[eclipse] Eclipse IDE: How to zoom in on text?

I want the same behaviour Firefox has, when you use the scroll button in the mouse to zoom in and out on the current view. Is there something like it for eclipse?

This question is related to eclipse eclipse-plugin

The answer is


The tarlog plugin, combined with removing -Dorg.eclipse.swt.internal.carbon.smallFonts from eclipse.ini, helps my tired eyes on MacOS Yosemite with Eclipse Luna (4.4).

Problem: Didn't work for me for a PyDev foo.py Python file. Workaround: Open a file named foo.java - change the font size. Go back to foo.py and voila!! - the python font size matches the java font size.


Here's a quicker way than multi-layer menus without resorting to plug-ins:

Use the Quick Access tool at the upper left corner.

Type in "font", then, from the list that drops down, click on the link for "Preferences->Colors and Fonts->General->Appearance".

One click replaces the 4 needed to get there through menus. I do it so often, my Quick Access tool pulls it up as a previous choice right at the top of the list so I can just type "font" with a tap on the enter key and Boom!, I'm there.

If you want a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+3 sets the focus to the Quick Access tool. Better yet, this even automatically brings up a list with your previous choices. The last one you chose will be on top, in which case a simple Ctrl+3 followed by enter would bring you straight there! I use this all the time to make it bigger during long typing or reading sessions to ease eye strain, or to make it smaller if I need more text on the screen at one time to make it easier to find something.

It's not quite as nice as zooming with the scroll wheel, but it's a lot better than navigating through the menus every time!


As mentioned in another answer, this plugin

http://code.google.com/p/tarlog-plugins/downloads/detail?name=tarlog.eclipse.plugins_1.4.2.jar&can=2&q=

makes Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-- zoom in and out. On MacOS that would be ?+ and ?-.

But at least on MacOS Lion and Eclipse Helios, ?- worked but not ?+ – no key combination (and I tried a bunch, including ?= and variants with Ctrl and Shift) would increase font size. However, by changing the key bindings, I was able to get it to work.

Preferences => General => Keys

Commands "Zoom Out" and "Decrease Font" were already set to ?- (and that seemed to work), so I set "Zoom In" and "Increase Font" to ?= (one of them was that and the other was ?+), and that worked.


As per the recent changes you can use: (1) Ctrl/Shift/(+) for Zoom-in (2) Ctrl/Shift/(-) for Zoom-out


What I am doing is using the Windows 10 magnifier. Not the same as zooming on firefox, but it has been quite useful.


To zoom on Eclipse you can use : CTRL SHIFT + OR -


Too late but it could be helpful :

Go to Window Menu > Preferences > General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts

then go to Java > Java Editor Text Font > Edit


Just by pressing Ctrl + Shift + '+' or '-'.

At least, it worked for me at Eclipse "2020-03" version.


On Mac you can do Press 'Command' and '+' buttons to zoom in. press 'Command' and '-' buttons to zoom out.


For Zoom In: CTRL + SHIFT + +
For Zoom Out: `CTRL + SHIFT + -


Here is a cool way of ensuring zoom in and zoom out with mouse scroll-wheel in the Eclipse Editor. This one takes inspiration from the solution above from naveed ahmad which was not working for me.

1) First download Autohotkey from http://www.autohotkey.com/ and install it, then run it.

2) Then download tarlog-plugins from https://code.google.com/p/tarlog-plugins/downloads/list

3) Put the downloaded .jar file in the eclipse/plugins folder.

4) Restart Eclipse.

5) Add the following Autohotkey script, save it then reload it (right click on Autohotkey icon in taskbar and click "Reload this script")

; Ctrl + MouseWheel zooming in Eclipse Editor.
; Requires Tarlog plugins (https://code.google.com/p/tarlog-plugins/).
#IfWinActive ahk_class SWT_Window0
^WheelUp:: Send ^{NumpadAdd}
^WheelDown:: Send ^{NumpadSub}
#IfWinActive

And you should be done. You can now zoom in or zoom out with ctrl+mousewheel up and ctrl+mousewheel down. The only caveat is that Autohotkey must be running for this solution to work so ensure that it starts with Windows or run it just before firing Eclipse up. Works fine in Eclipse Kepler and Luna.


