Emacs UI text is too small, can't see anything. "Zooming in" only zooms inside the editor, not the UI itself.

Howdy. I'm completely new to Emacs. Just loaded it up for the first time on Ubuntu Studio 22.04 and the UI is way to small to see anything ([see this screenshot](https://imgur.com/a/dIokUxG)). I looked for solutions and everyone says to Ctrl + Scroll Wheel, and that doesn't do it. It only zooms the editor. The UI / Window stuff itself says small. I tried installing the Spacemacs config to see if it would fix it, but it didn't. Any ideas on how to fix this? edit: The award goes to u/Faerryn for fixing it. Thanks to everyone else for the suggestions, but thankfully I don't have to try them. I've added the solution here for easy finding: 1. Open `~/.emacs.d/init.el` 2. Add `(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "FONT HERE" :height 120)` to the file. 3. Replace `"FONT HERE"` with your desired font. 4. Save the file.

Have you tried changing the font size?

`(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "Monospace" :height 120)` The 120 represents a font height of 12.0 points. EDIT: actually put something for `:family` instead of leaving it blank.

Emacs uses the settings from your Operating System|Desktop Environment for that. You can change "Emacs frame font" (google that!), by changing your systems settings. First figure out, which flavour of Emacs you have installed (ask your package manager). Following flavours are available: "GTK", "Lucid" and "nox". Each utilizes a different system setting (because each of them uses another "graphics" facility). You probably have the GTK flavour running. GTK flavour will be changed through GTK3 settings or theme (how to change that, depends on the Desktop Environment you are using). There is a [way to configure it through config files](https://superuser.com/questions/597076/gtk-3-menu-configuration-for-emacs) and there are ways to use graphical dialogs to change this setting. Lucid flavour will be changed by settings in file ".Xresources" nox flavour will be changed by settings of your terminal emulator (like `xterm` or whatever you are using) Now with that info try to use a web search engine for more info and HOWTO's. Emacs can also override Systems settings from within Emacs (this info has already been given by another answer), but then Emacs window changes size on startup, which in my opinion looks awkward.

You may now think, why is it so complicated? Well, Emacs is 35 years old and had to deal with multiple "graphical" environments. It always adopted and kept some of the old ways maintained. This makes it a little bit more difficult for beginners, but is essentially a good thing.

Honestly, he's completely new to Emacs. Should we really expect him to know what to do with some lisp code?

> First figure out, which flavour of Emacs you have installed (ask your package manager). No need to ask a stranger, ask Emacs. C-h C-a should list the toolkit used among others.

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`C-h C-a`, true. I always call my package manager by command line. He is a nice one, very responsive and gives info about packages outside of Emacs, too. :)

It's a good point. But /u/Ferryn didn't suggest we should expect that.

Aka menu **Help** > **About Emacs**.

You're correct, I have(had) no clue what to do with it, but after some searching I'm assuming it goes in `init.el`?

This is what fixed it, although I did have to add something for `:family` because Emacs kept throwing some kind of error over it (`:family "Share Tech Mono` in case you were wondering). Thanks a ton!

Good to hear that it worked! I was going to put a `:family "YOUR FONT HERE"` but I forgot about it. Nice to see that you figured it out regardless!

you need to fire your emacs init.el editor™: VIM

the warning says you may not have the font you wrote, or it’s mistyped. comment de font line and because you may have broken your config. if you are no emacs genius try another editor. (like me)