How to Customize Line Spacing and Font Size for Accessibility in Chrome

Chrome has good controls for text size, but almost none for line spacing on ordinary pages. Here's what each setting does and how to get more space between lines when you need it.

Make text bigger

• Zoom one page: Ctrl and + or - (Cmd on Mac). Chrome remembers the zoom for each site.
• Zoom every page: Settings → Appearance → Page zoom. This scales text and layout together, so pages usually stay readable.
• Font size: Settings → Appearance → Font size sets the default text size. Many sites set their own sizes, so this doesn't change every page.
• Minimum font size: Settings → Appearance → Customize fonts has a slider that stops any text from going below a size you choose. It's the best fix for tiny print.

More space between lines: Reading mode

Chrome's Reading mode is the only built-in way to change line spacing. Open it from the side panel (or right-click a page and choose Open in reading mode). It shows the article's text with your choice of:

• font and text size
• line spacing and letter spacing
• colors, including dark and cream backgrounds

It works best on articles and blog posts. On apps and complex pages it may show only part of the content.

Spacing on any page: custom styles

To change spacing on every page, use a style extension such as Stylus, which applies your own CSS to sites. A simple rule like this adds space to all text:

* { line-height: 1.6 !important; letter-spacing: 0.03em !important; }

Apply it to all sites or only the ones you read most. If it breaks a layout, narrow the rule to paragraphs (p) and list items (li).

What spacing helps most

The accessibility guidelines (WCAG's text spacing rule) use these values as a test: line height at 1.5 times the text size, extra space after paragraphs, slightly wider letter and word spacing. Sites should still work when readers set spacing that wide, and many readers with dyslexia or low vision find text easier to follow with it.

For reference, a browser's default line height ("normal") is usually around 1.2 times the font size, depending on the font. If you're designing pages, the free line height calculator helps you pick values.

Find out what a site is using

To see a page's actual font, size and spacing, right-click the text and choose Inspect; the Styles panel shows font-size and line-height. Font Detector does it in one click: hover or click text to see its font family, size, weight and color.

Fewer distractions while reading

If the problem is losing your place more than the size of the text, ADHD Reading Focus narrows a page to one paragraph at a time. See also the best fonts for dyslexia and ADHD.