Chapter 4
Personalizing Windows 11
Like every previous version of Windows, Windows 11 offers you innumerable options for personalizing your workspace. These are the choices that make your computing device feel like it’s truly your own, embodying your own design preferences as well as choices that make your interaction with Windows work for you. Most of these customizations have only an incidental effect on your productivity. But creating an aesthetically pleasing workspace makes you more comfortable with your PC, and when you’re more comfortable, you’re more productive.
With that goal in mind, we introduce the extensive lineup of personalization features in Microsoft Windows 11. Most of the features we discuss in this chapter will be familiar from earlier Windows versions, but there are enough changes in the way these features are implemented that we recommend reviewing this chapter to see what’s new. In particular, it’s worth noting that almost all personalization options have now moved into the modern Settings app; only a few legacy options, such as the option to customize system sounds, remain in the old-style Control Panel.
If you use multiple Windows PCs and sign in using the same Microsoft account or Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) account, you can choose to have your customizations apply to all such devices. To control this feature, go to Settings > Accounts > Windows Backup and expand the Remember My Preferences section.
Check the Passwords and Language Preferences boxes to control whether those preferences are synced between devices. Settings that are synchronized when the Other Windows Settings option is selected include themes, accessibility options, and notification preferences. Note that settings are synced on a per-user basis. Settings that apply to all users at your computer, such as screen resolution, are not included in the current theme or other synchronized settings. Settings associated with a local user account are not synchronized with other computers.
Browser settings are not synced with your Windows account. To configure synchronization in Microsoft Edge, open the Edge Settings page and choose Profiles > Sync. (We cover the Sync features in Microsoft Edge in more detail in Chapter 7, “Using Microsoft Edge.”)
Customizing the look and feel of Windows
The most obvious way to personalize your Windows experience is to modify its visual appearance—the desktop background, lock screen picture, accent colors, and so on. These options are neatly arranged under the Personalization heading in Settings.
Selecting the desktop background
You can perk up any desktop with a background image. Your background can be supplied by a graphics file in any of several common formats: BMP, GIF (static only, not animated), JPEG, PNG, and TIFF. If you can’t settle on a single image, set up a slideshow of images from your own collection of saved photos or from Microsoft’s curated Windows Spotlight collection. And if you find pictures too distracting, just pick a background color. (That last option might prove especially useful if you like to populate your desktop with files, folders, and app shortcuts; those icons are easier to recognize without the distraction of a background image.)
To get started, go to Settings > Personalization > Background. The default choice on the Personalize Your Background dropdown is Picture, which displays the options shown in Figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1 Use the options shown here to choose a single image and use it as your desktop background.
Here’s what you can do with each of the options on the Personalize Your Background menu:
Picture displays a single image of your choice, scaled to fit the resolution of your display. Windows 11 includes a default selection of images, and PC makers often include additional selections. Click Browse Photos to choose one of your own pictures.
Solid Color covers the background with a color you select from a palette of two dozen shades. You can also create a custom color, and that color then becomes the twenty-fifth item in your palette. Click the View Colors button to the right of the Custom Colors label, and then click or tap in the color picker that appears to specify the color you want, as shown in Figure 4-2.
Figure 4-2 Use the color picker tool to create your own custom color if none of the 24 standard colors seems quite right.
Choose a color from the square at the top; then use the slider below to adjust its intensity from dark (left) to light (right). The vertical bar on the right shows the result of your current selection at the top and the current custom color (if any) below it.
Slideshow is like the Picture option, but with a twist: At an interval you select (at one of six preconfigured intervals ranging from 1 minute to 1 day), Windows changes the desktop background to a new picture from the folder you select. Unless you specify otherwise, Windows uses the Pictures folder in the current user profile as its source. For best results, we recommend that you select a group of properly sized images, copy them to their own folder, and then click Browse to replace the default choice with your custom folder. Note that on a multimonitor setup, this option uses a different image on each display.
Two additional options allow you to shuffle the picture order and to let the slideshow run even if your PC is on battery power. Both of these options are off by default.
