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How to Easily Change the Font Size in WordPress

Do you want to change the font size in your WordPress posts or pages?

Sometimes you may want to make a line or a paragraph larger, or you might want to increase the font size on the entire page.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily change the font size in WordPress posts and themes.

How to change font size in WordPress

Video Tutorial

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If you’d prefer written instructions, just keep reading.

Method 1: Using Paragraph Headings

Using headings in your content is a great way to grab user attention with a larger-size font. In most WordPress themes, headings are in a larger font than regular body text. They allow you to break your posts and pages into sections.

Headings are great for SEO as well. Search engines give proper headings more weight than normal paragraph text.

How to add a heading in the default WordPress block editor

You can add a heading to your posts or pages by simply adding the ‘Heading’ block. You can search for it or find it in the ‘Text’ section in the WordPress block editor.

Add a heading block

The block will default to Heading 2. Normally, it makes sense to stick with Heading 2 for your subheadings. If you want to change this, then you can simply click on the ‘H2’ drop-down to select a different size.

Change heading from h2

Alternatively, you can change this in the block settings on the right-hand side of the screen. You can also change the heading’s color there as well.

How to add a heading in the older Classic Editor

If you are still using the older classic editor in WordPress, then you can add headings using the ‘Paragraph’ drop-down.

Just highlight the text that you want to turn into a heading, click the ‘Paragraph’ drop-down, and select your heading size.

Choose heading in classic editor

The sizes and colors of the different Heading styles are controlled by your theme’s stylesheet (style.css).

If you’re using a premium WordPress theme, then you may have the option to change these settings under Appearance » Customize.

Method 2: Changing the Size of the Text in the Block Editor

What if you want to have a paragraph or even your whole post in a larger font? You can do this easily using the default WordPress block editor.

Just click on any paragraph block, then select the font size under ‘Typography’ on the right-hand side.

Typography settings

You can select from the drop-down, which covers Small, Normal, Medium, Large, and Huge. If you change your mind, then just click the ‘Reset’ button to set your paragraph back to the default text.

There’s also a ‘Custom’ option where you can simply type in the pixel size that you’d like. If you want, you can also set a large Drop Cap to appear at the start of your paragraph.

These options aren’t available in the older classic editor for WordPress. If you want to use them, then think about making the switch. Our tutorial on how to use the new WordPress block editor will help you.

If you are determined to stick with the classic editor, then this next option is for you.

Method 3: Change Font Size Using Advanced Editor Tools

Advanced Editor Tools, previously known as TinyMCE Advanced, is a WordPress plugin that gives you more control over font sizes and text formatting, as well as a range of other features.

This is particularly useful with the older classic editor, but it also works with the block editor. It adds a new block called “Classic Paragraph” that has all the formatting controls.

To use it, you’ll first need to install and activate the Advanced Editor Tools plugin. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, go to Settings » Advanced Editor Tool (TinyMCE Advanced) to configure the editor settings. This is where you can set up the buttons you want to use in the TinyMCE Advanced toolbar.

If you’re using it with the Classic editor, then you should see that TinyMCE has the ‘Font Size’ drop-down enabled by default in the second row of icons.

You can move it to the first row by dragging it upwards if you want.

Advanced editor tools classic editor font size

If you’re using the block editor, then you’ll need to scroll down the screen and add the Font Sizes drop-down to the toolbar by dragging and dropping it.

Add font size to toolbar

Make sure you click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the screen.

To see the button in action, create a new post or edit an existing one.

In the block editor, you’ll now have the option to add a ‘Classic Paragraph’ block. It will have the Advanced controls, like this:

Advanced editor tools classic editor font size

In the classic editor, you’ll see the toolbars with a font size drop-down:

Change font in classic editor

You can select any font size from the drop-down.

Note: this doesn’t give you as many options as the WordPress block editor, and you can’t type in your own font size.

Method 4: Change Site-Wide Font Size Using CSS

If you are changing font sizes every time you edit a post, then you may want to make it easier by changing it permanently in your theme.

The good news is that you can change the default paragraph size across your whole site. The best way to do this is by using the Theme Customizer under Appearance » Customize.

Some WordPress themes may come with an option for you to change the font size. If you can find this option, then you can use it without writing CSS code.

However, if your theme does not have that feature, then you can add custom CSS to add your own font size rules.

Simply click on the ‘Additional CSS’ option in the theme customizer. This is where you can store all your custom CSS code.

