---
description: "Jotaid's three themes (light, paper, dark), the interface text size, and language settings — and where each one lives on macOS and iOS."
---
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# Appearance & Themes

Jotaid keeps its appearance settings in one place: on **macOS**, press **⌘,** and open Settings → **General**; on **iOS**, the **Appearance** section of the settings page.

## Three Themes

A theme applies to both the interface and your note text (in the editor and the preview alike). Switching takes effect instantly — no restart.

| Theme | Character | Good for |
|-------|-----------|----------|
| **Light** | Clean cool-grey with blue as the single action colour (default) | Daytime, bright rooms |
| **Paper** | Warm off-white paper, cream greys and a coral accent | Long reading and writing sessions without a cold white screen |
| **Dark** | One Dark lineage: deep grey with a brightened blue | Night, dim rooms |

Plus **System**, which follows the OS between light and dark.

> **The light slot remembers**
>
> On System, the light half of the day returns to **the last light theme you picked**. Choose Paper once and switch back to System, and daytime stays Paper rather than reverting to Light.

## Interface Text Size

### macOS

**Settings → General → Text Size** is a five-step slider: **15 / 16 / 18 / 20 / 22 pt**.

The number on the scale is the size of your **note text**, and the whole interface — sidebar, toolbars, badges — scales by the same ratio. So it is both "make the body text bigger" and "make the interface denser or roomier".

On first launch Jotaid picks a starting step from the width of your main display: narrower screens such as a 13-inch MacBook Air start at **16pt**, wider ones at **18pt**. After that the step never moves on its own — plugging in an external display will not change it. Only you can.

### iOS

iOS has **no** such slider, because the system already provides one: **Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size**, and **Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Larger Text**. Jotaid follows both, scaling the interface and your notes together.

There is a ceiling: text grows up to the middle accessibility step and stops. Beyond that the sidebar, toolbars and canvas overlays break down, and a step you cannot actually use is worse than not offering it.

## Interface Language

**macOS**: Settings → General → **Language**.
**iOS**: Settings → Appearance → **Interface**.

On macOS, **restart the app** after changing it for the change to apply everywhere.

## Other Appearance Toggles

Also in General / Appearance, these change how a particular view renders:

| Toggle | What it does |
|--------|--------------|
| **Node Graph** | Draw the knowledge graph as a flat 2D layout or a rotatable 3D globe |
| **Canvas Connections** | Whether cards sharing a node get a line drawn between them on the canvas |

## Next Steps

- [macOS Interface](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/macos-interface) — The window, region by region
- [iPhone Interface](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/ios-interface) — Screen by screen
- [Note Formatting](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/markdown-editor) — How themes look in the body text