How do I increase font (text) size of email message in Windows Live Mail?

I am having some difficulty with Windows Live Mail. Changing the fonts of the actual application is easy and has worked well, as you suggest in your post. However, the biggest and as yet insurmountable problem, is reading the actual emails that I receive, many of which have a text size so small that is still impossible to read, without getting out my spyglass!! Is there any way to increase the font size of the email message in Windows Live Mail other than writing to each sender and asking them to increase them?
Lucy Avilez

Font size in Windows Live Mail email program can be changed quickly by clicking “View” -> “Text Size” and choosing an option. However, this works only for messages received (and viewed) as plain text. Thus, if you get emails with fancy formatting or images, the steps I detailed in how to change the font size in Windows Live Mail will not work.

Make email text larger – increase font size in Windows Live Mail

So if you have a message with really tiny letters and want to make the text larger, the quick and dirty trick is to view the email in plain text format. This will remove all the fancy formatting, colors and images and present you a plain vanilla message. Windows Live Mail also lets you increase the size of the message text by keeping the Ctrl key depressed and moving the scroll wheel on the mouse.

FYI, the small text in the message was because of the embedded formatting. Once this is done away with, Windows Live Mail will display text in an easily readable format.

Here are the instructions you need to follow:

1. Select the message. As you can see from Slide 1, the email is from Facebook and has fancy formatting and images.
2. Click “Tools” from the top menu and select “Options“. To get the Windows Live Mail toolbar, hit the Alt key on the keyboard [Slides 2 and 3].
3. Move to the “Read” tab and check the “Read all messages in plain text” option [Slide 4].
4. Hit the “Apply” button followed by “OK” [Slide 5].
5. The email message will now be stripped of all fancy formatting and images and will be shown to you in plain text format [Slide 6].
6. The text size of the email message should now be comfortable to read. If not, hold down the Ctrl key and use the scroll wheel of your mouse (or the vertical strip on the touchpad) to make the font size larger or smaller [Slide 7].

Conclusion: Emails that have been composed in HTML format can contain images and fancy formatting. The text size in such messages is primarily controlled by embedded styles. To increase the font (text) size change the ‘view mode’ to plain text which will get rid of all the formatting and present the email text in a larger font. To increase further, click the Ctrl key and use the scroll wheel on the mouse.