Small font all 'new' messages suddenly in Gmail on Ubuntu in Opera, why?

This seemed to happen out of the blue. I have been using Opera for years.

I can't find anywhere in Gmail to change the default font that is used in Opera.

Ubuntu is Version 11
Opera is version 11.6

In Firefox the font is normal size.

I have tried playing around with both all the browser setting I can find plus Ubuntu system settings (I had seen some mentions of Opera using the system default font sometimes) but no success so far.

Really bumming as I have been using Opera for two years and if I can't resolve it I will not be able to use it.

I can switch to Firefox but I don't want to.

Solution 1:

It looks like it's a bug in Opera 11.6+: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1157352&t=1323469056&page=1#comment10836852

I'm zooming the web page when writing emails now (and zooming out when done). Works quite nice (and you get the editor ~fullscreen :)

[Note from michael: Accepted this as it "answers" the question, but also see workaround below!]

Solution 2:

This comment provides a style-sheet fix:

1. Create a file containing this: .LW-avf {font-size: small !important;}

2. Save this file as gmail.user.css into the Opera folder /usr/share/opera/styles/

3. Log in to your Gmail account. RIGHT click on any empty space and select "Edit Site Preferences". Select the "Display" tab. Go to "My style sheet" textbox and browse for the gmail.user.css file.

Then reload the page.

Solution 3:

According to this Gmail support discussion the cause of this problem is that Opera used to have the font too large in gmail, for which Google created an Opera-specific fix.

In 11.60, Opera fixed their bug, but Google has yet to remove their fix, so that the now too small text returns back to its normal size.