ClearType font rendering

IE 7 and Safari

[malasorte]

I've just installed IE 7, which comes with ClearType font rendering as the default option. On my high-quality CRT monitor it looks just awful!

Here is a comment on the official IE blog (I hope it's ok to give the URL): [blogs.msdn.com...]

I really hope that the IE 7 team will reconsider this and use normal font as the default option. ClearType seems a lot harder to read and is so blurry! I've tested it on several CRT monitors.

Mac users, can you please tell us if ClearType is the default option in Safari as well? A popular Safari browser screenshot program shows the pages on my site in ClearType.

[Robin_reala]

Safari won't use ClearType as it's a Microsoft technology; they do however use ATSUI - Apple's equivalent technology. If you don't like ClearType you're going to hate ATSUI as I find that it smoothes font edges a lot more. Me, I like that, but then I'm not on a CRT (along with the vast majority of Safari users).

Regarding ClearType specifically, it's an easy option to turn off. I suspect that LCD users now outnumber CRT users so it's probably best that it's default. Seems a shame they can't try and detect your monitor type though.

[HelenDev]

Very interesting discussion on the IE Blog, thanks for that :)

I must admit I didn't know anything about ClearType, and when myself and a colleague installed IE7 on our test PC one of the first things we noticed was how nice the text looked!

I must admit we both thought it was just an IE7 thing. I've now found the setting and have changed my XP to use it generally. Perhaps it's just a novelty but I really quite like it!

I realise that there's probably a principle at stake here, what with ignoring user settings and all that, but I never would have known about ClearType had it not been for IE7...

[kaled]

It's worth noting that clear-type font smoothing requires the subpixels to be arranged in a given order (RGB I think) so it may also look horrible on some LCD monitors. Having said that, I presume there is a tweak somewhere to switch the pixel order.

Kaled.

[Wlauzon]

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