Fuzzy text: OS X or display?

[Sam Spade]

I've been waiting on the Leopard release to purchase my first Mac. In the meantime, I've been stopping by the Apple store when I'm in the area and demo'ing OS X.

Something that I've consistently noticed at both local Apple stores is fuzzy text on all the machines - macbooks, ACD's, and iMacs. The ACD's are the worst. Is this a problem with OS X?

In my home, I have four Windows machines - a Thinkpad, HP laptop, 15" Dell LCD, and a Samsung 21" 213T. On all of these, the text is very crisp and clear.

I really want to transition to OS X, but fuzzy text is a deal-breaker for me. What's the problem?

[Scarlet Fever]

Do you reckon this text is fuzzy?

[psychofreak]

For me at least, text smoothing is a get-used-to thing...whenever I use an OS for a long period of time and then use another one, I'm not happy with the text smoothing at first, and then gradually my eyes grow accustomed to it...

[Sam Spade]

At the Apple store, one employee agreed that the text looked fuzzy on the machines and attributed it to the fact that Apple displays "are HD and HD displays have a hard time smoothing out text." Uh, ok.

The other two employees, who both use Macs at home, claimed that the text looked normal to them. I went out to the car and got my Thinkpad and we did a side-by-side comparison. The difference was night and day. The Thinkpad display is much more clear and crisp. They seemed shocked at the difference, but could offer no explanation except that it was some sort of characteristic of OS X.

[Not-a-cliche]

http://www.vulomedia.com/images/84169Picture1.png

After using a Mac, Windows font "smoothing" looks DISGUSTING to me.

[Makosuke]

Next time you're at an apple store, go poke around in the Appearance system pref and select a different Font Smoothings. And remember that the changes do NOT take effect until you quit and re-open an application, so you need to quit whatever you're testing with, change the setting, save that, and re-open.

Play around and see what you think.


Here's a blog article from a while back discussing exactly this issue:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000884.html

...but I think it's really a matter of taste. See, for me, on their example screenshots, the safari one is EASIER to read, not blurrier, and the Windows one is harder to read and uglier, not easier.

As I understand it, the issue is that there are three ways to go about displaying text on a screen.

1) Pixel-accurate. This only works for fonts bitmapped at the exact pixel dimensions on a screen. It is of course "perfectly" crisp, since there is no partially colored pixels, but it's also somewhat jagged (and doesn't work for all but pre-expected font sizes). This is the old Windows XP default (ClearType off).

2) Antialiased with preference given to the pixel grid. This sacrifices a bit of the shape of the character so that it's better aligned with the grid of pixels onscreen, and therefore sharper. This is what Windows ClearType does.

3) Antialiased with preference given to the shape of characters. This sacrifices a bit of sharpness to keep characters looking, shape wise, more accurate. This is what the MacOS does at sizes above the no-anti-alias you set in System Preferences.


Thing is that people--particularly, it would seem, those who've used Windows for a long time--prefer #2. Graphics-type people, who have an attachment to the appearance of words even if it sacrifices a bit of readability, and generally those who've used Macs for a while, tend to prefer #3.

I use plenty of all of the above, and it's interesting; I VASTLY prefer #3, both because it's prettier AND because I find it easier to read--the darker letters are just easier for me to process for some reason. Maybe it has to do with my particular monitor settings, or my glasses or something.

Further, given the choice between #1 and #2 (specifically, ClearType on or off in Windows), I always choose #1--yes, it's jagged and ugly, but at least on the screens I use ClearType ends up looking sort of faint and significantly harder to read.

If you're in the #3 camp, which it sounds like you are, your best bet is to go into the Appearance system pref and select a different Font Smoothing style--probably Standard or Light rather than Medium or Strong, and set the "Turn off text smoothing for font sizes..." to the maximum value.

[Sam Spade]

Here's a blog article from a while back discussing exactly this issue:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000884.html


This is exactly the problem. Reading web pages in Safari drives me nuts! Does Firefox have the same font issue on the Mac?

[portent]

This is exactly the problem. Reading web pages in Safari drives me nuts! Does Firefox have the same font issue on the Mac?
Yes, all fonts on the Mac are rendered in the WYSIWYG style.