Add additional CSS

Now under the additional CSS text box, simply add your CSS code. In this example, we are changing the font size to ’16px’, you can choose a different font size.

p {
font-size:16px;
}

You’ll immediately see the changes on the preview on the right-hand side of the screen. If you’re happy with the font size, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top of your screen to make it live.

Note: Your custom CSS will only be applied to the theme you’re using. If you later choose to switch to a different WordPress theme, you’ll need to copy and paste it into the Customizer again.

The above code only applies to paragraph text. What if you wanted to change the font size of all h2 sub-headings?

Simply modify the above code to target the h2 element in your theme like this:

h2 {
font-size:32px;
}

You can do the same thing with other headings as well by simply changing h2 to h3, h4, or h5.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily change the font size in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to use custom fonts in WordPress or our list of the best drag & drop WordPress page builder plugins.

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Reader Interactions

176 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Thank you so much for this! I was afraid I’d have to buy a premium theme to make such small changes. This helped tons! :)

  2. This was so helpful! The font on my site was so small. Quick question, is there a way to do this for lists in the block editor? I noticed they are still the same size after adding the code to my css editor.

  3. Thank you for this post. I use astra theme and have implemented the custom css method for paragraph.

    Thank you again

  4. Thanks for being a reliable source of factual information pertaining to wordpress.

    Would appreciate an easy way to change light grey fonts to a more easily readable black.

  5. Nice video, but I was looking for a way to decrease the size of the font in my post title. Any resources you could direct me to?
    Thank you.

  6. I was actually looking for something like TINY MCE, thanks for the help.
    You are doing a great job, keep it up!

  7. Hi, I want to change the default wordpress font size. I tried to add it in additional css. But it did not work. Please suggest me what to do. Thanks

  8. I want to add a tiny text at the right size of image like a source link refer to image from…

    Help me how can I do this?

  9. Hey,
    I was confused about the size of font. What is the size of font you are using in wpbeginner

    Either way, Your articles are best keep it up!

    Cheers,
    Habib

  10. Hello!
    I tried to change the font sizes (body+headings) in CSS but wasn’t successful;

    Something went wrong. Your change may not have been saved. Please try again. There is also a chance that you may need to manually fix and upload the file over FTP.

    What should I do? Your comments would be greatly appreciated ☺️

    • It would depend on where you are adding the code, are you under Appearance>Customize>Additional CSS?

      Admin

  11. With the new version of WordPress, this does not work. I am not sure why the article lists as 4/19 because some comments are a lot older.

    • The date updates even if we edit out typos, these methods should work with the classic editor and for the block editor, there is the option to change the font size in the paragraph’s block settings.

      Admin

  12. My theme is Sydney The articles’ titles are too big in mobile. Is there a way to change them without coding and without plugins. I use Elementor.

    • If you’re using Elementor, then it should have options to change the font size in the design options for what you’re using to display the post. If you’re not customizing your layout with Elementor it would require CSS or reaching out to the theme’s support.

      Admin

  13. I want to change the site title font on my self-hosted wordpress site and cannot get a simple answer as to how to do that. can you help?

  14. In the video, at 28 seconds, the editor is shown. There are all kinds of tools in the button bar.

    My dashboard doesn’t have that editor. There are, in fact, no buttons at all, just a text box with giant text in it.

    So, how do I get access to a real editor like you have?

    Jim

  15. What if you want to make the title smaller but the tagline bigger? Being able to dictate fonts and sizes of text in posts is great, but how about the title and tagline?

    • My old WP theme appears to have coded Heading 1 in 12 pt font like normal text. I manually change each heading to 14 pt. But then the coding doesn’t say “h1” which Google robots look for. If I use your plugin(which is cool) and change heading font sizes, will they still be labeled h1, h2, h3? Also, I don’t want to change fonts on pages already customized. Can I apply the plugin to blog posts only? Thanks.

  16. The use of px (or pt) in this Guide is not recommendable, because on small Screens like on Smartphones the font size is very small. Its better to use em.

  17. I want to enlarge Excel spreadsheets in my posts. I snip them and upload them via Add Media. But I don’t see a way to increase the font size of these uploads.
    So…. I increased the font size in my spreadsheet and then snipped and uploaded the spreadsheet with the larger font – but it still appears as the original size.
    Is there any way to increase the font size in the post as it currently is too small to be easily read (there are several columns in my spreadsheet)?

    • Hi Andrew,

      We are not sure we fully understand your question. If you are uploading your spreadsheet as an image file, then its dimensions will depend on your post container. Let’s suppose your post container or content area is 600px wide, then your theme will automatically shrink the image to fit in the container. You can also try selecting full size image before inserting it into your post.

