How to zoom in on Xiaomi keyboard: the complete guide

Modern Xiaomi smartphones have huge high-resolution screens that allow you to display a lot of information, but the standard font size on a virtual keyboard often remains too small for comfortable use. Visually impaired users or simply prefer large interface elements can have difficulty typing quickly, constantly hitting the wrong buttons. Fortunately, the MIUI shell and the Android operating system provide flexible tools to personalize the appearance.

In this article, we will take a look at all the ways you can scale up the size of your keyboard, from standard system settings to advanced scaling techniques. You will learn how to tailor your interface to your needs without losing the functionality of your device. Scaling affects not only the keyboard but other interface elements as well, so it's important to understand the relationship between these parameters.

We will look at the settings of the built-in Gboard keyboard, which is the standard for most Xiaomi devices, and also touch on the features of working with the Sogou Keyboard in Chinese versions of firmware.

System settings font in MIUI

The first and most obvious step to increase letter size is to change the system settings of the font. In Xiaomi smartphones, this parameter affects the entire interface, including the signatures under the icons, the settings menu and, importantly, the size of the keys on some keyboards. To find these settings, you need to go to the Settings menu → Screen → Text and Image Size.

Here you'll see a slider that adjusts the size of the font, and a second slider that scales the interface elements, and moving the text size slider to the right will enlarge the letters in all supported applications, but it's worth noting that the standard Gboard keyboard doesn't always respond directly to this change, because it has its own display priorities.

More effective in this context is the second slider, element size (or Scale), which makes all buttons, input fields, and controls get bigger, and this can automatically make the keys on the on-screen keyboard bigger, as they adjust to the available screen space to accommodate the new scale.

⚠️ Warning: Excessive zoom of items may cause some apps to display incorrectly, and some buttons in the menu may go beyond the visible area of the screen.

If standard sliders aren't enough, we can take advantage of the hidden possibilities for developers, but we'll talk about that in the next sections, but for now, we'll focus on what the system itself gives us without undue interference.

Setting the size of the keys in Gboard

Since most Xiaomi users use Google’s standard Gboard keyboard, it’s the settings that are key to solving the problem of fine text. Unlike system settings, here you can resize the keyboard without affecting the rest of the interface. Open any application that requires text input to call the keyboard, and click on the settings icon (cog) on the top bar.

From the settings menu, select Settings → Preferences → Keyboard height. There are five options available, from Very Small to Very Large. The choice of Very Large will stretch the keyboard vertically as much as possible, making the letters and buttons themselves much larger. This is the most efficient way to increase the touch area without losing image quality.

You can also find a theme in Gboard settings, some themes have larger fonts or contrast letters initially, which makes reading easier visually. Go to Topics and choose a large character option, or create your theme where you can customize the color and, in some versions, the style of the font.

It's important to understand that changing the height of the keyboard affects the proportional increase of all elements, including letters. If you only need to increase the font, but not the height of the buttons, this is difficult to do with standard Gboard tools, and you will have to resort to the system zoom described earlier.

Using the scaling mode for the visually impaired

For users who are critical to see each character, Android has built-in zoom. It's not just zoom, but a special accessibility mode that allows you to temporarily enlarge the contents of the screen. You can activate it through the Settings path → Advanced Settings → Special Features → Enlarge.

Once this function is enabled, a magnification button will appear on the screen, or a triple-press action will be assigned to the screen. When you activate this mode during printing, the keyboard and the letters on it will increase to a huge size, occupying the entire screen, which allows you to consider small text, but for permanent printing, this method can be inconvenient because you have to constantly turn on and off the zoom.

There is also a large text setting in the special features section that compels you to make fonts as large as possible throughout the system. Enabling this option is guaranteed to increase the letters on the keyboard if it supports system accessibility standards. Activation path: Settings → Advanced Settings → Special Features → Visual → Large text.

⚠️ Note: Enabling large text mode may cause some third-party applications to crop or overlap text due to space constraints.

Sogou keyboard settings for Chinese firmware

Owners of smartphones imported from China or using global firmware with Chinese roots often encounter the Sogou keyboard.It has its own settings interface, different from Gboard. To change the size of the letters here, click on the keyboard logo (usually in the upper left corner) and select Settings or Skin & Layout.

In the Appearance or Layout section, you can find keyboard size sliders. Sogou allows you to adjust button height and font size independently of each other very flexibly, which gives you an advantage over standard solutions, because you can make the letters huge, leaving the keyboard itself compact, or vice versa.

Sogou also has special themes with enlarged fonts, so you can search for "Big Font" or "Large Keys" in the theme store and download the finished skin, and after you use the theme, the letters will become bolder and larger, which will significantly improve readability when typing.

If standard settings do not give the desired result, you can try to reset the keyboard settings to factory and re-set the initial setting, where sometimes you are asked to choose the font size. → About the programme → Resetting settings.

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Use themes with a contrasting black background and white letters – this creates the illusion of a larger and clearer font, reducing the load on the eyes.

Advanced Methods: Engineering Menu and ADB

For power users who want to gain full control over font display, there are methods through debugging. USB team ADB. This method allows you to change the density of pixels (DPI) It's a system that directly affects the size of all the elements, including the letters on the keyboard. ADB Driver.

Connect your smartphone to your PC, enable USB debugging in the Developer Menu, and type a command to change density. The standard value for Xiaomi is often 390 or 411 dpi. Reducing that number will make all the elements larger.

adb shell wm density 320

Once you input the command and reboot the device, all interface elements, including the keyboard, will become significantly larger. However, it is critically important not to set a value too low (less than 300 dpi), as this can make the interface unusable, and it will be difficult to return the settings back without resetting the data.

Return the initial density value can be commanded:

adb shell wm density reset

This is a very cautious approach, and changing the DPI can affect some applications that aren't customized to resolutions, and it's a powerful tool, but it's designed for enthusiasts rather than for ordinary users.

Comparison of methods of increasing the font

To make it easier for you to choose the right method, we have prepared a comparative table of basic methods, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages depending on your goals and model of the smartphone.

When you choose a method, focus on how annoying you are with small print elsewhere in the system. If the problem is only in the keyboard, Gboard settings are enough. If you find it difficult to read all menus, you should use system zoom.

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The combination of system scale and Gboard keyboard height settings gives the best visual result without losing font quality.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)