Make more space in a Safari form

Make more space in a Safari form
Mac Tip #389, 17 June 2009

Frustrated with trying to type into a tiny space on a web form? Safari lets you make the text entry field bigger. Here’s how.

Note: this Tip was written using Safari Version 4.0 (5530.17) on Mac OS 10.5.7. If you’re using older versions of Safari or the Mac OS your experiences may differ.

The text area on this form in Safari is pretty small.

Often the forms on websites don’t give you nearly enough space to type in what you want to say.

The screenshot here shows the Contact form on MacTips. When I set the form up I allowed about 7 lines of 7 or 8 words. That’s not a lot, but actually it’s a lot bigger than some forms provide.

Make more space

Look carefully at a form in a recent version of Safari though, and you should be able to see some small diagonal lines at the bottom right corner of the text field. You may not see them on all fields. For example, on my Contact form the lines don’t appear on the Name, Email or Website fields. They do appear on the Message field though.

Drag the bottom right corner to enlarge the text area

Those small lines create a handle. Drag the handle to the right, or down, or both, and the form expands.

There. Now you can see what you’re trying to type. And scroll up and down with ease.

Let the novel-length comments begin.