Windows Spotlight displays a new image on the lock screen each day. Windows downloads the images from an online collection curated by Bing. There are no additional configuration options available in Settings, although administrators can manage the behavior of Windows Spotlight using Group Policy or mobile device management software.
After you choose an image or set up a slideshow, select one of the six options on the Choose A Fit For Your Desktop Image menu to let Windows know how you want to handle images that are not exactly the same size as your screen resolution:
Fill stretches or shrinks the image so that it occupies the full screen, cropping the image in one or both dimensions so that no blank space remains on the sides or the top and bottom.
Fit reduces or enlarges the image to exactly the width or height of the display without changing its aspect ratio or cropping the image; this option might result in letterbox bars (using the current background color) on either side or above and below the image.
Stretch reduces or enlarges the image so that it fits both dimensions, distorting the image if necessary. If there’s a significant mismatch between the aspect ratios of the image and the display, the effect can be unpleasant.
Tile repeats the image at its original size to fill all monitors. This option is most effective for abstract backgrounds or for simple, small images (such as a corporate logo) where the repeated design looks like a pattern.
Center displays the image at its original size in the center of the screen, without stretching. If the image is smaller than the display resolution, this can leave blank space on the sides or at the top and bottom; if the image is larger than the display, some parts of the image might be cropped away to fit.
Span works like Fill to display a single image across multiple monitors. On a single-monitor PC, choosing this option has the same effect as choosing Fill.
Here are some other ways to change the desktop background:
Right-click an image file in File Explorer and choose Set As Desktop Background.
Open any image file in Paint, open the File menu, and choose Set As Desktop Background. A submenu lets you position the picture using Fill, Tile, or Center options.
Use the Photos app to open an image file, and then right-click and choose Set As > Background.
If a slideshow is running, right-click any empty space on the desktop and choose Next Desktop Background to skip to the next image in the collection.
Selecting colors
As we noted in the previous section, you can choose to assign a solid color to the desktop background. To adjust colors everywhere else in Windows, go to Settings > Personalization > Colors. Here, you can choose between dark mode and light mode, with separate settings for apps and for Windows itself. You can also assign an accent color and specify where you want that accent color to be used. Finally, you can decide whether you want to apply transparency effects to various surfaces in the Windows user experience.
The Choose Your Mode option allows you to choose between Light and Dark modes for Windows and for apps (the latter option applies to all the default Windows apps, including Settings). Choose the Custom mode, as shown in Figure 4-4, if you want to apply one mode to Windows and a different mode to apps.
Figure 4-4 Dark mode is easier on the eyes in dimly lit environments. Light mode offers a more traditional view of the Windows interface.
Dark mode options are useful for conserving battery life on portable devices, but another important benefit is to prevent eyestrain, especially in dim or dark environments. By changing the selection in the dropdown from Custom to either Light or Dark, you can apply those mode choices to both Windows elements and apps. Setting the Transparency Effects switch to On allows display elements behind the foreground window to bleed through faintly.
The next set of options on the Personalization > Colors page allows you to select a complementary accent color and specify where and how to use it. In Windows 11, you’re allowed to choose one and only one accent color from a palette of 48 solid colors (or one and only one additional color of your own making if you click View Colors), as shown in Figure 4-5.
Figure 4-5 The Manual option on the Accent Color menu allows you to pick an accent color of your own; choose Automatic if you want Windows to pick an accent color to match your background.
Changing the Accent Color menu option from Manual to Automatic is useful if you’ve configured a slideshow for the desktop background. With this setting on, the accent color changes each time the background picture changes, minimizing the chances that a particular image will represent a poor contrast with a background color you choose manually. On the other hand, be prepared to see garish accent shades of purple, pink, and yellow, depending on the image. (To change your mind, you don’t need to change that switch back to Manual. Just choose a different color and Windows changes it for you.)
The accent color you choose appears in some places automatically—in text links in built-in apps like Mail and Settings, for example, and on the desktop when a background image doesn’t fill the display fully.