[Templex]

I used an eMac for 3 years until it died in November 2005 (long story). Between then and June 2007 (when I got my MBP), I used a Windows computer. When I first used my MBP, I thought that the fonts were horrible and blurry, but after two days, it looked way better than Windows' fonts. Now, fonts with ClearType appear too faint for me, and I prefer the way that OS X renders fonts -- it's much easier to read. You just need to get used to it.

[Makosuke]

This is exactly the problem. Reading web pages in Safari drives me nuts! Does Firefox have the same font issue on the Mac?As said, FireFox uses the same font rendering engine as the rest of the OS.

You can, however, try what I suggested: Go to the Appearance pref pane and mess around with the minimum smoothed size and the level of font smoothing used. It won't exactly mimic ClearType, but it will at least make some difference, and you may prefer one of the other settings (say, Light or CRT) to the default.

If that's not doing it for you, try downloading TinkerTool and setting the minimum smoothed size to something huge; this will force all screen fonts to be bitmapped, and as long as you're using a hinted font, it'll be pretty crisp.

http://www.bresink.com/osx/0TinkerTool/download.html

[zub3qin]

I've been waiting on the Leopard release to purchase my first Mac. In the meantime, I've been stopping by the Apple store when I'm in the area and demo'ing OS X.

Something that I've consistently noticed at both local Apple stores is fuzzy text on all the machines - macbooks, ACD's, and iMacs. The ACD's are the worst. Is this a problem with OS X?

In my home, I have four Windows machines - a Thinkpad, HP laptop, 15" Dell LCD, and a Samsung 21" 213T. On all of these, the text is very crisp and clear.

I really want to transition to OS X, but fuzzy text is a deal-breaker for me. What's the problem?

I noticed the same thing 6 mos ago when I switched from Dell to Mac.
I couldn't understand why the Macs were so blurry.. The weird thing is that after one day of using my Mac, it wasn't blurry anymore. Now when I use my Dell, I find the fonts to be too noisy... So I don't think it is really blurry or unclear, it is some sort of optical illusion that you adapt to very very quickly, and find much more readable than the Windows fonts. It is just that you are so used to seeing Windows fonts that it takes some adjustment.

Trust me- Mac fonts are much easier to read.

[seanneko]

Trust me- Mac fonts are much easier to read.

Actually, the opposite is true. Mac renders fonts with the goal of preserving the overall design of the font face, whereas Windows makes sacrifices to keep the font easy on the eyes.

Mac fonts are nicer to look at, but for actually reading the text, Windows is superior.

[Alloye]

Mac fonts are nicer to look at, but for actually reading the text, Windows is superior.

I'd say that's arguable. While ClearType rendering does make fonts look sharper, I don't find the result inherently more readable.

[Makosuke]

I have to agree with Alloye, seanneko--the THEORY behind ClearType-style rendering versus shape-preserving OSX-style rendering is that ClearType should be easier to read. That doesn't mean it's the case for all users

As I said earlier, I've used all three styles, and for me, on the monitors I've tried it on, ClearType is the hardest to read--appearance completely aside. ClearType looks more pleasing than completely non-antialiased type, but it's so faint that I find it difficult to actually read. The "heavier" looking OSX-style rendering, for my eyes, on my monitor, is easier to read.

This wouldn't be true for all sizes, of course--there are some situations, particularly with very small fonts (I believe that the blog article I linked demonstrated this) for which Apple-style smoothing is horribly blurry and almost completely unreadable.

Come to think of it, I wonder if that hasn't got as much to do with the proliferation of really small fonts on some websites as the 96-vs-72 dpi thing...

[Edit: I just had another, largely unrelated thought; due to bloom issues with dark fonts on light backgrounds vs. light fonts on dark backgrounds, I could imagine a situation where the lower relative weight of ClearType rendering would make white text on black background easier to read, where it would wash out with black text on white backgrounds. I wonder if that has something to do with it as well--an issue that might be exacerbated by brighter monitors, and possibly even the different default gamma setting on a Mac.]

[givemeyourshoes]

My girlfriend has had a ton of problems with her macbook and they finally replaced it. Now, with the new one that she has had for about three months the text just started going fuzzy about two days ago. Its been clear untill then. And its not super blurry, just enough to notice it. I thought she was crazy at first, than I sat down with it for a few min to view some stuff and noticed it myself. Its pretty sucky. I checked all the prefs for font smoothing and restarted all the apps running and it still did it. Any ideas?

