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# Appearance Preferences

This section describes how to use the Appearance preference panel. If you are not already viewing the panel, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Double-click Appearance to expand the list, then click the name for the preferences you want to view.

In this section:

- Appearance
- Content
- Fonts
- Colors
- Media
- Spelling

## Appearance Preferences - Appearance

This section describes how to use the Appearance preferences panels. If you're not already viewing one of these panels, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Appearance category.

The Appearance preferences panel allows you to set &brandShortName; startup options and customize the user interface:

- When &brandShortName; starts up, open: Select the components you want to use when you start up &brandShortName;
- Show toolbars as:
  - Pictures and text: Select this to see text underneath each of the toolbar buttons.
  - Pictures only: Select this to show the toolbar buttons only.
  - Text only: Select this to show text buttons only.
- Show Tooltips: Select this if you want to have tooltips appear when the cursor is placed over parts of the &brandShortName; user interface and some websites.
- Hide Toolbar Grippies: This option is not available on macOS.Check this if you want to hide the menubar and toolbar grippies preventing accidental collapses of menubars and toolbars.
- User Interface Language: This setting allows you to change the language used in the user interface of &brandShortName;. Additional languages can be installed from the &brandShortName; home page.
- Date and Time Formatting: There are usually differences how settings like date and time are formatted, depending on the region (locale). Select how &brandShortName; displays such values:
  - Application locale: Select this to show values in the regional way of &brandShortName;'s user interface language.
  - Regional Settings locale: Select this to show values in the way as defined by your operating system's settings.

Note: You must restart &brandShortName; for a change in language or formatting settings to take effect. In many cases, the choices will show the same language unless you have additional language pack(s) installed or use a localized version of &brandShortName; for a language which is different from your operating-system's settings.

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## Appearance Preferences - Content

This section describes how to use the Content preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, click Content. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Appearance to expand the list.)

The Content preferences panel allows you to change settings that influence how website and message content appears in &brandShortName;.

- Scrolling:
  - Use autoscrolling: Select this to enable autoscrolling. Clicking the middle mouse button (usually the scroll wheel) lets you scroll the content by moving the mouse around.
  - Use smooth scrolling: Select this to enable smooth scrolling. Pressing the Page Down key when this is enabled will—instead of an immediate jump—smoothly scroll the content down to the next page.
- Zoom options:
  - Range from [__] to [__] %: Defines the range of zoom levels observed when opening the Zoom menu from the View main menu or when using the mouse wheel or the keyboard shortcuts to increase or decrease the zoom. Note: after changing these values, they become effective only for new windows, not in the ones which are already open.
  - Zoom only text instead of full pages: Select this if you want &brandShortName; to only resize text of websites when using the "Zoom" function. If this is not selected, the whole page, including images, will be zoomed.
  - Remember zoom levels on a per-site basis: Select this if you want the system to remember the specific zoom level for each website you visit.
  - Show zoom controls in the status bar: Select this if you want &brandShortName; to display the zoom controls in the status bar of your browser window.
  - Resize large images to fit in the browser window: Select this if you want &brandShortName; to automatically shrink large stand-alone images so they will fit in the browser window. Clicking on the resized image will make it appear at full size.
- Use hardware acceleration when available: Select this to let &brandShortName; use hardware acceleration (if available) to render web sites. If you experience problems with the visual presentation of web content, disabling hardware acceleration may solve the issue.
- Warn me when websites try to redirect or reload the page: Select this to let &brandShortName; block automatic meta redirection (HTTP-EQUIV=refresh) requests by default. When a redirect is supposed to be executed, a notification bar is shown instead which allows you to permit the redirect on a case-by-case basis.

Note: See the separate preferences panels for colors, fonts and languages to further customize content appearance and the Privacy & Security section for privacy-related settings that also might influence how content appears to you.

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## Appearance Preferences - Fonts

This section describes how to use the Fonts preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, click Fonts. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Appearance to expand the list.)

