Change the "negative amount" font color from red to blue

Nantucketbob

I know that negative amounts (You are "in the red") is conventional, but monitors are blue-sensitive, not red sensitive. The Small Red Fonts are difficult to read, VERY difficult to read. My monitor is top-of-the-line.

UserDavidC

I disagree and do not want the font color to change.

However, if this idea is worked on, for me, Quicken must make this a preference choice and not just change the font color.

UKR

Nantucketbob said:

I know that negative amounts (You are "in the red") is conventional, but monitors are blue-sensitive, not red sensitive. The Small Red Fonts are difficult to read, VERY difficult to read. My monitor is top-of-the-line.

Did you check and adjust the color, contrast and brightness settings on your monitor? Sometimes that helps. Adjusting the ambient lighting in your room might also help.

Have you tried the following Compatibility settings?

Font size problems? Display issues? (Windows)

If you are using a version of Quicken at the Quicken 2019 US R 19.44 patch level or newer and you have previously made the following Compatibility change, please undo the change.
Users of other Quicken versions please try the following:

• Close Quicken !!! (This process won't work while Quicken is running!)
• Check the Compatibility tab settings in your Quicken Desktop program icon:
• In the Windows Start Menu right-click the Quicken icon. Select "Open File Location". This brings up a Windows File Explorer window. Right-click the highlighted Quicken shortcut line item.
  or
• Go to the traditional Windows Desktop and right-click the Quicken program icon.
• Now click Properties.
• Select the Compatibility tab.
• Uncheck all settings.
• Windows 7, 8.1: Check "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". 
  Windows 10:  Check "Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by:" and select "Application"  (also try the other available options repeating the entire procedure!)
• Be sure to uncheck the "Run this program in compatibility mode for [older Windows version]" setting.
• Click the "Change settings for all users" button.
• Click Apply and exit.
• Now start Quicken and see if that makes a difference.

Some additional tuning suggestions:

• Try this workaround for 4k monitors
  https://www.quicken.com/support/work-around-display-issues-high-resolution-monitors
• Unless absolutely required, try not to use "View / Use large fonts"
• Try setting the bank account registers to use a different font style or size: go to Edit / Preferences / Register, click the Fonts button and try different fonts.
• Try adjusting the bank account registers' row height: go to Edit / Preferences / Register, choose among the available Row Height choices: Compact, Comfortable or Standard
• If all else fails, try changing Windows Control Panel / Display options for "Make text and other items … smaller or larger" to use a different scaling level, but try not to exceed 125%

Chris_QPW

Nantucketbob said:

I know that negative amounts (You are "in the red") is conventional, but monitors are blue-sensitive, not red sensitive. The Small Red Fonts are difficult to read, VERY difficult to read. My monitor is top-of-the-line.

If you are having trouble seeing red on your monitor in Quicken it is either a problem like @UKR points out or you happen to be a bit "red color blind".  In truth everyone is "color blind".  As in if you have every taken a color blind test you will find that there are some colors that you can pick out better and some that you can't, this is true of everyone.  It is only the degree that changes with individuals.

Yes monitors are a bit better putting out blue than red (at least for most of the current technology), but that doesn't mean that they can't put out most colors very accurately.  And red on a white background stands out very well for most people.

For me I can see the blue and red here equally well.  The black is a bit harder to read, but that is mostly due to the fact that it is actual more "gray" than it is black (the black line I see with equal clarity to the blue and red numbers).


Note that whereas it might a good idea for Quicken Inc to allow for customizing such colors for this exact reason, I totally agree with @UserDavidC that it has to be optional.  I certainly don't want my negative balances to blend into the account names because they are both the same color.

TTSguy

I think if and when we go to dark mode, that will help the problem also.