Which font smoothing type?

I'm using the new 24" LED Cinema display with a new unibody MacBook Pro. In System Preferences the font smoothing type is defaulted to "Main Display". Is this setting OK, or should it be set to "Flat Panel"? Or one of the other settings? Thanks!
Larry

That's not exactly what I meant. The OS can detect what type of display the main display is, so it can determine the best font smoothing method.
If you look in System Profiler, under Graphics/Displays, it tells you if a monitor is an LCD, and it tells you which one is set as Main Display.
So, I believe (since I don't work at Apple) that font smoothing logic works like this if you choose Main Display:
1. Which monitor did the user set as Main Display? (On my Mac, System Profiler indicates "Main Display" next to the "Cinema" monitor entry, and not next to the entry for my CRT second monitor)
2. What type of monitor is that? (System Profiler reports that "Cinema" is an "LCD")
3. Set the best smoothing for that type. (Mac OS X chooses Flat Panel for you)
If you choose one of the other choices, you're basically setting it manually in case you don't like the automatic setting or you simply think it is wrong. Or maybe if you actually do most of your text reading on your non-main monitor, like if your main monitor is for graphics and your second monitor is for email etc.
The only question this leaves me with is, since I have both an LCD and an old CRT connected, does that mean I can only choose one font smoothing type for both monitors, meaning one monitor will always be worse for reading text? There doesn't seem to be a way to set font smoothing separately for each connected monitor.

Similar Messages

Which font type is this?

Hello,
I am trying to work out which font type this web page uses on
the text "Atlantis".
http://www.atlantisxxx.com/
If somebody could tell me which one this is that would be
great.
NB: The website is for a strip club so it is probably better
that you don't open this at work.
Thank you.
Ian

"ian27" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:ebt47v$edl$[email protected]..
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to work out which font type this web page
uses on the text
> "Atlantis".
>
>
http://www.atlantisxxx.com/
have you tried using WhatTheFont?
http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

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 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 issues with Samsun 23 inch LCD

I am having a font smoothing issue with my MacBook and my Samsung LN-S2352W 23 inch LCD (http://www.samsung.com/Products/TV/LCDTV/LNS2352WXXAA.asp). I am using the mini-DVI to VGA adapter and the plugging that into the VGA port of my LCD. It doesn't matter which app I run, but as long as it has fonts, they come out blurry, hazy, colors bleed, etc.
I have played with the font smoothing settings and that has not helped at all. I have heard of TinkerTool and will try it to see if it makes any difference, but am not expecting much.
I also have a PC running Windows Vista and I connected it to the VGA port of my LCD. Wow...the difference in picture quality was astounding. I'm ******. I want my MacBook to look that sweet on my LCD.
Anyone have any thoughts? Can this be fixed?

TinkerTool didn't make any difference for me. I played around with it and found that there was no improvements using it or disabling font smoothing.
I have watched DVD's on this LCD being played with my MacBook. I have seen 2MB+ full screen digital pictures. Both the DVD and digital pics look absolutely amazing on it.
It's only the fonts that appear blurry or in some areas they appear to have a shadown to the right. This happens with any text that appears in every app.
Keep in mind too, Windows Vista looks perfect on this display, but my prized MacBook looks really sub-par.
I'm not quite following you on changing the display preferences to change to pixel size to that of the MacBook...

Font smoothing doesn't work

Font smoothing suddenly stopped working on one of my G4's, no mather the settings in appearance.
- I have 2 totally equally configuered G4's, the second one is fine. I swapped display and video card, no result.
- Strange: If I log in as root, smoothing works fine! So I suppose, it may be some kind of a corrupt preference file? Only I have no idea which one!
Thanks in advance for a good advice!
G4 1.25 Dual, 2 GB Mac OS X (10.4.9)

By trial and error I finally was able to isolate the culprit:
com.apple.universalaccess.plist
I trashed this pref file, logged out and in and :)))

Font Smoothing, FileMaker Pro 8 and my new MBP 17

I have a Filemaker database I designed with white text on dark blue background and other dark colors. When OS X first introduced font smoothing the white was no longer solid but kind of disappeared into the background. The white color was uneven. Playing with Tinker Tool (I think) brought it back.
On my previous laptop 17" the white text was always solid and clear and I never messed with Tinker Tool. Maybe it was an OS X update but I didn't have the problem ever on that machine.
Today I got a new MBP 17". There it is again, kind of fuzzy and hard to read. White on black is fine of course. But once again my white text is hard to read. Can anyone explain this or help me get back to the clarity I had? The title line is 18 pt. so it is not a matter of shutting off font smoothing which only allows up to 12. And actually, that changes the black on white without affecting the white on blue. Thank you someone..

Actually, you can see something of what I'm talking about in iTunes. If you move the highlight line down over song names the masking or lightening of text inside the blue highlight color is different than before. Is there a setting I am missing? I have it set for "Best for LCD" which is what I had previously.
Perhaps the video card is doing things differently? Anyone noticing this?