Even more reliable than @mifmif :

Go to Window Menu > Preferences > General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts

then go to Basic.

This section has about 5 different fonts in it, all of which contain a size. If you go to an item in any other section (like Java > Java Editor Text Font as @mifmif suggested) the Edit Default and Go to Default buttons will be enabled. Clicking the latter takes you to the corresponding item in the Basic section. Clicking the former lets you edit that item directly.

Changing the Basic font items will handle not only Java text but just about every other text in Eclipse that can be resized, as far as I can tell.


The Eclipse-Fonts extension will add toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts for changing font size. You can then use AutoHotkey to make Ctrl+Mousewheel zoom.

Under Help | Install New Software... in the menu, paste the update URL (http://eclipse-fonts.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/FontsUpdate/) into the Works with: text box and press Enter. Expand the tree and select FontsFeature as in the following image:

Eclipse extension installation screen capture

Complete the installation and restart Eclipse, then you should see the A toolbar buttons (circled in red in the following image) and be able to use the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+- and Ctrl+= to zoom (although you may have to unbind those keys from Eclipse first).

Eclipse screen capture with the font size toolbar buttons circled

To get Ctrl+MouseWheel zooming, you can use AutoHotkey with the following script:

; Ctrl+MouseWheel zooming in Eclipse.
; Requires Eclipse-Fonts (https://code.google.com/p/eclipse-fonts/).
; Thank you for the unique window class, SWT/Eclipse.
#IfWinActive ahk_class SWT_Window0
    ^WheelUp:: Send ^{=}
    ^WheelDown:: Send ^-
#IfWinActive

The googlecode fontsupdate does not work anymore unfortunately. You can however just download the code from github:

https://github.com/gkorland/Eclipse-Fonts

Just download it as .zip, and add it in eclipse:

Adding a local plugin

Then you have the familiar buttons again!


Starting from tonight nightly build of 4.6/Neon, the Eclipse Platform includes a way to increase/decrease font size on text editors using Ctrl+ and Ctrl- (on Windows or Linux, Cmd= and Cmd- on Mac OS X) : https://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/news/4.6/M4/#text-zoom-commands . The implementation is shipped with any product using a recent build of the platform, and is more reliable that the one in the alternative plugins mentioned above. It will be more widely available within weeks, when the IDE packages for Neon M4 will be available, and it will be part of the public Neon release in June 2016.


go to Eclipse > Prefences > General > Appearance > Color and Fonts > Basic > Text Font

Font problem will resolved I guess.Dont need a any plugin for this.


I've answered it here. How can I change font size in Eclipse for Java text editors?

For Eclipse Neon

To Increase Ctrl +

To reduce Ctrl - enter image description here


Examples related to eclipse

How do I get the command-line for an Eclipse run configuration? My eclipse won't open, i download the bundle pack it keeps saying error log strange error in my Animation Drawable How to uninstall Eclipse? How to resolve Unable to load authentication plugin 'caching_sha2_password' issue Class has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Environment Eclipse No tests found using JUnit 5 caused by NoClassDefFoundError for LauncherFactory How to downgrade Java from 9 to 8 on a MACOS. Eclipse is not running with Java 9 "The POM for ... is missing, no dependency information available" even though it exists in Maven Repository The origin server did not find a current representation for the target resource or is not willing to disclose that one exists. on deploying to tomcat

Examples related to eclipse-plugin

Could not calculate build plan: Plugin org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-jar-plugin:2.3.2 or one of its dependencies could not be resolved JavaScript Editor Plugin for Eclipse How to see my Eclipse version? No server in windows>preferences Cannot load 64-bit SWT libraries on 32-bit JVM ( replacing SWT file ) An error occurred while collecting items to be installed (Access is denied) Maven in Eclipse: step by step installation How to save LogCat contents to file? How can I change Eclipse theme? What to do about Eclipse's "No repository found containing: ..." error messages?