[dpaanlka]

The Mac OS X font smoothing isn't a "problem" it's a preference - many prefer it the Mac OS X way. I'm sure once you've used it continuously for awhile you'll begin to appreciate it.

Windows font smoothing in Internet Explorer drives me crazy, with its manhandling of all the quaint features of the fonts.

[imfrog2002]

On my MacBook, I use dual-monitors. On my MacBook screen, everything is fairly crisp, and easy to read. On my second monitor, a HP, it's EXTREMELY blurry. It's just the DPI settings. I need font smoothing off on my HP, but on on my Mac. It's all in the display. I just turned it off, and I have to use the second monitor, as my Macbook makes it impossible to read, IMO. Totally the display.

[Avatar74]

It's funny we're all talking about font smoothing here and haven't taken one very important factor into consideration:

The truth is, LCD's just plain blow when it comes to imaging clarity.

I have a 19" Sony FD Trinitron CRT... Sure, it weighs about 40 pounds but it is hands down one of the crispest displays you will ever find. It is leaps and bounds above the best LCD. LCD's simply have crappy contrast, clarity and color representation when compared to traditional cathode ray tubes.

Apple's font smoothing looks decent on an LCD... Personally, I like it. I think that after many hours in front of a computer screen, softer fonts are easier on the eyes. The image on an OS X display tends to look more like print than video... and over time I find most people's eyes feel more comfortable reading text on OS X for long stretches of time than on Windows. Frankly, I feel like Windows fonts are going to jab my eye out. To me, Windows fonts aren't crisp at all. The edges are well-defined but they're not smooth.

It also depends on the typeface... if I understand correctly, some older typefaces are still bitmap based and newer fonts are vector-based. Vector-based fonts are, in principle, infinitely scalable and are not subject to aliasing. Granted, vector based fontmaps are the ones that will hold up whether large or small... bitmap ones won't.

In the end, while Apple's fonts look good to me on an LCD, they look absolutely stunning on a CRT... and most particularly on a Sony Trinitron, the gold standard of consumer displays for 40 years (Trinitron was also the reference standard for NTSC/NTSC-M). If you can still get your hands on an HMD-A440, I strongly suggest it... your eyes will love you for it.

[dpaanlka]

The truth is, LCD's just plain blow when it comes to imaging clarity.

Maybe the LCDs you're using but I always liked the fact that I could easily distinguish every single pixel on an LCD and find them to be much sharper than even the high end Sony, NEC, and AppleVision CRTs I used to have.

[slack333]

I know this topic has been discussed in lots of places, so apologies, but i can't seem to find an answer.

I'm having exactly the same problems as Sam Spade - I've just bought a Mac Pro and Benq FP241W, and the picture quality is amazing, but the text's are fuzzy and horrible.

The screenshots above from Scarlet Fever and Not-a-cliche are perfect, that's just what I'm aiming for, but not getting. What displays/settings do you have? Or can anyone else recommend display/settings that give those screenshots?

I have been to System Preferences and nothing changes when I change the text smoothing options (do I have to reboot or something?). I have literally tried every combination, and there's not even the remotest of changes.

People are saying you get used to it after a few days, but I presume they're talking about getting used to the screenshots above as they're different to windows? I prefer those Screenshots to Windows, but my texts are all fuzzy. If I knew how to take a screenshot, i could upload an image.

Someone said that HD monitors struggle to smooth text, so should I downgrade to a standard 24" monitor?

Sorry for all the info, I would really appreciate any comments on the matter, I feel I've wasted my money at the moment, thank you!

[rhyndu]

[snip]

You can take a screenshot using Grab, located in Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Grab.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

You can take a screenshot using Grab, located in Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Grab.There are better ways than using Grab: (http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X) Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

As to settings, try another setting in System Preference -> Appearance:

96005

[clevin]

96005

it does not change the situation as much as significant enough.

Font rendering is different than windows. Some mac users might claim it to be better, and indeed some users prefer it as well.

but truth to be told, increasing font size whenever you can on a mac is good for your on-screen reading. imho

[slack333]

Thanks for your responses.

