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I'm using Gimp for Mac on a 4k screen and the interface text and icons look tiny. How can I make it bigger?

Bouke Versteegh
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4 Answers4

19

Change icon size

  • Preferences
    • Interface
      • Icon Theme
        • Change: guess Icon size from resolution
        • Into: custom Icon Size
        • Drag slider

Change font size

  • Close Gimp
  • Open the file gtkrc of your specific theme in a text editor
    • Open the Gimp themes directory:
      • Mac: /Applications/GIMP-2.10.app/Contents/Resources/share/gimp/2.0/themes/
      • Windows: C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\share\gimp\2.0\themes\
      • Ubuntu: /usr/share/gimp/2.0/themes/
    • Open the gtkrc file for your theme:
      • Light: Light/gtkrc
      • Dark: Dark/gtkrc
      • Gray: Gray/gtkrc
      • System System/gtkrc
      • other
        If you have a customized Gimp, look here for the gtkrc file
        • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/GIMP/2.10/themes
  • Find line with: GimpDock::font-scale = 0.8333
  • Replace with: GimpDock::font-scale = 1.6666 (or another value)
  • Start Gimp again
charlie
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Bouke Versteegh
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    Custom Icon size behaves strangely: large and huge are smaller than medium size on my DELL xps 15 4k (gimp 2.10.18) https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/2313 – lrkwz May 03 '20 at 14:36
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    Linux equivalents in Ubuntu are in `/usr/share/gimp/2.0/themes/Dark/gtkrc` and similar for the other themes – Lucas Walter Jun 11 '21 at 14:14
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    Thank you @LucasW, added! – Bouke Versteegh Jun 14 '21 at 14:06
  • This works for almost every UI element, but the main menu bar is still small for me. I suppose that's being controlled by the desktop environment. – Pistos Oct 31 '22 at 15:09
  • @Pistos see answer explaining to change the font. – David Rios Dec 16 '22 at 16:27
  • @DavidRios Even though I change that `GimpDock` line in the gtkrc file in my theme, it still shows the menu bar as pretty small. – Pistos Dec 18 '22 at 19:42
  • @small_improvement 's answer helped me, though. https://superuser.com/a/1722799/8997 – Pistos Dec 18 '22 at 19:46
  • "Change: guess Icon size from resolution Into: custom Icon Size; Drag slider" This only provides Small and Medium. Large and Huge are disabled. Presumably not available in the themes. – Pistos Dec 18 '22 at 19:47
  • @Pistos I meant the answer below this one. Instead of changing the GimpDock line, change the font_name. https://superuser.com/a/1722799/386047 – David Rios Dec 19 '22 at 20:09
5

Under Bodhi Linux a better solution for me is similar to Bouke Versteegh's except leave.

GimpDock::font-scale = 0.8333

alone. Instead, uncomment

# font_name = "sans 10"

and change it to

font_name = "sans 20".

If you examine the gtkrc file, you will see there are several places where various font scales are specified. Changing the font changes them all without fussing with specific scales. If you want to tweak it afterwards, then you can alter specific scaling settings to change relative sizes for various parts of the interface.

Note: I had previously altered the bootup system environment variables with

GDK_SCALE=2

which GIMP apparently does not honor. My menu bar remained unreadable when I only adjusted the scale in gtkrc.

help-info.de
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small_improvement
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  • This is the correct answer on Windows. - Setting font_name to sans 16 is perfect on a 4k 43" desktop monitor. I guess a value of 20 or above would be more usable on 4k notebook displays. Gimp should really use a sensible default here based on system hidpi settings and not just fall back to the values which worked on 640x480 displays... – fviktor Mar 26 '23 at 13:09
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In Windows 10/11, you have to edit the gtkrc file (This can be found [in the case of Dark theme] in C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\share\gimp\2.0\themes\Dark) of the theme you are using. Then you have to select that theme in GIMP's Preferences (Menu Bar >> Edit >> Preferences).

Changing the font-scale value wont increase the font size in the menus. You have to change the font size in two places and you have to uncomment the lines.

This part of the code has to be edited (It is found in the beginning):

#gtk-font-name = "Sans 11"

# KDE hack to match gtk/gnome defaults gtk-button-images = 0 style "gimp-dark-default-style"

{  #font_name = "Sans 11"

This is the edited version:

gtk-font-name = "Sans 20"

# KDE hack to match gtk/gnome defaults gtk-button-images = 0 style "gimp-dark-default-style"

{  font_name = "Sans 20"
Community
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Amritendu Mukhopadhyay
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0

The easiest way that worked for me to also change the menus text is:

Edit the file (in my case C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\share\gimp\2.0\themes\Dark\gtkrc)

Under the theme that you have chosen (could be Dark/Light/Grey/etc) in my case

style "gimp-dark-default-style" {

uncomment the line

  font_name = "Sans 11"

and add below

  GtkLabel::use-underline = TRUE

so it looks something like:

.
.
.
gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme = true

# gtk-font-name = "Sans 11"

# KDE hack to match gtk/gnome defaults
gtk-button-images = 0

style "gimp-dark-default-style"
{
  font_name = "Sans 11"
  GtkLabel::use-underline = TRUE

  color["clr1"]  = "#DDDDDD"
  color["clr2"]  = "#FFFFFF"
.
.
.
Neo Geo
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