Remove font smoothing?

Hi there folks. I'm new to the Mac world with a Mac Mini and I love it but I really don't like all the font smoothing. Is there a way to shut this off for ALL font sizes?

I don't believe Font Smoothing can be turned off for all font sizes.
Check this link.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh838.html

Similar Messages

Font Smoothing GONE--Help!!!

I'm running 10.6.2, and I pretty much have ZERO font smoothing whenever I ctrl-mouse zoom on any menu, any text, any program. This is on my MacBook Pro (2 years old) that had perfect font smoothing in Leopard.
I've turned off the CRT checkbox in System Preferences—doesn't help
I've used Terminal to run defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 1 and also tried 2 and 3 and even reverting to defaults—doesn't help
I've used Font Book to validate fonts and remove duplicates (especially after Office 2004 install)—doesn't help
I've also rebooted after all these operations—still almost zilch smoothing on zoom
Even Finder looks AWFUL
Help! My MBP looks like crap now!

That sounds good. A lot of tests to run! Hate to do the new user test, but will if I have to.
I am really leaning toward the Option-Command-"\" having (unintentionally) turned OFF Screen Zoom (under mouse or trackpad) Image Smoothing.
How could it take me so long to learn that there is Font Smoothing, and there is Image Smoothing. TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
The Chain of Blame here is so convoluted it hurts my brain.
1. Evernote was trying to reinstall web clipping and/or its Safari plug-in ever since I converted to Snow Leopard. (Massive evidence of this in Console error messages, and they are hilarious: "Can't get Elephant!" and "Can't install icon!" over and over and over again. Just give it up, Evernote!)
2. So one day Evernote's interference with Safari messes up my executing the Option-Command-"\" command to log into my bank (it's normally a 1Password keyboard shortcut that works great in Safari).
3. Option-Command-"\" reverts back to its "normal" designation (turn on/off Screen Zoom (under mouse or trackpad) Image Smoothing).
4. I hit Option-Command-"\" repeatedly, trying to get the 1Password HUD to pop up in Safari. It doesn't.
5. By hitting Option-Command-"\" so many times, I unintentionally turn off Screen Zoom Image Smoothing. Only I don't realize it.
If this theory IS correct, then it's a simple fix!
The lesson learned would be:
System Preferences, Personal, Appearance, Font Smoothing
is a DIFFERENT preference from
System Preferences, Mouse/Trackpad, (Two Fingers), Screen Zoom, Options, Smooth Images
Of course, I'll report back just as soon as my SuperDuper backup finishes and I can try this test.
And if this IS the problem, well, I blame it on the elephant.

Get font smoothing in Wine

Well, I already released the newest wine package (1.1.12) to extra. The most interesting feature in this release, for me, is the font smoothing support. Maybe you have noticed that after installing the latest version, still no smooth fonts were used, this is because of the option not being enabled by default. For if you want to use this feature:
nano wine_fontsmoothing.reg
paste this in the file you just opened for writing:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"FontSmoothing"="2"
"FontSmoothingType"=dword:00000002
"FontSmoothingGamma"=dword:00000578
"FontSmoothingOrientation"=dword:00000001
then, as user:
regedit wine_fontsmoothing.reg
Now launch winecfg, or any of your installed applications through wine, and there you have it. I'm still working out a way to get better smooth fonts, this ones hurt my eyes since the are sub-pixel, and look blueish to me. Any suggestions or help on this is greatly appreciated, I just wanted to get the ball rolling.

userlander wrote:
wow, that really messed up my wine functionality. The only app I use in wine is ImgBurn, and now even after removing the font lines from user.reg the splash screen font looks all ugly, and then the application just locks up. I have to kill it with xkill. How can I fix this now? Did it mess up the registry somehow?
--------------------> okay, fixed it. I tried writing the original .reg file back to the registry, it gave a lot of errors, but it seems to work now. splash screen font is still fuged. not sure what's up with that, might be the WM. just glad to have ImgBurn working again.
Well, this is a limitation from the only font smoothing option wine has so far, here i hope that this will improve eventually.

