After downloading the extension, you’ll get a Thank You page and an illustration of how to find the Font Changer icon in your browser’s menu bar. This will be located on the top right corner of the screen. Click on it to start customizing text for either all websites, or a specific one.
The first drop down lets you select Global, Custom or No Settings. Global Settings applies the changes to all websites, regardless of the site that you currently have open. Custom Settings, however, will only apply the change to the specific site that is open on the same window. To clear or disable the extension without removing it, you can select No Settings.
The second drop down would be for choosing the font face. You’ll need to check the box before making a choice. All fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, so if you know the name of a specific font, you can type it in the search bar that appears when clicking inside the drop down.
A small question mark icon points to the link of Google’s web fonts where you get to preview all fonts in a specified size and type.
The next two drop downs changes the font style (normal, italic or oblique) and font weight (normal, bold, bolder, light, lighter). Again, you’ll need to check the box first before making any selection.
Lastly, you can set a font size value. By default the font size will be set to the website’s values, but you can change this by putting in a number for increasing or decreasing font size. This is great if you find a website’s fonts too small to read, like Facebook.
All changes made immediately reflect on the website, and when you’re happy with your changes, you can click on Done. Font changes are seen in all parts of a website, including ads, chat boxes, text fields and buttons.
Font Changer is a great way to play with a website’s typography, making it just the way you want to view it. However, there are some features I find it lacks, including the ability to choose more than one type of font for different text elements in a page just for contrast. Changing to simple fonts look fine, but using decorative fonts is sometimes a bit too overwhelming. Overall, the extension works well without having to do anything other than select choices from a drop down box. It’s free to use and makes plain, unattractive websites look better and more interesting.
