A Quick Guide on How to Increase Font Size in Steam Chats

Lampen · Apr 25, 2011

A Quick Guide on How to Increase Font Size in Steam Chats

I'm sure a lot of you have thought at one point or another, "Good God why is the text size in Steam chat windows so ridiculously small!? I can only read if it I'm a few inches from the screen!" Well if you've got about 2 minutes to spare you can fix this problem once and for all.

First of all you need to locate your Steam folder. For most people you can find it through the following sequence:

My Computer -> C: Drive -> Program Files(32 bit) or Program(x86)(64 bit).-> Steam

Now that you've found the Steam folder we need to locate the configuration and settings file for Steam's chat functions, "steam.styles". You can find this file through this sequence:

Steam -> resource -> styles

Hopefully you should now be looking at two files: "gameoverlay.styles" and "steam.styles".

Double click on the "steam.styles". Windows will prompt you to select a program to open it so go ahead and select Notepad. Alright now you're probably looking at a massive amount of information which will confuse most users but don't worry the next step is really simple.

You need to use Notepad's search feature now(CTRL+F). When the search window appears type or copy the following(without the quotation marks) into it:

"styles for text used in RichText controls in various places"

Now click Find Next and if you've done this correctly you'll be toward the bottom of the file looking at this:
Quote:

// styles for text used in RichText controls in various places

console_text_error
{
textcolor="Highlight3"
font-size=20
selectedtextcolor="TextSelected"
selectedbgcolor="Focus"
}

console_text
{
font-family="Lucida Console"
font-size=20
textcolor="text"
selectedtextcolor="TextSelected"
selectedbgcolor="Focus"
}

friends_chat_text
{
textcolor="text"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
SelectedBgColor="focus"
font-size=20
}

friends_chat_text_self
{
textcolor="ChatOwnTextColor"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
font-size=20
}

friends_chat_event
{
textcolor="Text"
font-size=20
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
}

friends_chat_bright_event
{
textcolor="text"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
font-size=20
font-weight=1000
}

friends_chat_url
{
textcolor="text"
SelectedBgColor="focus"
font-style=underline
font-size=20
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
}

friends_chat_name_ingame
{
textcolor="Friends.InGameColor"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
font-size=20

}

friends_chat_self
{
textcolor="Friends.OnlineColor"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
font-size=20
}

friends_chat_name
{
textcolor="Friends.OnlineColor"
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
font-size=20
}

friends_chat_accountid
{
selectedtextcolor="TextentrySelected"
selectedbgcolor="focus"
textcolor="text"
font-size=20
}

friends_chat_securitylink
{
textcolor="text"
bgcolor="none"
font-family=basefont
font-size=20
font-weight=400
font-style=underline
selectedtextcolor="TextSelected"
selectedbgcolor="Focus"

You've now reached the portion of the file that controls the size of fonts in the chat UI. To increase or decrease this font size you need to change the numbers at the end of this sequence in each of the code paragraphs, xx being any number:

"font-size=xx"

To make this easier to find I have bolded and underlined every instance of it in the code I've linked.

I believe the default number is 12 which is rather small, especially if you're using a high resolution on your screen. Anyway at this point the size is up to you so just put in a 14, 16, 18, 20 or whatever where I indicated. Once you've done this with all the instances save the file and restart Steam. You should now be able to more easily read your chat boxes!

Hope this guide helped!

Also I wasn't sure if I should post this in PC games or other software so I just went with here. If it's wrong and the mods want to move it go ahead.

Citra · Apr 25, 2011

Well written!

LiLChris · Apr 25, 2011

Nobody cares.

Lampen · Apr 25, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by LiLChris;13260589
Nobody cares.

Hater.

Citra · Apr 25, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lampen;13260597
Hater.

He's just mad and jealous because he didn't think of it first.

[March] · Apr 26, 2011

Rep +

Quote:

Originally Posted by LiLChris;13260589
Nobody cares.

I care...

ChronoBodi · Apr 26, 2011

wow, need to do this, you have no idea how tiny they are on a 15 inch 1080p screen.

Lampen · Apr 28, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChronoBodi;13279044
wow, need to do this, you have no idea how tiny they are on a 15 inch 1080p screen.

Yep. I tend to lean back and work a pretty good distance away from my screens so this makes Steam chat incredibly easy to read.

Deeeebs · Apr 28, 2011

You could just do it the ghetto way and change your resolution...