Bold fonts on certain websites - font smoothing woes

Hi,
I purchased a 13" MacBook Pro last week and I'm having a bit of an issue regarding font smoothing/font rendering on certain websites. I'll do my best to try and explain...
When loading certain websites (mainly vBulletin-based forums, but this happens on quite a few other sites too) the text looks bold and ugly, the same sites look fine on my friends 15" MacBook Pro and 24" iMac - as an example, his looks like the sample on the left and mine looks like the sample on the right:
http://i47.tinypic.com/e7b8ro.jpg (not my screenshot, but my issue is exactly the same)
I've done some searching and other people have fixed this problem using the following command:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 3
This basically changes the hidden font smoothing settings which were removed in 10.6, in 10.5 you had the following options to choose from:
Automatic - Best for Main Display
Standard - Best for CRT (1)
Light (2)
Medium - Best for Flat Panel (3)
Strong (4)
If I set the command above to 1, 2 or 3 my fonts don't change at all and still look bold and horrible. If I set the command to "4" (Strong), do the usual log out and back in, then I get the correct looking fonts on the websites I had issues with BUT my system fonts and other websites now have a very soft, almost out of focus font, probably due to this being the Strong smoothing setting. Likewise if I set the command to "0" (turning font smoothing off) I get the correct looking fonts on the problematic websites but again system fonts look odd, not nice and smooth (due to font smoothing being turned off)
Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I can try next please? Could this be down to the resolution/DPI of the 13" MBP's screen?
Thanks,
Verta

Hey! I had exactly the same issue as you! Do you have an addon called WebSecurityKeeper installed into your Firefox, without your permission? Check your Addons list pls. I had this addon and when I uninstalled it, my fonts in Firefox returned to normal.
Its possibly a malicious addon. But I am not sure. I have no idea how it got installed my computer.

Bold fonts on certain websites - font smoothing gone wild?

Hi,
I purchased a 13" MacBook Pro last week and I'm having a bit of an issue regarding font smoothing/font rendering on certain websites. I'll do my best to try and explain...
When loading certain websites (mainly vBulletin-based forums, but this happens on quite a few other sites too) the text looks bold and ugly, the same sites look fine on my friends 15" MacBook Pro and 24" iMac - as an example, his looks like the sample on the left and mine looks like the sample on the right:
http://i47.tinypic.com/e7b8ro.jpg (not my screenshot, but my issue is exactly the same)
I've done some searching and other people have fixed this problem using the following command:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 3
This basically changes the hidden font smoothing settings which were removed in 10.6, in 10.5 you had the following options to choose from:
Automatic - Best for Main Display
Standard - Best for CRT (1)
Light (2)
Medium - Best for Flat Panel (3)
Strong (4)
If I set the command above to 1, 2 or 3 my fonts don't change at all and still look bold and horrible. If I set the command to "4" (Strong), do the usual log out and back in, then I get the correct looking fonts on the websites I had issues with BUT my system fonts and other websites now have a very soft, almost out of focus font, probably due to this being the Strong smoothing setting. Likewise if I set the command to "0" (turning font smoothing off) I get the correct looking fonts on the problematic websites but again system fonts look odd, not nice and smooth (due to font smoothing being turned off)
Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I can try next please? Could this be down to the resolution/DPI of the 13" MBP's screen?
Thanks,
Verta
Message was edited by: Verta

Hey! I had exactly the same issue as you! Do you have an addon called WebSecurityKeeper installed into your Firefox, without your permission? Check your Addons list pls. I had this addon and when I uninstalled it, my fonts in Firefox returned to normal.
Its possibly a malicious addon. But I am not sure. I have no idea how it got installed my computer.

