Can anyone tell me how to increase the text size in my menu bar and drop down menus?

Question

Just bought a new 27" screen iMac.  The menu bar and drop down menu text is much to small for me to see without leaning close to the screen.  Does anyone know how to customize the text to a larger size.  This is an issue for any program I open.

Answer 1

Once upon a time Apple displays packed in 72 dots to an inch (making their resolution 72 DPI). That meant that what we saw on screen at 100% scale was exactly what was printed on a printer - not to mention quite comfortable to read. However that advantage was eclipsed by the fact that photopgraphs and video were pixelated and the only solution to that was to increase the resolution - to pack in more dots per inch - which has the side effect of shrinking the size of text. Where I once used Word at 100% scale I now find it most comfortable at 150% scale.
There are several solutions. One, as Lex gave you, was to reduce the resolution of the LCD display. But unlike CRT displays, an LCD is tuned to a specific resolution and when you change it the results tend to be blurry. Another is to keep the resolution as it is and to adjust each program (if the program allows it). This makes Word usable and your browser can be set to use no font smaller than a size you set (which has some unpleasant side affects at some Web sites), but some programs and some parts of programs cannot be changed. The menubar and menus are among them. The third solution is one that Apple promised several years ago but has not yet provided - a resolution independant GUI. We can only hope that comes soon. And there's another partial solution - look in System Preferences under Accessibility.