A website looks weird

Updated at: Oct 13, 2024

Are you trying to use a website but for some reason everything just looks "weird"? Perhaps parts of it haven't loaded or the sizing is all wrong... Here's a few things you can try to fix the problem.

There's a few main ways that a website can "look weird", so lets go over them, and explore ways you might be able to fix the problem.

Hopefully our "general website troubleshooting guide" helped you find and fix the problem you're having with a website, but if not, here's a list of ways websites can look weird and how to fix them.

What's wrong with the website?

• The website looks too big or too small
• The images aren't loading
• The website is just black & white text (and maybe some images)

The website looks too big or too small

Is every thing on a website really big or really small? If it is, it's very possible that you've accidentally changed the amount of zoom on your web browser and this is what's changed the display size of the site for you.

Resetting the zoom in your web browser

The shortcut keys for resetting the browser zoom are the same for all the major browsers, so you can:

• On Windows and Linux: Press the Ctrl and 0 keys at the same time
• On macOS: Press the ⌘ Command and 0 keys at the same time

When you press both buttons at the same time, it should reset the zoom level to the default.

Images aren't loading

Problem with the website itself?

If none of the images on a website are loading, it's possible that the website itself is having some kind of problem and isn't sending the image files to you properly. You can try refreshing the page to see if they load on a subsequent attempt. If not, and if it's only one website that the images aren't loading on, then it could just be their site. You might want to contact them via their "Contact Us" page or "Help Desk" page and see if they can give you more information about it.

If all the images for a website aren't loading and displaying, you should check the Load Image permissions for the site.

Check image permissions in Chrome

If you're using Chrome and images aren't loading, you might have accidentally changed the image permissions for the site. Here's how to check them. With the website open in a tab, follow these instructions:

1. Click the Padlock next to the address bar: When you hover your mouse over it, the tooltip will say: "View site information"
2. Click "Site Settings" at the bottom of the menu that just appeared
3. Make sure the "Images" permission says "Allowed"

   If it says "Blocked" then this is why images aren't loading. Change the setting as you require.

Check image permissions in Safari

If images aren't loading in Safari, confirm that the Disable Images item in the Develop menu isn't ticked. If you don't even see a Develop menu item in Safari at the very top of your screen then the Developer options haven't been enabled and you probably haven't disabled images.

The website is just black & white text (and maybe some images)

Is the page loading but showing only black and white text in Times New Roman font, along with the images (and maybe some icons too)?

For example, screenshots of websites without stylesheets loaded:

If you load a website and it looks like this, then what's happening is that the file that says what colours, fonts, sizes, etc to use hasn't loaded from the server properly.

If you load a website and you can see what's on the page (text and maybe some images) but it doesn't have any styling (eg. all the text is black and white, links are blue or purple) then there's a very good chance that for some reason the Cascading Style Sheets haven't loaded properly.

There are a couple of main reasons something like this happens, but the first thing you can try is simply to reload the page and see if it works the second time. Hopefully by simply refreshing the page in your web browser, it will properly load the page.

If that didn't work, you can investigate the two main causes of missing website styles:

• The website has some kind of problem with the stylesheets

  If a website is just appearing as black and white text there might be some kind bug on the website that's causing the stylesheets to not load or work for you. There can be a number of reasons this might happen, most of which are out of your control. These reasons include:

  • The website's network has a problem and can't send you the style sheets
  • The website's code isn't using their stylesheets properly (perhaps they recently deployed some new code that doesn't work properly).

  Refreshing the page might help, but if the website is having a legitimate problem then unfortunately you'll just have to wait until they fix it.

• Your web browser has some kind of problem with the stylesheets

  If no styles are showing, your web browser might not be handling the Stylesheets from the website properly.

  Do you have any extensions that might be causing problems?

  Some web browser extensions might be causing problems with stylesheets; this can commonly happen with extensions that modify or block parts of the pages you view - in particular Adblockers and Privacy Extensions. If stylesheets aren't loading you can try disabling any extensions you are using and reload the page to see if that helps.

  If it does, then there might be a problem with that extension. Check if there's an update for it and if not, you might consider contacting the manufacturer of the extension and reporting the problem.

  Are stylesheets disabled in your web browser?

  Some browsers, such as Firefox and Safari let you disable loading stylesheets - doing this will cause websites to appear without any styling - just black and white text with images. If this isn't what you want, you should undo that setting and let your browser load the page normally.

  Disabling Stylesheets isn't a default setting, and you have to have gone out of your way to disable them, but if that's happened, here's how to enable them again:

  Enabling stylesheets in Firefox

  1. If you are using Windows, first press the Alt key to reveal the menu bar
  2. Go to the View menu
  3. Go to the Page Style sub-menu
  4. If No Style is selected - enable style sheets by choosing the Basic Page Style option
  5. The page should automatically refresh and display with the proper styles.

  Enabling stylesheets in Chrome (and Edge)

  Chrome (and browsers based on it; such as Edge) doesn't give you the option to disable Stylesheets, so it's not possible to change this setting.

  Enabling/Disabling stylesheets in Safari

  1. If you don't see the Develop menu at the top of the screen, first enable it by opening Safari Preferences (Click the Safari Menu and then click Preferences... ⌘,, choose the "Advanced" tab, and tick Show Develop menu in menu bar.
  2. Now you should see the Develop at the top of your screen - click to open it
  3. In the menu that appears, you might see ✓ Disable Styles. The Tick next to it means that the option is set and Safari has disabled loading stylesheets.
  4. To enable style sheets in Safari, click ✓ Disable Styles to toggle the setting - Safari will enable stylesheets and reload the page and show it with intended styles.

  If you had stylesheets disabled, then turning them should have fixed your display problem; hopefully now websites aren't just loading as black and white text but are instead showing the proper layout and style as intended by the web developers.

Hopefully that has fixed your browser not showing the proper styles for a website. If the problem persists, there may be an issue with the website itself; you could contact them and ask for further help.