I am using a Mac with 4K display. I’ve managed to manually change the size of the icons so I can actually see them. But the system and menu fonts are ridiculously small. The “Assign Footprint” tool requires me to get my face next to the screen (Ok, fine, I’m getting old)
Is there a way (even by manual change of config files) to increase the system font used for list and menus? I’ve been searching the forums and only found reference to Layout or Silkscreen fonts, not the actual program.
Thanks
It might be helpful if you indicate your KiCad version. See help>about>copy version info.
Unfortunately I am in no position to answer your question. But I wonder whether users of Windows and other OS’s encounter similar with 4K displays? I am on Win10 and my better monitor is 1920 x 1080.so I do not see what you see.
I have been engineering since 1975 and despite working for many employers I have never worked for a company that used Apple. Always Windows (or DOS before that.)
It should be the latest version, as I just installed it:
Application:
Version: (5.1.10-1-10_14), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.77.0 SecureTransport (LibreSSL/2.8.3) zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.42.0
Platform: macOS Version 10.16 (Build 21A559), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.75.0
OpenCASCADE Technology: 7.5.1
Curl: 7.54.0
Compiler: Clang 10.0.1 with C++ ABI 1002
Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=OFF
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
== Let’s digress! ==
As for Mac usage … I am self employed, so my company/boss will use whatever I tell them 
I am actually an expert on Windows usage, and in fact Microsoft detected that I can recover from any problem, so they put me on the “first to receive updates” list - without me knowing. I had a horrible run of BSOD after updates. I kid you not - was talking to their tech support people and that explains it.
The overall experience with Macs is so much smoother and my machine is ridiculously quiter than my jet fan noise PC. Both computers are actually terminals to my real work … Linux Servers that are not anywhere near me.
I am building a device and putting my (long forgotten) electrical engineering to use. The learning curve of CAD software (KiCad and physical) has been exhausting, exciting and frustrating.
== End of digression ==
I know my way around most systems and I’m not afraid to tweak settings. So looking for a way to increase the syste, font size, like I found for the icons.
Thanks. I do not know what is BSOD…Never mind…I googled it…
WRT KiCad version, the biggest question was whether you were using a 5.99 version as I and many others do.
I am strictly a hardware analog/power designer. My KiCad expertise extends only to knowing the part of it that I commonly use. But I try to help out on the forum where I can…may be more often than one would expect.
BTW given your knowledge; I would think that you might also enjoy the advantages of 5.99. I am not particularly software-savvy and I have no real problems with it. Per my memory, the last 5.1x version I used did not highlight selected areas of a schematic for example. This is one of the simple advantages of 5.99. You might possibly find that your problem goes away with 5.99.
The biggest single issue of which I am aware is that there may be no practical migration path back to 5.1X once you are using 5.99. But I do not know why you would need to do that.
Blue Screen Of Death
A reference to windoze catastrophic failure.
As for font sizing in menus etc., that’s normally a task for the operating system (Win, Mac, Linux), not the application.
On KiCAD versions: I use 5.1.10 myself. 5.99 is far too unstable for my life.
Support for font scaling and high-DPI displays is partially the job of the application. 5.99 has improved support over 5.1, especially on Windows and macOS, because on those platforms we use a newer version of wxWidgets (our UI library which is responsible for most of the font scaling issues)
I fully agree. Almost all my software have a way to adjust their internal display fonts now.
Is 5.99 considered stable enough to be run as a daily driver? I’ve read a few bug reports that give me pause. But then again, I’m not running anything critical … yet.
What are your thoughts?
To clarify: I don’t mean that it is the job of the application to provide you with settings for customizing fonts – I think that is not that normal. It is the job of the application to respond to changes to your system settings, which KiCad 5.99 does better than 5.1.
Opinions will vary, but at this point I think 5.99 is generally more stable than 5.1.x. (There are a lot of bug fixes in 5.99.)
The main difference is that the 5.1.x bugs are what they are, while the 5.99 bugs might be changing day to day.
Not known by many Mac users (because they’re hidden without taking some Action)…
Poster mentioned ‘manually changing the Icons…’
FYI - Can do these tweaks (to get the Action):
• Cursor to a spot on the Desktop, Right-Click, Show-View-Options: adjust Icon Size and it’s Text Size.
• With a Finder Window open, and the ToolBar set to show the “Action” button, click it, Show-View-Options, set your desired Text Size
Generally we tell people to stick with the latest release, especially when starting. Kinda keeps us all on the same page. At one point in the 5.1.X timeline there were so many bug fixes to the candidate release that seemed to affect a good many users that kinda went out the window for a time. Are you suggesting we might be close to that again?
Well, I have a higher bug tolerance than most so it’s sort of hard to know, but yeah, I think we’re there even for others…
I am also very tolerant and live on the “Bleeding Edge”. The trick is not to panic and have backups.
I will try the 5.99
< bad joke >If I add my 2c, will we get to 6.01?</bad joke>
Find another 50 people. 
I tried 5.99 … By default it’s worst in scaling. I had a setting called IconScale before that allowed me to increase the size of the icons. That’s just gone. Can’t find anywhere/any documentation to handle sizes and HiDpi.
If you know things, please share
Bugs don’t have to wait for a ‘roll up’ in 5.99. 
For those interested:
The Windows & Mac Versions are NOT the same. They have different features and Mac seems to lag a lot of UI stuff.
I installed both 5.1 and 5.99 On Both machines and I looked at the config files.
IconScale (icon_scale in 5.99) has a UI in Windows and works.
In the Mac version, it is currently (Nov 2021) not fully functionning.
Graphics acceleration is a disaster in 5.1 on Mac!!!
5.99 Crashes Often (as it’s exepected on Alpha and Beta code).
Bottom Line; Mac help on really small fonts and icons is nowhere in sight.
Has Anybody tried these on an Ubuntu VM? I have access to remote hosted VMs and can do a XWindows. Don’t want to waste time if no help / need.
Thanks
This is not the experience of most people, I think. 5.99 is not considered alpha at this point, it is almost ready for release. Please report these crashes.