If you’ve configured Windows to use Dark mode, you can enable the Show Accent Color On Start And Taskbar option. (This switch is grayed out and unavailable if you’ve selected Light mode for Windows.) Choosing this setting applies your accent color as a background to the taskbar and the Start menu, when they’re visible. With this option turned off, those areas have a neutral background that matches the selected mode. A separate option, Show Accent Color On Title Bars And Windows Borders, turns color on or off for the title bars in desktop apps and in Store apps that don’t specify a custom color.
Customizing the lock screen and sign-in screen
The lock screen is a security feature that prevents someone from seeing or accessing your account when you step away from the computer while you’re signed in. To display the lock screen, click Start and then click your account picture, where Lock is on the menu of available options. Naturally, there’s a faster way to lock the screen: Use the keyboard shortcut Windows key+L.
Just as you can customize the desktop background, you can change the lock screen to your liking by adding custom images and specifying which notifications appear on the lock screen when you’re away. Go to Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen to see your options, as shown in Figure 4-6.
Figure 4-6 As with the desktop background, you can choose a slideshow to use as your lock screen instead of a static picture.
These settings closely resemble those for the desktop background. Under the Personalize Your Lock Screen menu, you’ll find Picture options that work exactly like those under the Background headings, so we’re not repeating the detailed instructions here.
The Slideshow option includes several options that aren’t the same as those for the desktop background, however. Notably, you can choose to use only pictures that match your display resolution, so you’re not greeted with a distorted image when you try to sign in. You can also configure the system to keep the slideshow visible when your PC is inactive, with an additional option to turn off the screen if you’re away longer than a specified interval.
The Windows Spotlight option supplies a new background image each day, along with captions to identify the image location and a pair of icons to indicate whether you like or dislike a particular image—that feedback goes into the algorithm that serves future images to you.
Turning on the Show Lock Screen Background Picture On The Sign-In Screen option makes it possible for you to clear the lock screen—by clicking, swiping, or tapping any key—and see the box to enter your credentials with the same image behind it.
Note
Windows uses the custom lock screen image for the user who last signed in. On a PC with multiple user accounts and different lock-screen settings, the result might be that you see a lock screen image configured by another user. If you sign out completely and then restart, Windows might display the default sign-in screen instead.
You can allow one or more apps to display their current status—such as the number of new email messages, upcoming appointments, and so on—on the lock screen. You can also see alarms and reminders here. Depending on your personal preferences, these notifications are either a convenience or a potential privacy issue; if you don’t want anyone who passes by your desk to see notifications, go to Settings > System > Notifications. Expand the Notifications section and then turn off Show Notifications On The Lock Screen and Show Reminders And Incoming VoIP Calls On The Lock Screen.
If you choose to use lock-screen notifications, you can configure a single app to display detailed status messages (the time, title, and location of your next appointment, for example, or a weather forecast for your location). From Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen, use the Lock Screen Status menu to choose which app gets this preferred treatment.
Assigning sounds to system events
Decades ago, when Windows was new, custom sound schemes were a popular form of personalization. Microsoft and third-party developers offered collections of beeps, gurgles, and chirps that Windows and various apps played in response to various system and application events.
Those sound schemes have gone the way of Pet Rocks, Beanie Babies, and other once-popular fads. In Windows 11, Microsoft’s designers have curated a collection of system sounds that are subtle but distinctive and are designed to be helpful without being intrusive.
In fact, you won’t find an option to adjust system sounds in the modern Settings app. Instead, these controls live on in a legacy dialog that hasn’t changed in 30 years. To get there, go to Settings > Personalization >Themes and click the Sounds box below the thumbnail at the top of the page. That opens the dialog shown in Figure 4-7.
Figure 4-7 It’s unlikely you’ll have any need to change the sounds associated with system events, but the controls are available here just in case.
A new installation of Windows comes with only a single scheme, called Windows Default. If you can find and install a custom sound scheme, you can choose it from the Sound Scheme list, or you can customize the current sound scheme to match your preferences.