I've just taken a screenshot and opened it up on my other old monitor and everything looks perfect, so I'm guessing it's the HD benq fp241w that has a hard time font smoothing in OS X?

I've adjusted the text smoothing settings lots and they make no difference unfortunately.

What 24" monitors are good? What does everyone have that gives perfect clarity? I guess non-HD, if it's the HD causing the problems

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I've just taken a screenshot and opened it up on my other old monitor and everything looks perfect, so I'm guessing it's the HD benq fp241w that has a hard time font smoothing in OS X?Possibly... one question though: Are you running the monitor at its native resolution (1900 x 1200, isn't it)? If not that should make (not just) the text extremely fuzzy...

[slack333]

Yes I am. When I switched to 1920x1200, it made everything crystal clear apart from the text. Can you (or anyone) suggest a decent big monitor that has perfect clarity with macs?

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Yes I am. When I switched to 1920x1200, it made everything crystal clear apart from the text. Can you (or anyone) suggest a decent big monitor that has perfect clarity with macs?Your display is (probably) just fine.

Font smoothing is just something you need to get used to. I cannot stand looking at those edgy fonts in (older) Windows (versions). I think that is fugly and unbearable.

But, if you absolutely must, use TinkerTool (http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html) and disable font smoothing for fonts smaller than 144 pt, that should effectively turn it off all together:

96032

[slack333]

Thanks for that. I downloaded TinkerTool, but anything I change makes no difference to anything. I'm not sure it's a case of getting used to Font Smoothing because Font Smoothing looks the same as when Font Smoothing is turned off. There's a white blurry glare off all off the text characters which makes every word look fuzzy. I've adjusted all monitor settings as well and nothing works.

I've just plugged my mac into my old monitor and everything looks fine, trouble is the monitor's too small which is why i bought the 24" for the mac pro.

no idea what's wrong, i'm just gonna have to swap for a new one, non-HD. if anyone can just give the name of a 24" that they know works well, i'd be very grateful, cheers!

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Thanks for that. I downloaded TinkerTool, but anything I change makes no difference to anything. Are you logging out and back in (or rebooting) between changes?

[slack333]

Yeh I am. I've tried everything. Gonna try a new monitor. Thanks for all your help Mitthrawnuruodo - would be grateful for any suggestions on monitors to get from anyone...

[rhyndu]

Yeh I am. I've tried everything. Gonna try a new monitor. Thanks for all your help Mitthrawnuruodo - would be grateful for any suggestions on monitors to get from anyone...

What is your monitor price range? And I'm assuming you want a 20[22?]" at minimum?

I'd try looking at some of De||'s (I know, sorry for the bad word:)) new [EDIT: display] lineup. Their quality is good (not quite as good as Apples and about the same as SD HP) and they are only in the three digit range.

[flyingscott]

Its not the monitor... repeat, its not the monitor!

Here is a perfect example, I am running both windows and OSX at the same time... yes, font rendering is different - BFD

Font Difference (http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/win_mac_fonts.png)

its just how OSX does it, take it or leave it. I was a long time windows user and liked that crisp text as well, but my new mac doesn't bother me... and don't even bother trying to get it to render like a windows box, not gonna happen.

[slack333]

Thanks for the screenshot, and looking at that, I 1000 times prefer the OS X texts, it's so much nicer, but that's not what mine shows! I wish it did! Mine is all fuzzy and blurry.

I was going to upload a screenshot to show ppl what it looked like, however when I put it on to my PC (which I'm using to write this) to upload it on this thread, it looked perfect, so didn't prove my point. This suggests that Apple is outputting it perfectly, but the monitor is not showing it correctly. Surely?

I'm looking at 22" or above, Samsung pebble? I might just have a faulty monitor. I spoke to someone at Apple and they said that downloading the drivers would fix it, but BenQ don't make drivers for macs as far as I'm aware.

[Stampyhead]

Actually, the opposite is true. Mac renders fonts with the goal of preserving the overall design of the font face, whereas Windows makes sacrifices to keep the font easy on the eyes.

Mac fonts are nicer to look at, but for actually reading the text, Windows is superior.

Not for me. I like how OS X anti-aliases the fonts. I despise the way text looks in Windows, in IE especially. The text is all blocky. That's not any easier to read.