Deactivated Subpixel Font Smoothing In Safari

I was reading an apple technical note ( https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/technotes/tn2220/_index.html ) within the Safari browser and noticed that the text font did not appear to be smoothed. I confirmed the fact by zooming and making note of the lack of color within the letter which is a sure marker of font smoothing. Late that day I noticed the same thing in the Harmony Central Forums ( http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Electric-Guitars/Review-NGD-Xavier-XV-500-Pics- and-Recording/m-p/29888705/highlight/true#M3683950 ). I then opened the same pages in both Firefox and Chrome, both of with rendered the text using subpixel font smoothing. One further thing that stuck me as odd is that Safari does use subpixel rendering on certain pages, such as the text in this forum. I have searched for an option to turn subpixel smoothing on within the Safari preferences, but had no luck along that route.
I don't think this has anything to do with it but I thought I would mention that I have the "Use LCD Font Smoothing" within the General System Preferences set to Level 2 (done with a terminal command). edit- I actually just set LCD Font Smooth to the standard (bolder) on setting and then restarted Safari. It made the text that was previously smoothed dark, but had no effect on the previously (and still) un-smoothed text.
I was hoping someone could tell me what is going on here and how to activate subpixel smoothing within Safari, because I like the browser and the way smoothed fonts look.
(I am using Mavericks, Safari 7, Chrome 31 and Firefox 25)

Unfortunately, we do not support fonts on your operating system. Hopefully another customer is more familiar with this.
Message Edited by Support on 10-04-2007 01:33 PM
Charlie M. CLD

Turn off font smoothing

I love thin clear fonts when they are not smoothed. Please FIND A WAY to turn font smoothing off.
I turn it off from windows 7 also. I don't know why are you so in love with the ugly font smoothing, which makes the fonts appear bloated and fuzzy.
PLEASE APPLE MAKE IT TURN OFF!

Thanks, I appreciate it, but I know that.
And it doesn't work. It doesn't deactivate it from menu, from XCode pop-up menus, that option is completely useless.
I think Mac fails miserably with fonts, and it just ruins an otherwise good OS.
It doesn't look as bad on retina displays, but that's only because you have twice as many pixels to work with.
And still it bloats the fonts unnecessarily.
It's just ugly.
I was so mad with fonts, I wanted to write my own kerner driver just to turn smoothing off.
It's just horrible, and for a company that takes pride in being the first to bring truetype fonts and graphic user interface, having tasteless fonts is just bad.
Windows also tried to follow you, they added an ugly Segoe font and some other font to their Outlook. Luckily I can redirect them into Arial or Verdana through registry. With Mac it's really built into their OS. This ugly Lucida Grande... What's so nice about this font?
I may sound like I am trashing or ranting, but I speak this way in hopes that somebody notices and makes a normal update to the otherwise normal OS. Their font is just ugly. It looks ugly. There is nothing nice about the way Mac makes fonts smoothing. It would be much better off if it could have been turned off.
Just because the developers of Mac OS is used to seing their font uglyfied by smoothing, and sees no harm in it, doesn't mean everybody shares their preferences. I am a developer too, and I also produce software for sale, It's the user who they should listen, they will be surprised to learn how wrong they are...
Dan

Force font smoothing when open

Hi all,
I am trying to make a portofolio pdf, which has some fonts embeded.
Is there any way to force user's Acrobat Reader to turn on font smoothing when the file is opened?
Fonts are so ugly without smoothing, I don't want to let users to see them.
Thanks in advance.

Hi George,
Yeah I hope its unusual to turning the smoothing off.
For some reason my Reader have that turned off as default, I just afraid possibility that users see that ugly fonts.
OK, I'd never mind.

My typewriter toolbar is graying out the ability to change font size, type, and color.

My typewriter toolbar is graying out the ability to change font size, type, and color.

Here's what I have done in the past. Maybe not elegant, but
it works. (I
use PHP, but I'm sure you can modify for ASP.)
In the HEAD of each web page, include regular old embedded
STYLE tags,
but INCLUDE an external PHP file:
<head>
<style type="text/css">
<?php include('styles/testcss.php'); ?>
</style>
</head>
Now in that included PHP file, just have CSS code which pulls
in your
dynamic data. Here's an example snippet:
body {
color: #600;
background-color: <?php echo
$row_recordset['bgcolor'];?>
Of course, you'll need the code for the recordset somewhere
too.
Alec
Adobe Community Expert

Let me choose which font(s) to substitute when opening an Adobe Illustrator (CS5) file

Hello!
I have an illustrator Windows file, created by someone else, and one font is missing.
When I open the file, Illustrator says a font is missing and it will substitute the missing font.
How can I tell Illustrator to use a specific font instead of Illustrator automatically making that decision for me?
Thanks!
Rowby

Rowby,
I am afraid it is impossible.
You will need to see which font it is substituted by, and then you may change it with Type>Find Font.

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.

Which font smoothing type?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for