To see which sounds are currently mapped to events, scroll through the Program Events list. If an event has a sound associated with it, its name is preceded by a speaker icon; select the event name and then click Test to hear its sound. To switch to a different sound, scroll through the Sounds list or click Browse. The list displays .wav files in C:\Windows\Media, but any .wav file is eligible. To remove the sound associated with an event, select the event and then choose None, the item at the top of the Sounds list.
If you rearrange the mapping of sounds to events, consider saving the new arrangement as a sound scheme. (Click Save As and supply a name.) That way, you can experiment further and still return to the saved configuration.
Customizing mouse pointers
Over the course of the past few years, Microsoft’s designers have been moving personalization options from the classic Control Panel to the new Settings app. Although this migration is nearly complete, a few remnants of the old-style Control Panel remain. Such is the case with options to change the appearance of the mouse pointer.
You might want to change the size and color of the mouse pointer to make it easier to see. These options are especially helpful if you’re using a large, high-resolution display, where the default white pointer can be difficult to locate against a light background.
To quickly change the pointer size and color, go to Settings > Accessibility > Mouse Pointer And Touch, where you see the options shown in Figure 4-8.
Figure 4-8 A larger pointer, especially one in a bright color, can be easier to pick out on a large display.
The first option under the Mouse Pointer Style heading is the standard white pointer with a thin black outline. Choose the second or third option to change the pointer style to solid black or to an inverted pointer that shifts from dark to light depending on the background. Choosing the fourth box reveals a row of seven bright colors (with a Choose Another Color option if you want to pick your own shade); in our experience, the fluorescent green and pink options work surprisingly well at helping you find a pointer even on a large display.
Adjusting the Size slider makes the mouse pointer larger or smaller. The Touch Indicator controls enable you to customize visual feedback when using a pen or a finger on a touchscreen.
Meanwhile, you can find a completely separate entry point to a closely related group of options by going to Settings > Personalization > Themes and clicking the Mouse Cursor option beneath the thumbnail at the top of the page. That action opens the old-style Mouse Properties dialog shown in Figure 4-9, where you can choose from pointer schemes that match those found in the Mouse Pointer And Touch section of the Settings app. If you bump the pointer size up one notch and choose the Inverted pointer style, you’ve chosen one of the ready-made system pointer schemes—in this case, Windows Inverted (Large).
Figure 4-9 Any changes you make in the Mouse Pointer And Touch section of the Settings app are reflected on the Pointers tab here, and vice-versa.
Although it’s possible to change the shape of any pointer listed in the Customize box, we don’t expect many people to take advantage of this option on a Windows 11 PC. Those options are left over from the Windows 95 era, when custom themes supported goofy cursor options. (The Browse button takes you to C:\Windows\Cursors and displays files with the extensions .cur and .ani. The latter are animated cursors.)
A few additional settings of interest are available on the Pointer Options tab, shown in Figure 4-10.
Figure 4-10 Use these old-school pointer options to make the mouse pointer easier to spot as it moves.
If you sometimes struggle to find the mouse even after you’ve moved it slightly, consider turning on the Display Pointer Trails option. The last option on the page, Show Location Of Pointer When I Press The CTRL Key, provides a clever shortcut when you find yourself involuntarily playing “Where’s the pointer?” Tap Ctrl to see a series of concentric circles where the mouse pointer is currently hiding. In our experience, changing the size and style of the pointer is usually a more effective way to deal with this problem.
You’ll find several additional mouse options in the modern Settings app (Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Mouse). The option to adjust the mouse pointer speed is available here, for example. You’ll also find an odd switch with a slightly confusing name: Scroll Inactive Windows When I Hover Over Them. This behavior, sometimes known as “focus follows mouse,” will be familiar to those who’ve used Linux-based operating systems. Although it takes some getting used to, we’ve found that it can eliminate unnecessary mouse clicks when switching between windows, especially on large displays.