      Admin

      • Hi, thanks for sharing, very useful indeed. Is there a way to also adjust the font size of the title, or maybe better done in CSS (and if so, how)? thanks again!

  18. I use tinymcv plugin to change the font size. but when i press enter and go to the next line the font size will be default value which is 9pt. How can I change the default value to 12pt.

  19. Thanks for the post. But I want to know more… I want to make the bigger size of some special word in a sentence without any plugin. Special words in a sentence. e.g. we are doing in MS word. Can it possible? Hope your answer.

    • Hi jitendra to do that open your text editor.

      and type “font-size: 120%;”

      For example:

       Your text

      You can change the font % by any value. I hope it will help you.

  20. Thanks for the video and info, but I can’t change single lines of font sizes when writing a blog post.
    In Visual Editor when I select “Heading 1” or “Heading 2” it changes the entire entry, but I only need to change that one line. I have to double space to make that happen without changing everything else. But then the spacing is wrong because it doesn’t need to be double spaced. Please help. And is there any other way to change font by font size (11, 12, 14, etc) instead of the preselected “Heading 1” “Heading 2”, etc.? Because TinyMCE didn’t work for me. Thanks!

  21. What are you talking about, WordPress? Just make a simple option to increase the font size! Not widgets that don’t work with some themes or they work for one paragraph etc. Because the Paragraph tab give either too small a font, or weirdly formatted, hard to read. Why is it so hard to just add an option to increase the size wit a button?…

    • Not kidding. This should not be this difficult. Every time I hit return it reverts back to the original size. Do I really have to select the font size for every single paragraph?

  22. Hi. Thank you. I am learning how to edit font size, font type and spacing. This is a big help.

  23. Hi, first of all thank you for all the knowlege available on this site. It’s great !
    I followed instructions from this article, but I still can’t change to font size in headers. I installed both TinyMCE and Google fonts. I am able to change font styles but not the size.

    Thank you,
    Anna

  24. Thanks for this great post. It worked for me. I can now edit font family, change font size, underline text, highlight text and even insert table. Thanks.

  25. I just updated my site and theme. I am having a weird issue of my woocommerce product titles having bigger fonts than they were before updates. i have tried custom css from other forums and wondering if maybe I can get an option here.. Kindly advise.

    • Hey Philip,

      Have you tested your website with different browsers and devices to make sure that it is not an issue with your browser settings. After that try reaching out to your theme developer, they will be able to tell you whats changed in the new version or if there is a better way to solve this issue.

      Admin

  26. Is there a simple way to set a new default font size in WP?
    I have been manually setting to a larger font to improve readability but the theme doesn’t like it and tends to revert back to default whenever I press ENTER and also the paragraph headings don’t work when I’m inside text with the new size.
    I’d have thought this would have been one of the first features to include in WP themes. The current default font is very small and I find it hard to read.
    Thanks, Thomas.

    • Hi Thomas,

      You can go to Appearance » Customize and click on the Additional CSS tab.

      Then in the CSS box on the left panel, add this CSS at the end of whatever text/code you see there.

      body { 
      font-size:16px; 
      }
      

      You will see font size change in the live preview. Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save & Publish’ button on top.

      Admin

      • This is so ridiculous and why I’m having a hard time with WP. It should be just as Word. You highlight the text and select from 100’s of fonts. Why does WP make this so difficult for the lay person? Can this not be changed?

  27. How do you change the font size of the title….I am not talking about content I mean the page title located at the very top of a page..

  28. My website I am unable to write post using advance tinymce. I have already installed the advance tinymce plug in , but it works for adding job only. It doesn’t work for post writing. I have tried a lot to change the same. but it does not work,, How to change font now

  29. i have also a Hindi Language blog, i have installed theme but i am unable to change font size in the theme, , my blog is Hindi Blog, all words are showing good expect Hindi font. can you help me

      • Thanks for the msg, my problem has solved, i have added this code in the theme

        .entry-content p {
        font-size: 16px !important;
        }

        after that font showing good

  30. Another way to change the size is to switch to text view in the TinyMCE editor, wrap the text you wish to change size on and use html tags and attributes to change the size of the text. An example is one below:

    This text will be 65% of the normal size of text on the page

  31. Hello, I’m trying to change Title font size of my post. I previewed my post and the title size looks too small. How do I make the title size bigger? I am using Awaken Theme on WordPress. I don’t know how to change code in style.css

  32. Very elaborative and to the point I loved the video it made change the whole look of my site

  33. Hi,

    I am trying to change the font size in my menu above my pages, how do I do that?

    Thanks very much

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