How to make Wikipedia text bigger when you read it

Press Ctrl+plus. In Wonder by Zaweba's reading view, Ctrl+plus makes Wikipedia's text bigger, Ctrl+minus makes it smaller and Ctrl+0 puts it back to the normal size. Kid mode is another route: it makes text 25 percent bigger, though it also changes a few other things, as explained below.

Wonder is a free offline encyclopedia. You download an edition of Wikipedia once from the Kiwix project and read it on your own PC with no internet, in a clean reading view with Zaweba's own typography.

Changing the size step by step

Open any article. Press Ctrl and the plus key together, and the text grows. Press it again for more. If you go too far, Ctrl and minus brings it down a step. Ctrl and 0 returns to the starting size, which is handy if several people use the same PC and someone left it very large.

Try a size that lets you read a full paragraph comfortably at your usual distance from the screen. Too big and you'll be scrolling constantly; too small and your eyes tire quickly. Most people settle somewhere in between after a minute or two.

When Kid mode is the better choice

Kid mode, in the View menu, makes text 25 percent bigger in one go. It is designed for children, so it does more than change the size. It switches to Simple English Wikipedia if that edition is downloaded, and it hides search suggestions and surprise articles containing a list of adult words. Wonder tells parents plainly, in a dialog, on Home and in Help, that it is not a guaranteed content filter.

So turn on Kid mode for a child, where all of that helps. For an adult who simply wants bigger text in the full encyclopedia, Ctrl+plus is the right tool.

Making the page easier on the eyes

Size is only part of comfortable reading. The reading view offers light, dark and sepia themes, or it can match the app. Sepia's warm background suits long reads for many people, and dark is gentler in a dim room. Combine a larger text size with the theme you find calmest and long articles become much less tiring.

Pictures can be enlarged too. Click a picture in an article to see it bigger, and press Esc or click again to close it. That is useful for maps, diagrams and old photographs where the detail is the whole point.

Why an offline reader helps here

The reading view shows Wikipedia's own content with nothing else around it. The page can reach nothing but the local edition, so it looks and behaves the same whether you are online or not. Bigger text doesn't fight with menus, banners or sidebars, because they aren't there.

It also means the size you choose works on every article in the edition, from a short stub to a long history. If an article feels heavy, Wonder's other ways in may help: the Five a day picks, On this day and the subject shelves all lead to articles you can read at whatever size suits you.

A few habits that help

If more than one person reads on the same computer, agree on Ctrl+0 as the polite way to leave it. Make a habit of adjusting the size at the start of a session rather than squinting through the first article.

For a child just learning to read on screen, Kid mode plus the Simple English edition is a good pairing, with a grown-up nearby. Download Simple English from File, then Library, where each edition's size is shown before you start.

Two keys are all it takes. Wonder by Zaweba keeps the reading view clean so that bigger text simply means easier reading.