Using themes to save and apply personalizations
A theme is a named collection of personalization settings that includes background images, color settings, system sounds, and mouse pointers. Windows 11 includes a small collection of ready-made themes, along with a link to a much bigger collection of free themes in the Microsoft Store. The page at Settings >Personalization > Themes shows thumbnails of all the themes that are currently installed and available; to apply one, simply click it. Figure 4-11 shows the themes available on a default installation of Windows 11, with the Light Bloom theme in use.
Figure 4-11 Using themes allows you to quickly personalize the overall look and feel of Windows without tweaking individual settings.
If you’ve tweaked the look and feel of Windows, you can save your work so you can return to it later. To save the current settings as a theme, go to Settings > Personalization > Themes. Near the top of the page, you’ll see a summary of your current settings; click the Save button and give your theme a name.
Custom theme settings are saved as a plain text file with the .theme file name extension in your %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Themes folder. (Visit https://bit.ly/windows-theme-format for complete details about the format of .theme files.)
Perhaps more important than the ability to name your own customizations, the Themes page includes a link to the Microsoft Store that gives you free access to hundreds of beautiful themes created by professional and amateur photographers all over the world. You can find a full listing on the web at https://www.microsoft.com/store/collections/windowsthemes. Most of these are slideshows; a few include sounds as well. After installing a theme from the Store, apply it by selecting it at Settings > Personalization > Themes. If you apply a theme as a slideshow, you can configure the change interval at Settings > Personalization > Background, just as you would for a slideshow of your own photos.
Fine-tuning visual options
Windows 11 includes a few legacy customization options that give you fine-grained control over small aspects of the user experience. None of the options we discuss here have made the transition to the new Settings app, but they’re worth knowing about anyway.
Configuring desktop icons
A fresh, cleanly installed Windows 11 desktop (as opposed to one generated by an upgrade installation) includes a single lonely icon—Recycle Bin. If you want to display other system icons, go to Settings > Personalization > Themes and click Desktop Icon Settings. That opens the dialog shown in Figure 4-12, which provides checkboxes for five system folders—Computer, User’s Files (the root folder of your own profile), Network, Recycle Bin, and Control Panel.
Figure 4-12 Use the checkboxes at the top of this dialog to show or hide specific icons from the desktop.
If you’re really into customization, you can change any of the five icons that appear in the large box in the center; this, too, is an option left over from the earliest days of Windows, and we expect that very few people will take advantage of it. Note that the Control Panel icon does not appear in this center box even if you select its checkbox; Windows doesn’t provide a way to change it.
To change an icon, select it in the center box and click Change Icon. By default, the Browse button displays the selection of alternative icons from the file C:\Windows\System32\Imageres.dll. (Be sure to use the horizontal scroll bar to see them all.) If none of these suits you, try browsing to C:\Windows\System32\Shell32.dll.
After you populate your desktop with icons, you might want to control their arrangement. Right-click the desktop to find two commands at the top of the shortcut menu that can help in this endeavor. To specify that you want icons to shift and close up the empty space when you delete an icon from the desktop, click View > Auto Arrange Icons. To ensure that each icon keeps a respectable distance from each of its neighbors (and that the whole gang stays together at the left side of your screen), click View > Align Icons To Grid. And if you don’t want desktop icons to get in the way of your gorgeous desktop background image, click View and then clear the check mark to the left of Show Desktop Icons. (Return to this option if you decide you miss those desktop icons.)
To change the sort order of desktop icons, right-click the desktop and click Sort By. You can sort on any of four attributes: Name, Size, Item Type, or Date Modified. Sorting a second time on any attribute changes the sort order from ascending to descending (or vice versa).
Making other small visual tweaks
Windows is alive with little animations, such as when you open or close a window. Along with other effects, these can help to direct your focus to the current window or activity. But some folks find them annoying, and they arguably have an impact on PC performance, especially on underpowered hardware. As with so many things Windows, you have the option to turn off these effects.
In the search box of Settings or Control Panel, type performance and then choose Adjust The Appearance And Performance Of Windows. That action opens the Performance Options dialog, shown in Figure 4-13, where you can control animations and other effects on a granular level.
