Character Size

CharSize is the keyword that changes the size of the font. The default value is "1" which provides a normal sized font. You can increase or decrease it with decimals such as 1.5.

Here are 3 ways that accomplish the same task--to make a graph with "normal-sized" characters:

Plot, xvalues, yvalues, XTitle='X axis', $
YTitle='Y axis', Title='My Graph'

Plot, xvalues, yvalues, XTitle='X axis', $
YTitle='Y axis', Title='My Graph', $
CharSize=1

Plot, xvalues, yvalues, XTitle='X axis',$
YTitle='Y axis', Title='My Graph', $
/CharSize

!P.CharSize = 2
Plot, xvalues, yvalues, XTitle='X axis', XCharSize=0.5, $
YTitle='Y axis', YCharSize=1, Title='My Graph'

The code shown above created this graph. Using !P.CharSize at the beginning changes the the size of all plot annotations to 2X the normal size (see the graph title, 'My Graph'). In this case, I chose to change the X and Y axis annotation sizes to demonstrate the proper syntax. With the X axis, I had to use an XCharSize of 0.5 to make it "normal" in size because the system has been set to 2. Half of 2 is 1, which is "normal." The YCharSize was made 1, but since it the system size is 2, 1 x 2 = 2 and the text is large. Note that the size of the numbers corresponding to axis ticks are the same size as the axis labels. See axis title example to learn how to make the axis titles larger than the axis values.

Character Thickness You can increase the thickness of the characters with the keyword charthick. (Remember your graph will look much better than this tiny jpg version of a graph).

This is the default:

x=findgen(5)
y=findgen(5)
!p.charsize=2
plot, x,y, xtitle='X Axis', ytitle='Y Axis'

And this is what the graph looks like with thicker characters:

x=findgen(5)
y=findgen(5)
!p.charsize=2
plot, x,y, xtitle='X Axis', ytitle='Y Axis', CharThick=10