[tardinha]

I hate to tell you, but your copy of windows doesn't have ClearType (M$ version of font smoothing) activated.

Your text is all jaggy and awful.

In widows, right click on your desktop, click properties, then appearance, then effects. Then use the ClearType method to smooth font edges.

Mark

Its not the monitor... repeat, its not the monitor!

Here is a perfect example, I am running both windows and OSX at the same time... yes, font rendering is different - BFD

Font Difference (http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/win_mac_fonts.png)

its just how OSX does it, take it or leave it. I was a long time windows user and liked that crisp text as well, but my new mac doesn't bother me... and don't even bother trying to get it to render like a windows box, not gonna happen.

[TheSpaz]

My girlfriend has had a ton of problems with her macbook and they finally replaced it. Now, with the new one that she has had for about three months the text just started going fuzzy about two days ago. Its been clear untill then. And its not super blurry, just enough to notice it. I thought she was crazy at first, than I sat down with it for a few min to view some stuff and noticed it myself. Its pretty sucky. I checked all the prefs for font smoothing and restarted all the apps running and it still did it. Any ideas?

Do you think that perhaps you may have a corrupt font that isn't rendering correctly? Try re-installing OS X and see if that fixes it. It could be that your fonts somehow became corrupt.

Am I the only one who likes the "Standard - Best for CRT" settings on an LCD screen? I hate how bold and noisy the text looks when it's set to the LCD smoothing... gross. I much prefer the softer text. Try it out for a few days and it would be hard to go back... seriously.. it's always the first thing I fix when I install OS X.

[flyingscott]

I hate to tell you, but your copy of windows doesn't have ClearType (M$ version of font smoothing) activated.

I know I don't... because clear type sucks A**!

see for yourself:

Clear Type (http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/clear_type.png)

Windows is such a turd OS...

:apple:

[TheSpaz]

I know I don't... because clear type sucks A**!

see for yourself:

Clear Type (http://www.sacreativeservices.com/forum_stuff/clear_type.png)

Windows is such a turd OS...

:apple:

That does suck. Long live :apple:

[valwood`]

Something that I've consistently noticed at both local Apple stores is fuzzy text on all the machines - macbooks, ACD's, and iMacs. The ACD's are the worst. Is this a problem with OS X?
I have had a Macbook since June and have found all text to be clear and sharp.

Today I downloaded Christmas Stationery for Mail from a link on one of these forums on my Macbook. The text on my display and in all applications is now suddenly blurry and hard to read which seems to be a coincidence. I have tried all the font smoothing options with no difference whatsoever. I have since deleted the stationery.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[qtaran111]

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd post my "fix" here in case anyone else stumbles across this looking for an answer.

I had the same problem as mentioned (graphics looked fine, text looked fuzzy). I was also using a BenQ monitor (Benq G2420HD 24") and changing the font smoothing in system preferences ins OSX didn't help.

The "fix" was to change the Sharpness setting on the monitor itself. This monitor has several different modes (Movie, Standard, Cool, etc, etc) and mine was automatically set to Movie mode (perhaps because it is full HD & has HDMI input)?

Anyway in this mode the Sharpness setting is set to maximum (5 I think) and makes text look nasty. Changing the mode to Standard and dropping the Sharpness to 2 or 3 gave perfect text rendering.

Hopefully this will help someone out!

[rijk]

The "fix" was to change the Sharpness setting on the monitor itself.

Hopefully this will help someone out!

You did massively help me out!! Thanks a lot, I've been scouring the internet for an answer, and kept running into people saying "there's nothing wrong with the text, it's just a matter of preference". There's still a difference between Windows and Mac (which I guess I'll just have to get used to), but at least now the fonts aren't really 'blurry' as they definitely were before on my monitor (HP Compaq LA2205wg). By the way, in my case, I had to increase the sharpening to 5 (it was set to 4). But I guess that depends on the monitor :cool:

[Virtual87]

For some reason the text looks less fuzzier in Eco mode than in Standard, and the Sharpness on the display is set to 3 on both so its not that.
I will try to play with the settings until I get a good result. I know the display is not the most expensive model on the market but as people pointed out I don't think its the problem of the display.