Figure 4-13 In general, it’s best to choose the first option here: Let Windows Choose What’s Best For My Computer.
On modern hardware with even a moderate graphics processor, these options make little or no difference in actual performance. The loss of animation can be disconcerting, in fact, as you wonder where a particular item went when you minimized it. These options offer the most payoff on older devices that weren’t designed for use with Windows 11 and have underpowered graphics hardware. If you had to bypass installation restrictions to run Windows 11, these options are worth exploring.
Setting date and time, currency, and other regional options
A personalized experience requires Windows to know some things about where you reside, including basic information about how other people in your part of the world display the date and time, currency symbols, and preferred number formats, such as whether to use a comma or a period as a separator.
In Windows 11, some language options are determined by the base Windows version. Windows configures additional regional settings using your location (with your permission).
In most cases, Windows picks the right regional settings during setup. You might need to customize some of these options if you prefer settings from one region (your home, typically) but Windows insists on applying settings for a different region, such as one you’re visiting. Your first stop is Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time, where you can change time zones and make other time-related settings, as shown in Figure 4-14.
Figure 4-14 The two automatic options shown here usually get the time and date right. Slide either option to Off if you need to make adjustments.
If you have an always-on internet connection, we recommend leaving the Set Time Automatically and Set Time Zone Automatically options enabled. Windows 11 uses your location (and that of your internet provider) to determine your time zone and periodically synchronizes your computer’s clock to an internet-based time server, fixing any “drift” if your PC’s clock isn’t working correctly. (On a domain-based network, this setting is controlled by the domain server.)
In some cases, Windows might not detect your time zone properly. This might happen if you’re using a satellite-based internet service provider, for example. In that case, you can manually set the PC’s time zone by turning off the automatic setting and selecting the correct location from the scrolling Time Zone list.
If you frequently communicate with people in other time zones, you might want to add one or two clocks to Windows, with each one displaying the time in a relevant time zone when you hover the mouse pointer over the clock in the taskbar. (The additional times also appear just above the calendar when you click the time display at the right side of the taskbar.)
To make this tweak, click Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time. Under Related Links, click Additional Clocks. This opens a dialog in which you can configure one or two clocks, selecting a time zone and a display name for each one.
Current versions of Windows 11 also support the Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese lunar calendars. To install either, go to Settings > Time & Language > Date & Time, and then choose which lunar calendar you want from the list labeled Show Additional Calendars In The Taskbar. Your calendar then displays the lunar dates below the corresponding Gregorian dates.
Windows uses your country/region and language settings to provide some personalized content and for regional formats such as the way dates, times, and numbers are displayed and the preferred measurement system. To adjust these formats, go to Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region. There, you can change the Windows display language, add a language pack (only if you’re running Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education), change the current country or region, and view and adjust regional formats.
Figure 4-15 shows this Settings page with the Regional Format section expanded to show current regional formats.
Figure 4-15 Expand the Regional Format section on this page to see (and, if necessary, change) how Windows formats dates and times.
To adjust the preferred display format (so that File Explorer shows 2022-09-05 instead of 9/5/2022, for example), click the Change Formats button and choose from one of the available options.
Overcoming challenges
Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to making computing accessible and easier to use for persons with vision, hearing, or mobility impairments. Windows 11 groups these options into the Accessibility section of Settings. (Alternatively, you can press Windows key+U to open this page directly.)
The options at Settings > Accessibility are organized in three groups: Vision, Hearing, and Interaction. Any of the settings can be used alone or in conjunction with others.
Vision options include the following:
Text Size On this page, you can use a slider control to adjust the size of text for most Windows interface elements.
Visual Effects Use these settings to prevent scrollbars from automatically hiding and to adjust transparency and animation effects. A separate control allows you to configure how long Windows waits before dismissing notifications.
Mouse Pointer And Touch See the previous discussion in this chapter (“Customizing mouse pointers”) for details about the settings available here.
