Change Font and Icon Sizes in Ubuntu

It seemed that Ubuntu’s icons have always been larger than the icons are on Windows. This may be trivial for some people, but I wanted my desktop and nautilus icons to be a bit smaller. Changing the icon sizes as well as the font size is fairly easy. These steps are based on Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10.

Change the Icon Sizes

1. Open a Nautilus window. The easiest way to do that is by clicking on Places -> Home Folder from your main Gnome menu.
2. Click on Edit -> Preferences in that Nautilus window.
3. Adjust the Icon View Defaults percentage accordingly.

Change the Font Sizes

This will change the font sizes on Gnome globally.

1. Click on System -> Preferences -> Appearance from your Gnome menu.
2. Click on the fonts tab.
3. Click on the Details… button.
4. Change the value in the Resolution box.