Tip: How to change fonts in the Mail app

FONTS!

Apple. They know style, but they do like to push their vision of it in our face a little. Case in point: the Mail app. Possibly the only HTML mail client I know of that has no option to choose a font. But there is a sneaky way around it that doesn’t require jailbreaking or any third-party apps. Read on for our simple but clever tip!

The secret, folks, is in the iPhone’s relatively new ability to copy and paste. Here’s how it works:

Step one

1. From your computer, open an email and address it to yourself. Type ‘Fonts’ in the subject line. In the body of the email, simply type the name of some fonts that you’re likely to want to use (e.g. Verdana, Arial) in those fonts. Not all fonts work on the iPhone (for example, Comic Sans has been mercifully left out!) so you may have to experiment with your collection to see what works and what doesn’t. Send the email.

Step two

2. Open the email on your iPhone and select the font you want by pressing on it briefly and selecting ‘copy’ from the dialogue that pops up.

Step three

3. Compose a new email and in the main body of the mail paste your font. Start a new line and start typing your email — the mail app will carry on using the font that you just pasted in! When you’re done, delete the font name you pasted in and send. Job done! Keep your ‘fonts’ email somewhere handy where it won’t get deleted (like in its own folder perhaps), and you’ll be good to use them whenever the need arises.

We’d love to see Apple add in some font control in the next release of the OS — yes, the built-in font is beautiful in its simplicity but sometimes you just yearn for a bit more choice and clearly the device is capable of providing it. Enjoy!