Solved own problem. Apparently CS2 starts with different screen font size than CS so it is necessary, depending on screen pixel setting to go to a much higher menu font size to effect a change. It was necessary for me to go to a 14 pt bold menu font before it effected any screen font change on CS 2. I had never had to do that large a font for any other program’s menu.
This doesn’t really fix it, does it? It makes all other application menus unusable for me.
Anybody know any solution other than letting PS CS2 dictate how all one’s application menus look? My menu fonts were already set exactly the way a wanted them, but now I can’t see the Photoshop menus unless I blow out every other app. Even assuming I could live with that, which I can’t, the skinny PS font (PS ignores my font face) makes everything very difficult to see.
Thanks for any help.
Interesting about XP. I have it on my laptop but CS2 hasn’t made it there yet.
I poked CS2 a little harder (on W2K) and discovered what it was doing was using the typeface I had specified (Arial), and even the size (12 pt) but not the weight (bold) in the menu entries (though it does use bold in the menu bar itself). In fact, as I discovered later, it appears to make the menu entries especially light weight, little spidery things just dense enough to tell something’s there. I think.
Upping it to 14 pt made it readable, and waddaya know, I could even read the grayed out stuff, at the cost of a humongous, objectionable menu bar in every application. Yech-o, not to mention the real estate gone bye-bye.
Gee, thanks, Adobe. I specified bold for the menu font in Windows settings ’cause I wanted the font in my menus to be, um, well, bold. So I can see ’em. Ambitious of me, I know …
I did manage to end-run it by changing the font to Arial Black (normal weight, not bold, 12 pt). This makes the menu titles only slightly wider than I want and the menu entries actually visible. Readable even. The entries are lightened up considerably over the normal Arial Black, but legible at least.
So I’m mollified, but not really satisfied. There was no reason to have to do this. I was perfectly satisfied with the menus the way they were …
Oh, well, an almost-readable UI font size in the palettes, etc, is a big improvement. I’ll take the UI improvement as a trade-off compromise, but I don’t see why a compromise should be necessary.
For that matter, in the UI it would be better just to give us a face, size, and weight selection for the UI font. I find it MUCH more readable to have a small bold font than a big light-weight one, and it saves that precious real estate. For PICTURES, Adobe, PICTURES.
