[ide] How to increase font size in NeatBeans IDE?

I just bought a new monitor that's rather large and I am having a lot of trouble reading the text on my editor. I tried increasing the font size the usual way by going to

Tools >> Options >> Fonts & Colors >> Clicking the "..." button next to font >> and then choosing a large font size

This is the result: (click for full size)

As you can see the cursor becomes a lot larger but the font size remains the same. Does anyone know another way to effectively increase font size in NetBeans?

This question is related to ide netbeans

The answer is


1st Way:

press down Alt+z and scroll up or down (mouse wheel)

2nd way:

press down mouse scroll(wheel) button and scroll up or down


Literally NONE of these worked for me.

I am using NetBeans 11.1 on Linux. I found the solution by searching the Options menu. The issue was the IDE Theme- which has an "Override" font size.

  1. Tools > Options > Appearance > Darcula Look And Feel
  2. Uncheck "Override Default fonts by [ Dialog 10 ]"
  3. (OR increase the override font to a bigger size)
  4. Hit OK
  5. Exit and restart NetBeans!

Your environment preferences should be saved for future NetBeans sessions!

Options Window


To set fonts and colors for displaying help pages:

1.From the main window, choose File > Open File.

2.In the Open dialog box, navigate to IDE-install-directoryide/docs/org/netbeans/modules/usersguide and open the file ide.css.

The ide.css file is the style sheet that describes how to present the fonts and colors in the help pages.

3.Edit ide.css to your preferences.

4.Choose File > Save.

5.Open the help viewer and verify your changes.


When i modify the font size in Tools-> Options->Fonts & Colors->Syntaxto 14, the Editor font change fine, but Netbeans doesn´t take any change in fontsize IDE (icons, menus, ...) until i Add the --fontsize XX option in the file ...\NetBeans x.x\etc\netbeans.conf at the end of line netbeans_default_options AND set to true the already added option -J-Dsun.java2d.dpiaware, But i had to increase the font size Editor to 24. Thats works for me.


You can create your own shortcut for increase/Decrease Netbeans Fonts size

just goto Tools > Options > Keymaps than search zoom

click on three (...) dot and click Edit

press your_shortcut_keys ( what ever shortcut you want to set)


The solutions here just increase editor font size. You can run netbeans with parameter netbeans --fontsize 20 You can edit windows link like this for example. "C:\Program Files\NetBeans 8.0.2\bin\netbeans64.exe" --fontsize 20


Go to Tools|options|keymap. Search for 'zoom in text' and set your preferred key. I've set alt+plus and alt+minus.


Tools -> Options -> Fonts & Colors -> then click on Font browse option. Now you will see a popup box. Here you can change Font:, Font Style: and Size:

I had tested it.


At Windows in the file C:\Program Files\NetBeans x.x\etc\netbeans.conf

Add "--fontsize [size]" at the end of line netbeans_default_options:

netbeans_default_options=".... --fontsize 16"

press alt and scroll down or up to change the size


In OS X, Netbeans 8.0

  1. Use Command + , to open the options
  2. Select Fonts & Colors tab
  3. Click the button in the Font section (button is next to the Font textbox)
  4. Change the Font, style and size as needed

enter image description here


For full control of ANY (non simplest editor, non head of tree) ui elements I recomend use plugin UI Editor for NetBeans

Settings in action


To increase the font size of netbeans 7.3.1 and 7.3 , you go from menu Tools>>Options>>"Fonts & Colors" (is an inner menu in the dialog window of Options)

At the "Syntax" tab ,every entry in the "Category:" list-box ,you will notice that the font has the value "Inherited". If you find in the "Category" list-box the entry with the name "Default" and change the font value of that, you will affect the font size of your editor, because everything is inherited from "Default" entry .

Another method is to increase temporary the font of the editor by a combination of keys. To find what are the keys go to the "Options" dialog window by Tools>> Options and then choose the "Keymap" menu entry and then in the "Search" textbox type "zoom text" and it will show you what combinations of keys for zooming in /out.

for example mine is the combination of "alt" key + mouse wheel up/down


you might also want to change your font size for other parts of the IDE (other than the code).

Just add the parameter --fontsize <size> (default size is 11) to the startup command.

You can put it into the command line when launching IDE. You can also put it into the netbeans.conf file, which is in the /etc subdirectory of NetBeans installation.

Just place it as a last parameter into the netbeans_default_options parameter.


Tools >> Options >> Fonts & Colors >> Syntax tab. Select 'Default' from the Category list and click the ... button like you said.

It's the Default you need to select first before changing the size.


Alt + scroll wheel will increase / decrease the font size of the main code window


Check this image with red arrow direction enter image description here


I would upgrade to newer Netbeans 7.1 or wait few days/weeks for 7.2, it can be a bug in Netbeans 6.8.

I just add to previous two solutions, that you can increase size temporary with ALT(CTRL) + mouse wheel as in browser. (ALT in Netbeans 7.2, CTRL in Netbeans 7.1)