Customizing interface fonts in Outlook Express

I'm trying to tweak the look of my Outlook Express a bit, and this is really frustrating me. How exactly does one go about changing the font used to display the message list and address book?

Here's a screenshot for you:

http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jgt8/beast2.jpg

As you can see, I've changed my the font for my desktop icons, and this has apparently also changed the font that OE uses in the mailbox/folder listings. But then the address book and the message list seems to use a different font, which with the current face/point size looks absolutely hideous, and almost unreadable. I'd like to tweak this a bit, but I can't for the life of me figure out where this font is being set.

It's not in the OE's preferences, in which you can only set the font used in viewing and reading messages. Since my mailbox listing is defaulting to my desktop icon font, I figure the rest of it is defaulting to some other font set in control panel -> display -> appearances. My efforts to find this font have thus far been completely in vain, though.

I realize this might be an odd question, but I would appreciate any help I could get with this, as right now it's seeming awfully unintuitive. The price one pays for being so anal about minor aesthetic details, I suppose.

Thanks in advance

 

guiro boy,

If you are running anything above Windows 98SE, then I probably can't help you.

However, in 98, you right click on the desktop & choose properties. Then the Appearance tab. Click on any part of the stuff you want to change, like active message window & etc, & there should be color settings, text settings & everything down below. "Again," this is for "Windows 98." If you're running 2000, or XP, you may not have these settings in the same place.

 

Deloris,

Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply. And I apologize, I should have been more clear -- as you may have gathered from the screenshot, I'm running XP.

And I've been messing around with those settings in Display Properties -> Appearance that you mentioned. Like I said in my first post, it seems that, for example, the font used in the listing of mailboxes is determined by the "Icon" font. I've tried changing every font here, though, and the font used in the other two windows (contact list and message headers) just won't change.

It would be nice if there were somewhere (either in Display Properties -> Appearance, or better yet right in OE's preferences) that you could actually set OE's fonts, and that they would be labeled as such. I guess I just like having some control over the way my applications look. It's frustrating to change my fonts from the Windows defaults to get my desktop, window title bars, file listings and the like to look the way I want -- only to find out that a separate application like OE now looks terrible, despite there being no indication that what I changed would have any effect on it.

At this rate, I'm probably going to end up just restoring all of my Appearance settings to the Windows defaults, HOPING that restores the fonts in Outlook Express, and then going back and changing back to my settings one by one, and seeing what effect each change has on OE.

Oh well... Thanks for the help anyway, though.

 

I can understand your frustration. I too am rather anal about the way my stuff looks on here. I want all the control I can get, and it seems that Microsoft mucked up a lot of stuff in XP from what I gather from what I read about it. That & several other things is why I will stick with 98 as long as I possibly can.

Yes from what I could see, it looked like XP on your screenshot, but I thougt just maybe you could manipulate it.

Good Luck in your endeavors to aquire something suitable to you.

Maybe someone running XP will kick in some info for you.

 

Well, I've figured it out... and the answer is not at all to my liking.

Apparently, it's using the point size of my "Icon" font (in Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance) but not the font face. So essentially, as long as I want to use Silkscreen 6 pt. for my "Icon" font (which actually is used for a whole bunch of things -- folder/file listings, the URL bar in IE, etc. -- all of which the font looks GREAT in) I'm going to be stuck with a 6 pt. font in my OE address book and message list, without the ability to change the font face to something that would actually look decent at a small point size.

Why does this not make any sense?

Maybe it's using the point size of the Icon font and the face of an entirely different font -- that's being set in an entirely different place. Even though that would make even LESS sense than this does already, it's about all I can hope for now. Grr!

Oh well, you can't have it all, I suppose.

Bleh, this wouldn't even be a problem if I could find another decent mail client. Not that I even really LIKE Outlook Express -- but it has the basic features I need and integrated Asian language support, which is a big plus for me, and something I can't find in any other mail client. *sigh*

 

guiro boy,

Because from what I have read, XP doesn't make any sense.

Not with Microsoft!

Sorry about that, jt, I couldn't resist the jab at MS.

Come on XP people's. Help this fella out, if ya can.