Font smoothing issue between built-in display and external

Ok, this one is a bit tricky to explain, but here we go. I have a Macbook 2.2 C2D and a 24" FHD2400 Gateway LCD which I connect using the mini-DVI port. My problem is that any applications I start with the external display plugged in have slightly "thinner" text (on both displays), like the font smoothing is different. But, applications that were already running look smoother and thicker on both displays. Further, even after disconnecting the external display, the thinner text persists until I restart the application.
As a real example, I was running Safari with just the main LCD. I plugged in the external, and it looked fine. I restarted Safari (now with the external plugged in) and the text appears thinner. Unplugging the external, the text still appears thinner on the main LCD until I restart it again.
Here is a photo, where the left side is the thinner text, and the right is the normal, thicker text:
Any insight/advice on this would be much appreciated.
* Note: I run the main LCD in native resolution (1280x800) and the 24" in native (1920x1200)
Message was edited by: Chris Scharf (added screen resolution information)

Under System Preferences, Appearance, try setting "Font smoothing style: to "Medium - best for Flat Panel" and see if that helps.

Font smoothing and connections

Hope this is the best place to post this. I have a new Dell s2209w monitor connected to my Macbook (which I run in clamshell to get the full resolution of 1920x1080.) I'd been using it with a mini-DVI to VGA connector and it looked good, but just changed tonight to a mini-Dvi to DVI. I'd understood there would be some advantage to doing so.
So I'm now DVI, running full-resolution, all calibrated... and my fonts are all blocky. Everywhere in snow leopard, regardless of program or font, they've all become blocky and not smooth, system fonts, custom fonts, etc. I've tried turning on and turning off font smoothing, and it doesn't seem to make any difference. I've sometimes seen Macs in the apple store look like this, with their fonts.
Suggestions?

I have the same issue on my HP monitor.
You may be able to try this:
http://blog.petersendidit.com/post/blurry-text-on-external-monitor-with-snow-leo pard/
It did not work for me though.

Font Book won't remove font files

I've been doing some testing with Font Book in hopes to replace Suitcase for font management. I've been testing on OS X 10.4.5 with Font Book 2.0.2.
I have FB prefs setup with User as the default install location. Getting fonts installed works fine. To simplify for testing I'm just using one source folder with one family of fonts in it. So I drag the source folder into the FB window where I have created a collection called Temp.
The font files are copied into ~/Library/Fonts, just as they should be, and are now available to the system. When I select the font family in FB and choose Remove Font, it disappears from FB, however the font files remain in ~/Library/Fonts.
According to all documentation I've read, that is not the expected behavior. When Remove Fonts is used within FB, the font files should be moved to the trash.
In addition, since the font files are being left in ~/Library/Fonts, if I try to add the same source folder back into FB, nothing happens, they just simply do not load. If I manually remove the lingering fonts from ~/Library/Fonts I am then able to add the source folder again.
So it appears that FB is not functioning as advertised. I've confirmed this on two separate machines running 10.4.5 and also with one running 10.3.9.
Any ideas what's up or am I missing something here?

"When I select the font family in FB and choose Remove Font, it disappears from FB, however the font files remain in ~/Library/Fonts.
Where are you selecting the font, from within the "All Fonts" collection, or within the "Temp" collection? If you've selected it from within your Temp collection, "Remove" only removes the font from the collection, not from your installed fonts. To remove the fonts from your installed fonts, you need to select them from within the All Fonts collection.
I think what you might want to do rather than create a collection is to create an actual "Temporary" font library. In Font Book, select the All Fonts collection so that the focus is in the leftmost column and choose "New Library" from the action menu. Name it "Temporary" (or whatever else you'd like) and then hit enter. Notice it's listed above the dividing line which separates libraries on the top with collections on the bottom. Now, drag your folder of fonts from the Finder onto the "Temporary" library icon in Font Book. NOTE: A reference to the fonts will be added to Font Book; the fonts themselves are not copied but remain where they are in the Finder and are activated or deactivated from there. Now, whether you select the fonts from within the All Fonts library or the Temporary library, the "Remove" command will remove the fonts from Font Book. (Since the fonts remained in their original location, when they're removed from Font Book they're not moved to the Trash; rather, the reference to them is simply removed from Font Book).
Hope this helps....
Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5 w/ 2.5 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Font in GTK2 apps are not using font smoothing in cinnamon. GTK3 does.