The Fonts preferences panel allows you to set page font type and size.

Note: Some font styles may not be selectable because the selected language does not have fonts available for that style.

- Fonts for: Choose a language group/script. For instance, to set default fonts for West European languages/script (Latin), choose Western. For Unicode or a language/script not yet in the list, choose Unicode. For more information, including User Defined, see Selecting Text Encodings and Fonts.
  All settings below, except for the checkbox, are stored per language group; each can have its own set of font definitions.
  - Proportional: Select whether proportional text should be serif (like Times Roman) or sans-serif (like Arial). You can also specify what font size you want for proportional text. Proportional text is variable in width, so characters and letters vary in width.
  - Serif: Select a serif font you want to use for web pages.
  - Sans-serif: Select a sans-serif font you want to use for web pages.
  - Cursive: Select a cursive font you want to use for web pages.
  - Fantasy: Select a fantasy font you want to use for web pages.
  - Monospace: Select a monospace font (like Courier) and size you want to use for web pages. Monospace text is fixed in width, so each character or letter takes the same amount of space.
  - Minimum font size: Select the smallest font size you want to be shown on web pages.
- Allow documents to use other fonts: Select this checkbox to keep a web page's font and size settings instead of your own preferences.

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## Appearance Preferences - Colors

This section describes how to use the Colors preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, click Colors. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Appearance to expand the list.)

The Colors preferences panel allows you to set the background and text colors on web pages, mail/news messages, and feeds:

- Text and Background: Click the colored blocks to select a color for displaying text and backgrounds on web pages and messages.
  - Use system colors: Select this to use the colors defined by your system settings (usually the desktop theme) rather than choosing the colors yourself.
- Link Colors: Click the colored blocks to select a color for displaying unvisited, active, and visited links on web pages and messages.
  - Underline links: Select this to display underlined links on web pages and messages.
- When a web page provides its own colors and backgrounds:
  - Always use the colors and background specified by the web page: Allows web pages and messages to choose displayed colors and backgrounds. Your own colors will be used if no colors are defined by the content itself.
  - Use my chosen colors, ignoring the colors and background image specified: All content uses your own display colors, ignoring the web page or message colors and any background image.
  - Only ignore the page colors when using a High Contrast theme: Allows web pages and messages to choose displayed colors and backgrounds, unless an accessibility desktop theme is used, in which case your own colors will be used.

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## Appearance Preferences - Media

This section describes how to use the Media preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, click Media. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Appearance to expand the list.)

The Media preferences panel allows you to determine how to handle audio and video content as well as image animation:

- Enable Autoplay of HTML5 media content:
  - Check this option to automatically play audio or video media as soon as such content is loaded.
  - Uncheck this option if you want such media to play only when you explicitly request it.
- Animated images should loop: These settings control how many times animated images repeat their animation:
  - As many times as the image specifies: Select this if you want image animation to repeat as many times as specified within each image. (This option is selected by default.)
  - Once: Select this if you want image animation to occur once, overriding the number of times specified within each image.
  - Never: Select this if you do not want image animation.

Note: This options apply to HTML5 media and animated images (e.g., GIF or PNG) only, thus not to any media handled by a plugin.

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## Appearance Preferences - Spelling

This section describes how to use the Spelling preferences panel. If you're not already viewing it, follow these steps:

1. Open the &brandShortName; Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Under the Appearance category, click Spelling. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Appearance to expand the list.)

The Spelling preferences panel allows you to determine how spelling is handled throughout &brandShortName;:

- General:
  - Language: Use the drop-down list to select the language you want to use to check the spelling in your messages or to download more dictionaries.
  - When typing, check my spelling: Use the drop-down list to select if and how your typing is spell checked.
- Mail & Newsgroups:
  - Check spelling before sending: Select this option to have Mail & Newsgroups always check the spelling of your message before you send it.
  - Check spelling as you type: Select this option to have Mail & Newsgroups always check the spelling of your message as you type it.

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