Why My Cursor IDE Chat Was Unreadable and How I Fixed It with Simple CSS Tweaks

Staring at Cursor IDE’s chat panel was giving me headaches. The font was tiny and the lines were cramped together, making long conversations a real pain to read — especially on my 13-inch laptop screen. After weeks of squinting and leaning in, I found a simple fix that completely changed my experience.

The Core Problem

Here’s the issue: in Cursor IDE, the chat panel’s font is way smaller than the editor’s text. It caused me serious eye strain and made reading a chore. I tried adjusting the global zoom, but that just blew up icons and other UI elements. It ate up my precious screen space without actually fixing the chat’s readability.

My Step-by-Step Solution

After some trial and error, I found that the APC Customize UI extension was the key. It lets you inject custom CSS. Here’s how I fixed my chat panel:

• First, grab the APC Customize UI++ extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace and install it.
• Next, open your settings.json file. You can do this by opening the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+P on Mac).
• Then, add this code snippet to target the chat panel’s styling:

"apc.stylesheet": {
".anysphere-markdown-container-root": "font-size: 16px !important; line-height: 1.5 !important;",
".view-line": "font-size: 14px !important;",
".aislash-editor-input": "font-size: 15px !important; line-height: 1.5 !important;"
}

Feel free to adjust the font-size and line-height values to your liking. For me, 16px and a line-height of 1.5 made everything crystal clear.

Why This Approach Works

This CSS override hones in on the chat panel’s specific classes. It boosts readability without messing with the editor or terminal. It’s a quick fix that uses VSCode’s built-in extensibility, giving you control until there’s native support.

Handling Common Issues

Sometimes the extension might act up on Linux or HiDPI displays. If that happens, try increasing the global zoom level and then dialing down the editor font size in your settings. It’s not a perfect workaround, but it can help. For me, this little tweak has been a lifesaver — it wiped away my frustration and made coding in Cursor IDE way more enjoyable.