Text Cursor On this page, you can change the thickness and color of the text cursor to make it easier to find your current text position.
Magnifier This tool enlarges part of the screen, making it easier to see small text, icons, or other elements. Use settings here to automatically enable this feature when you sign in and to configure its zoom levels. To turn Magnifier on from anywhere in Windows, press Windows key+Plus. To turn it off, press Windows key+Esc.
Color Filters These are designed to help users with color-blindness. Available filters include Red-Green (Green Weak, Deuteranopia), Red-Green (Red Weak, Protanopia), Blue-Yellow (Tritanopia), Grayscale, Grayscale Inverted, and Inverted.
Contrast Themes This tool configures Windows to use a high-contrast color scheme (by default, white text on a black background) that makes it easier for visually impaired users to read the screen.
Narrator This tool converts on-screen text to speech and sends it to your computer’s speakers. An enormous variety of options, including custom voices for the speech-to-text portion of this feature, are available to assist people who are blind or have severe vision impairments to use Windows.
Hearing options include an Audio page, where you can turn on monaural audio or configure visual behavior to accompany audio alerts. For example, you can choose to make the title bar of the active window, the entire active window, or the entire screen flash in response to an audio alert. Also in the Hearing section is a Captions option, which lets you configure the appearance of closed captioning in videos.
The Interaction section includes the following:
Speech On the Speech page, you can interact with your PC by setting the Voice Access switch to On and, optionally, setting this feature to turn on automatically. A separate Windows Speech Recognition switch allows you to dictate text, system commands, and editing commands by speaking instead of typing. When you first enable this feature, a wizard guides you through some simple setup steps and leads you to a Microsoft support page where, among other things, you can view and print a table of recognized editing commands.
For more details about these features, see “Using voice commands and dictating text,” in Chapter 3, “Using Windows 11.”
Keyboard This collection of tools provides alternative means for Windows users with impaired mobility to enter text using a pointing device. Options that appear when you click Options in On-Screen Keyboard let you control how it works—you can choose whether to select a letter by clicking, for example, or by allowing the pointer to pause over a key for a specific amount of time. Other tools on the Keyboard page allow users with impaired mobility to deal with key combinations and repeated keystrokes more easily.
Mouse This page enables the numeric keypad to move the mouse pointer so you don’t have to use a mouse.
Eye Control Windows supports the use of eye tracking devices, which allow users to manipulate the mouse and keyboard, and to turn narration on or off, by means of the eyes. (Support is currently provided for a variety of Tobii Eye Tracker, EyeX, and Dynavox devices as well as the EyeTech TM5 Mini. The EN-US keyboard layout is the only one supported at this time. Support for additional keyboard layouts and hardware devices is promised for the future.)
The easiest way to configure your computer for adaptive needs in one fell swoop is to click Start, type Ease Of Access, and then click Let Windows Suggest Ease Of Access Settings. That action launches a wizard, shown in Figure 4-16, that walks you through the process of configuring accessibility options.
Figure 4-16 Use this dialog to automatically apply accessibility options that make Windows easier to use.
If you want accessibility options to be available at all times, even before signing in to the computer, click the up arrow from that page and then click the Change Sign-In Settings link in the left pane of the Ease Of Access Center in Control Panel. This option, shown in Figure 4-17, enables you to specify any changes that you want to make to the sign-in desktop.
Figure 4-17 Use this old-style Control Panel option to automatically apply accessibility settings when you sign in to Windows.
If you choose not to enable this option, you can still turn accessibility features on or off at the sign-in screen; click the small Ease Of Access icon in the lower-right corner of the sign-in screen to display a list of available settings. Press the Spacebar to enable each one.
Working with fonts
Microsoft Windows includes an extensive library of fonts representing more than 60 font families, all designed to make text more legible in any language supported by Windows and to enable the display of special characters that aren’t a part of any alphabet, such as Wingdings and emoji. (If you’re curious about the technologies that go into rendering fonts in Windows, you’ll find a tremendous amount of information at the Microsoft Typography website: https://learn.microsoft.com/typography/.)