Hi,
My GTK2 apps like GIMP, chromium fonts are not really using font smoothing but GTK3 apps look fine.
Any help is appreciated.

Chazza wrote:Does the following application help at all? Link: http://qt-apps.org/content/show.php/Qt5 … ent=168066
Yes, unfortunately this did not fix the problem. I did put the environmental variable in .profile and relogged, the result was unfortunately the same. I've managed to fix fonts in Clementine using qtconfig-qt4 after some fiddling, but applications like Docky and Chromium still have the monospace font.
cedeel wrote:Eh, Chromium isn't a Qt application.
Ah, my bad. Do you know of a way to fix that problem anyway?

Font smoothing in Forms 10g

Hello,
Compared to the application running under 6i, the same application running under 10g shows fonts with jagged edges. From what I have found on the forum, this seems to be because of the JAVA fonts mapping in the applet.
Is there any way to introduce some smoothing or something similar to ANTIALIASING in JAVA.
I have tried clientDPI in basejini.htm but this does not help.
Thanks.

Hello,
Thanks but I already checked the papers related to Forms 10g (new functionalities etc...). I am just trying to see whether there are any parameters to use in formsweb.cfg, registry.dat that might help with the font smoothing.
Thanks

Font Smoothing + Relative Positioning = Problem

Hello,
I ran across a strange inconsistency while designing a relative position based layout.
My page has two divs, both relative positioned for height. They do not overlap. The page renders excellent in Firefox 3.5, and not bad in Chrome (though a little different from FF). Safari however pushes my second div down too far.
I found that by disabling font smoothing (or rather switching it to anything besides "windows standard") fixes this issue. However there isn't even any actual text on the site, at all. There's 4 images, a couple input fields and a submit button.
I can post some of the code, or example screenshots of what's happening. I've tried a couple css hacks to target safari (without targeting chrome) with no success. Anybody have any advice?
Thanks,
Tom

Please disreard...
I got it figured out. I just moved the paragraph tag outside
of the table
and changed the position from bottom:50% to top:50%
once the <p> was moved out of the table, it's normal
position would be at
the very top. So, I moved it 50% down from the top using
relative
positioning. Being inside the table caused it to not work in
Gecko? I
wonder why?
"-D-" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:f7fr0d$jb8$[email protected]..
> I'm using relative positioning for an <p> tag that
is positioned normally
> at the bottom of a table cell "valign="bottom".
>
> I set the paragraph tag to <p
>
style="position:relative;bottom:50%;text-align:center;line-height:1.6em;">
>
> so, the text will position itself 50% from the bottom
positioning. This
> works fine in IE, but Mozilla and Netscape still
position the text at the
> bottom of the table cell.
>
> Here is the test page to see what is happening:
>
http://www.dwayneepps.com/contact.aspx
>
> fill out the form and click send to see the problem.
>
> Thanks for any help.
>

Font smoothing, font sizing, sub-pixel tuning, OS X vs Windows

I have a query regarding font the font smoothing implementation in OS X.
Having just come from the Windows world (using ClearType) naturally comparisons will be made. I am trying to get fonts looking as readable as possible on my Mac. I have 19" LCD connected via DVI so would expect no issues there. It seems difficult to get fonts looking... crisp. I am starting from the basis of using font smoothing across the board as recommended. Turn off smoothing is set to font size 8 or smaller.
I note with respect to tuning of font smoothing (anti-aliasing) that there is not a 'fine tuning' tool like as made available on Windows...
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx
for the Mac. At least I can't find anything Googling. And I am not thinking of TinkerTool as that is not a fine tuner. The Windows ClearType tuner can really make a noticeable difference by adjusting the sub-pixel tuning. Is there any equivalent tool/configuration option available for Macs?

