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Fonts are _never_ scaled "linearly." A 5 point font magnified to twice its size will look different than the same font at 10 points. See https://alistapart.com/

Fonts are _never_ scaled "linearly." A 5 point font magnified to twice its size will look different than the same font at 10 points. See https://alistapart.com/column/font-hinting-and-the-future-of-responsive-typography https://alistapart.com/column/font-hinting-and-the-future-of... for a discussion. (And look in Knuth's "Metafont") Windows handles fonts correctly. And Cleartype is an option you can turn on and off. It makes fonts look "more correct" on many types of displays. Are you saying it's better not to have that option available at all?

stefanfisk 8y ago
Can you disable ClearType and still get antialiased font rendering? From what I remember it's either ClearType messing the fonts up or essentially getting no smoothing at all, and a quick googling seems to confirm this.
- MagicPropmaker 8y ago
  Yes. I just turned it on and off, and I still get "antialised font rendering" but without taking advantage of sub-pixel rendering. You have to tune it based on your LCD screen geometry
tathougies 8y ago
> Fonts are _never_ scaled "linearly." Correct, but when printed on paper (using movable type for example), the width of left-aligned text set in the same font at a continuously increasing point size typically has a nice 'linear' slope on the ragged right edge. Cleartype does not have this. Cleartype changes the text width drastically between point sizes close in magnitude The author criticized freetype for having a non-linear apparent font weight as the font point size is increased linearly. The author said this was bad without much justification, while simultaneously claiming cleartype is better, despite having the same issue of font metrics being discontinuous over a continuous point size. > It makes fonts look "more correcct" on many types of displays. Are you saying it's better not to have that option available at all? Not at all. Options are great. However, saying something is objectively better when in fact there are multiple use cases for which it is better and many for which it is worse is disingenuous, and that is what the author is doing.
cmiles74 8y ago
I'm not sure what "more correct" means in this context. Coming from a MacOS background, it is my opinion that ClearType makes fonts look worse. Regardless of my personal opinion, it's clear that other people share this opinon. For instance, Word doesn't use ClearType; they had problems with text on different colored backgrounds.[0][1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#cite_note-Word-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#cite_note-Word-3 [1]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/murrays/2014/05/31/crisp-text-display/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/murrays/2014/05/31/crisp-te...
- MagicPropmaker 8y ago
  Mac on the left, Windows with cleartype on the right. Adobe InDesign https://imgoat.com/uploads/74ad4786c3/203900.png https://imgoat.com/uploads/74ad4786c3/203900.png
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
Also see "Microsoft Visual TrueType" https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/tools/vtt/index https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/tools/vtt/index

stefanfisk 8y ago

Can you disable ClearType and still get antialiased font rendering? From what I remember it's either ClearType messing the fonts up or essentially getting no smoothing at all, and a quick googling seems to confirm this.

MagicPropmaker 8y ago
Yes. I just turned it on and off, and I still get "antialised font rendering" but without taking advantage of sub-pixel rendering. You have to tune it based on your LCD screen geometry

tathougies 8y ago

> Fonts are _never_ scaled "linearly." Correct, but when printed on paper (using movable type for example), the width of left-aligned text set in the same font at a continuously increasing point size typically has a nice 'linear' slope on the ragged right edge. Cleartype does not have this. Cleartype changes the text width drastically between point sizes close in magnitude The author criticized freetype for having a non-linear apparent font weight as the font point size is increased linearly. The author said this was bad without much justification, while simultaneously claiming cleartype is better, despite having the same issue of font metrics being discontinuous over a continuous point size. > It makes fonts look "more correcct" on many types of displays. Are you saying it's better not to have that option available at all? Not at all. Options are great. However, saying something is objectively better when in fact there are multiple use cases for which it is better and many for which it is worse is disingenuous, and that is what the author is doing.

cmiles74 8y ago

I'm not sure what "more correct" means in this context. Coming from a MacOS background, it is my opinion that ClearType makes fonts look worse. Regardless of my personal opinion, it's clear that other people share this opinon. For instance, Word doesn't use ClearType; they had problems with text on different colored backgrounds.[0][1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#cite_note-Word-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType#cite_note-Word-3 [1]: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/murrays/2014/05/31/crisp-text-display/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/murrays/2014/05/31/crisp-te...

MagicPropmaker 8y ago
Mac on the left, Windows with cleartype on the right. Adobe InDesign https://imgoat.com/uploads/74ad4786c3/203900.png https://imgoat.com/uploads/74ad4786c3/203900.png

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

Also see "Microsoft Visual TrueType" https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/tools/vtt/index https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/tools/vtt/index