, almost hidden, and surely poorly design 'T' icon to the right of the font name and size.
7. Voila! In only 14 keystrokes you are able to get the Font inspector window!
8. Your existing font will be preselected in the font inspector. Whatever changes you make now will be applied to the text types you selected in the 'Source Editor' window. e.g. All Fonts > Menlo > Regular > 14
9. Close the windows you opened on this hunt for the holy grail.

Congratulations. Your may now read your code. Wasn't that painless?

Solution 2:

Easisest solution:

1. Close any open projects.

2. Xcode > Preferences > Font & Colors

3. Make sure to press CMD+A to select all possible text types. Then change the font size from the picker.

Solution 3:

Update! - Behold Xcode 9 to the rescue! Now you can use cmd + to increase the fonts with Xcode 9. It took 5 Major releases for you to get it, Apple! But better late than never.

figured it out - however it was not very intuitive.

First some Pain Points

1. When You try to change the font size directly using edit -> format -> font, nothing happens! - Not a good UX ... moreover why play dumb when you can tell user that they are using default or "System-owned" theme and they cannot change it? - Bad Design and more bad UX ... Why keep this option (Cmd t) alive, which by the way is most standard way to increase font size across most well behaved mac apps, if you do not want user to change the font this way?

2. In Xcode preferences, when you try to change the font size by clicking on "fonts and colors", thats when XCode gives a pop-up saying what needs to be done. Also making a duplicate and then changing the fonts and colors is a lot of work rather than giving a button that says "Restore to Defaults" if Apple is so worried about the user messing up the default settings!

The solution is that - you need to duplicate the theme and then modify the copy you just made and apply that copy - phew!