You must have extremely good vision to be able to
tell the enhacement made by ClearType on XGA or
better displays. I wish my eyesight is as good as
yours.
Well by your own admission you must be half blind, and I think you must be if you can't see the difference between - and let's be precise about this - no anti-aliasing vs. anti-aliasing +- sub-pixel rendering. Whether on Windows and/or OS X. There is.
Subpixel rendering is a trick used when resolution of
displays are challenged and small font readability is
crucial.
Today, the only place this makes sense is on
cell phones when you are trying to render small type
like a webpage.
I believe the website links I posted show that I have a reasonable grasp of what sub-pixel rendering is, that was not the purpose of my question. Also, actually, you are incorrect when you state that sub-pixel rendering is relevant/necessary only for small fonts. The exact opposite is true - usually sub-pixel rendering (including in OS X) is turned off for small fonts because it tends to make them more unreadable.
On desktop displays today at XGA or greater resolution,
the tradeoff in enhancing a bit in resolution is
outweighed by the added computation cycles needed to
filter the entire display so the eye sees "grey" on
average rather than red or green or blue.
Well you better rush and tell Apple to rip it out of OS X... because they seem to disagree with you as both anti-aliasing and sub-pixel rendering are included, and encouraged to be used, in OS X!
I'm sorry, but your statements are just plainly wrong and unconsidered.
Back to my - still unanswered, factual and valid question. The implementation of anti-aliasing + sub-pixel rendering in OS X does not appear, and I am stating this unbiasedly, to be as good as it could be (as I have seen in Windows). BTW this is not solely my finding as a number of very experienced Mac users have pointed out:
Here...
http://www.michelf.com/weblog/2006/subpixel-antialiasing-achilles-heel/
and here...
http://www.betalogue.com/2006/01/24/pages-20-does-not-fix-font-smoothing-issue/
and here...
http://mjtsai.com/blog/2006/02/04/font-smoothing-in-pages/
I gather from the replies I have received thus far, and from research on the Internet, that there is currently no way - going into Unix config files or by some utility - to address this issue. Hopefully it will be improved in a later version of OS X.
BTW - this does not stop me loving my new Mac!

Font smoothing: RGB vs BGR

Is it possible to setup font smoothing to consider monitor orientation?
When my iMac is placed normally, I get a very nice font smoothing as expected.
When I rotate the iMac 180°, I get nasty color bleeding and the text is harder to read.
In windows there is a setup utility to configure this correctly, is there something similar for OS X?

You can disable sub-pixel rendering by selecting CRT from the popup menu. That's pretty much all the configuration you get.

Font smoothing under OSX -- revisited

Under OS9, there's a window where the font smoothing is turned OFF. This is needed to print out music so both the note heads and the note stems will print. (With the font smoothing, only the note heads print.)
I can't find anyplace to turn OFF the font smoothing totally, so I can get my music printed, under the OS 10.3.9 system. When I posted this in 2005, someone suggested to look at the Appearance menu under the System Preferences, however that only talks about turning off the font smoothing for different sizes of font. I need it turned OFF totally! Any other suggestions?

Hi,
TinkerTool gives you the option to turn if off.
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html
John

Font smoothing under OSX

Under OS9, there's a window where the font smoothing is turned OFF. This is needed to print out music so both the note heads and the note stems will print. (With the font smoothing, only the note heads print.)
I can't find anyplace to turn OFF the font smoothing totally, so I can get my music printed, under the OS 10.3.9 system. Any suggestions?
G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Built in options are in System Preferences --> Appearance.
If those don't work you, then download and use Tinker Tool.

Remove font smoothing?

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