To view all available fonts, install new fonts, or manage font settings, go to Settings > Personalization > Fonts. That opens a page like the one shown in Figure 4-18.
Figure 4-18 No more “quick brown fox”—Windows 11 uses a variety of clever text snippets to preview installed fonts.
Use the drop target at the top of the page to install fonts by dragging them from File Explorer. A link below that transports you to the Microsoft Store, where additional fonts are available.
Under the Available Fonts heading, a preview box displays the number of fonts available for each installed font family. Click any box to see a full list of font faces, with additional metadata information about the font version and designer, as well as licensing, copyright, and trademark details. Figure 4-19 shows all nine members of the Arial family on a system where Microsoft 365 has installed additional font faces alongside those included with Windows.
Figure 4-19 Each of the font faces listed at the top of this page represents a different font file in the same family—in this case, Arial.
The font format used by Windows is OpenType—a font format “superset” that encompasses TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts. To install a new font, you can drag its file from a folder or compressed .zip archive to the Fonts page in Settings. But you don’t need to open Fonts to accomplish this task; an even simpler way to install a downloaded font is to right-click its file in File Explorer and choose Install. Because font file names are often somewhat cryptic, you might want to double-click the file, which opens the font preview window, to see what you’re getting. If it’s a font you want, click the Install button.
Note
PostScript Type 1 fonts normally consist of two or three files. The one you use to install the font—regardless of which method you use—is the .pfm file, whose file type is shown in File Explorer as Type 1 Font File.
Making text easier to read
If you like to work at high screen resolutions but find yourself straining to read the text, you can try the following:
Look for scaling (“zoom”) commands in the text-centric apps you use. Most modern word processors, for example, include these scaling features. Scaling text up to a readable size is a good solution for particular apps, but it doesn’t change the size of icon text, system menus (such as Start), or system dialogs.
To enlarge part of the screen, use the Magnifier tool. (For more information, see “Overcoming challenges” earlier in this chapter.)
Use the scaling options in Display settings. Adjusting the scaling to a higher level enables you to have readable text at higher screen resolutions.
There’s no supported way to change the Windows 11 system font, and we don’t recommend using any of the registry hacks available online that offer to help you make this adjustment. You can, however, change the size of text everywhere, without changing the overall scaling of your system. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Text Size and move the dot on the Text Size slider to the right. The Text Size Preview window shows you how large your text will become, and a Screen-Tip over the dot displays the percentage of magnification, from 100 to 225 percent, as shown in Figure 4-20. Click Apply to accept the changes.
Figure 4-20 By moving this slider, you can magnify the size of text throughout Windows.
Using font smoothing to make text easier on the eyes
ClearType is a font-smoothing technology that reduces jagged edges of characters, thus easing eye strain.
To check or change your font-smoothing settings, open the Fonts page in Settings, expand the Related Settings group, and then click Adjust ClearType Text. Doing so opens the ClearType Text Tuner, which allows you to turn on ClearType and then adjust its settings using a series of optometrist-style choices (“Which Is Better, Number 1 or Number 2?”). If you have more than one monitor attached, the ClearType Text Tuner goes through this exercise for each one.
Windows includes seven fonts that are optimized for ClearType. The names of six of these—Constantia, Cambria, Corbel, Calibri, Candara, and Consolas—begin with the letter c—just to help cement the connection with ClearType. If you’re particularly prone to eye fatigue, you might want to consider favoring these fonts in documents you create. (Constantia and Cambria are serif fonts, considered particularly suitable for longer documents and reports. The other four are sans serif fonts, good for headlines and advertising.) The seventh ClearType-optimized font, Segoe UI, is the typeface used for text elements throughout the Windows user interface. (Windows also includes a ClearType-optimized font called Meiryo that’s designed to improve the readability of horizontally arrayed Asian languages.)
- For information about how ClearType works, visit Microsoft’s ClearType site at https://bit.ly/ClearTypeInfo.