Lampen · Apr 28, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deeeebs;13308466
You could just do it the ghetto way and change your resolution...

Slacker....

venomblade · Jun 18, 2011

JUST what i needed, thanks so much!

Blitz6804 · Jun 26, 2011

In my experience, the default font size appears to be 14.

I have changed all of the values you show to 18 (large enough), but I notice there are still some bugs.

-For example, if you post a link and then keep typing after it, the text after goes back to default.
-Also, the entry box is still default size
-Lastly, the friends' list is still default size

I tried changing EVERY font-size to 18, and that causes menus to break, so I decided to pick and choose through...

Go to:
..\\Steam\
esource\\layout

Open friendpanel.layout in notepad...

Change font-size under namestyle and nameInstanceStyle to increase the font size of the person's name
Change font-size under statusStyle to increase the font size of the person's status / game

..\\Steam\
esource\\styles

Open steam.styles in notepad...

Change font-size under TextEntry to increase the font size of the entry box in chat
Change font-size under ListPanel to stop it from changing font size after posting a link.

It should also be noted that every time steam updates, it will erase your changes.

To avoid this, make a new folder inside of Skins (named whatever you want), copy into it the ..\\Steam\\Graphics folder, and the ..\\Steam\
esources folder. Edit the files mentioned by Lampen and I in this new skin folder, then tell it to change skins.

It should never override you again!

For those curious, here is what mine looked like once I was done (I started with "Invert" by 2SeeKU, but you could do the changes with the standard theme too as I described above): Friends list, chat, and Steam window

N2Gaming · Jun 26, 2011

Good Job Lamp

Blitz6804 · Jun 30, 2011

If anyone wants it, here is the factory skin with the increased font sizes suggested by Lampen and I. All you need to do is extract the ZIP to a folder in ..\Steam\Skins, and then go to Settings>Interface and select as a Steam skin "LgFnt."

(I picked size 18... Lampen picked 20. Just edit the friendpanel.layout and steam.styles files from the skin. Ctrl+F "=18" and change them all to "=20")

N2Gaming · Jun 30, 2011

Thanks Blitz it works like a charm. Have a virtual cookie.

Mygaffer · Aug 13, 2012

This is so great, I have vision issues and this has helped so much.

Thanks!

therealsimpsons · May 31, 2023

Lampen said:
A Quick Guide on How to Increase Font Size in Steam Chats

I'm sure a lot of you have thought at one point or another, "Good God why is the text size in Steam chat windows so ridiculously small!? I can only read if it I'm a few inches from the screen!" Well if you've got about 2 minutes to spare you can fix this problem once and for all.

First of all you need to locate your Steam folder. For most people you can find it through the following sequence:

My Computer -> C: Drive -> Program Files(32 bit) or Program(x86)(64 bit).-> Steam

Now that you've found the Steam folder we need to locate the configuration and settings file for Steam's chat functions, "steam.styles". You can find this file through this sequence:

Steam -> resource -> styles

Hopefully you should now be looking at two files: "gameoverlay.styles" and "steam.styles".

Double click on the "steam.styles". Windows will prompt you to select a program to open it so go ahead and select Notepad. Alright now you're probably looking at a massive amount of information which will confuse most users but don't worry the next step is really simple.

You need to use Notepad's search feature now(CTRL+F). When the search window appears type or copy the following(without the quotation marks) into it:

"styles for text used in RichText controls in various places"

Now click Find Next and if you've done this correctly you'll be toward the bottom of the file looking at this:
Quote:

You've now reached the portion of the file that controls the size of fonts in the chat UI. To increase or decrease this font size you need to change the numbers at the end of this sequence in each of the code paragraphs, xx being any number:

"font-size=xx"

To make this easier to find I have bolded and underlined every instance of it in the code I've linked.

I believe the default number is 12 which is rather small, especially if you're using a high resolution on your screen. Anyway at this point the size is up to you so just put in a 14, 16, 18, 20 or whatever where I indicated. Once you've done this with all the instances save the file and restart Steam. You should now be able to more easily read your chat boxes!

Hope this guide helped!

Also I wasn't sure if I should post this in PC games or other software so I just went with here. If it's wrong and the mods want to move it go ahead.

therealsimpsons · May 31, 2023

I followed these instructions, and it doesn't save. When I re-start Steam, the fonts are the same as the ones I changed. I assume I was correct to save the Notepad file.

A Quick Guide on How to Increase Font Size in Steam Chats

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