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I recently answered my first question over on Programmers.SE (PSE) and noticed that the font for my code snippets was smaller and looked a lot nicer than my snippets on Stack Overflow. Is it possible to reduce the font size of my code Markdown content here on Stack Overflow to match that of Programmers.SE?

I typically program in a 6-8 pt font, so I can get as much code on the screen as possible and just really liked the way the Markdown content looked on PSE as compared to Stack Overflow.

Just a note, my browser text size is already small, so reducing that overall isn't an option.

Also, I'm not looking to get this changed for everybody across the entire site as I know changing all the Markdown content on the site to match my preferences would be a bit drastic. I'm looking for a way I can change this through some sort of preferences I might not know about or some other method, so that it appears different for me.

Here's an example of the difference I'm seeing taken straight from two answers I've given.

Example of the difference.

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    Just for the record, as far as I can tell, I see the same font and size on both sites.
    – Daniel Fischer
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 18:42
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    It appears to only be a 2pt difference between the two but, just looking at the both of them side by side, it looks like a big difference.
    – Michael Celey
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 18:50
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    I see no such difference even having them directly next to each other. Browser thing?
    – Daniel Fischer
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 18:59
  • I thought that first but I don't alter my browser in any way whatsoever. I run the latest stable release of Chrome for Linux.
    – Michael Celey
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 18:59
  • Just took a look in Konqueror, indeed there the fontsize on Software Engineering is smaller. I'm not sure it's a different font, but tend to believe so. It's identical in SeaMonkey.
    – Daniel Fischer
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 19:06
  • @DanielFischer: Stack Overflow: font-family: Arial,Liberation Sans,DejaVu Sans,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; - Programmers: font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; - So depending on which fonts you have installed, you'd get slightly different views.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 19:18
  • I agree with this post: the first code block is a lot easier to grasp at a glance. But to each their own.
    – WestCoastProjects
    Commented Sep 18, 2018 at 4:26
  • "PSE" is ambiguous. It has also been used for Physics.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 20:51
  • Programmers was renamed to Software Engineering in 2016.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 20:52

2 Answers 2

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No, there is no way to explicitly change the font-size at all within a post (some people do use headers and the <sub> element to achieve the effect though).

The font-size is specific to each site. Each site expects that the font will always be the same size, so changing the font-size on Stack Overflow to match Programmers would throw a lot of people off here because they don't expect it.

Formatting a post is meant to make it easier for everyone to read, not for you to make it match other sites - that's what user styles are for.

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  • I understand changing how the markdown looks for everybody or even changing how my posts appear from other people's posts would be ridiculous. I was looking for a way to make the markdown look smaller to me through some sort of preferences or other such method. I have updated my question to reflect this.
    – Michael Celey
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 18:59
  • @MCeley: Stack Exchange does not keep any preferences of the such. You're better off installing a plugin, such as Stylish, and writing your own CSS styles to manually override the ones on the site.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 19:05
  • @OP If you are using Chrome, download a CSS injector extension and use that. There is one called Stylize (something like that) that I use, but I'm not at my computer right now.
    – Cole Tobin
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 19:11
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    I wouldn't touch those extensions with a ten foot pole. They make every page on the web take slightly longer to load. You can see it in the debugger's rendering timeline.
    – Abhi Beckert
    Commented Jul 8, 2013 at 0:45
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I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a plugin for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. It's called Stylus.

You can set custom website styles and have them be permanently applied. (By Permanent I mean, until you uninstall the plugin). But you can add this plugin and simply add * { font-size: 9pt; } and make it target stack overflow.

How to reduce the font-size for StackOverflow.com

It's really easy and takes barely 3 minutes.

PS: I may or may not be half a decade late.

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