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And in 2011, "live in tragedy" Microsoft can render fonts sharply, Apple can't. I'm a Windows guy temporarily using a Mac to write an iPad app, and the main th

by benhoyt 15y ago

And in 2011, "live in tragedy" Microsoft can render fonts sharply, Apple can't. I'm a Windows guy temporarily using a Mac to write an iPad app, and the main thing that bugs me about OS X is how fuzzy the fonts look. In Windows, my fonts look ultra sharp on-screen; on Mac, fonts look fuzzy. Apparently it's because of this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/06/font-rendering-respecting-the-pixel-grid.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/06/font-rendering-resp... But I say to Apple: unless one's monitor has the dot pitch of the iPhone "retina display", your font rendering looks really fuzzy. <rant>What good is "preserving the typeface design" if it makes your eyes water?</rant>

baddox 15y ago
Apparently, this is subjective. I agree with you that OS X fonts look awful, but it's clearly a deliberate design choice, and knowing Apple, I suspect there is at least one person who thought it over and genuinely thinks their font rendering is the better choice. I can't fathom why anyone would prefer OS X fonts, but apparently people do.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  The reason is rather simple - this makes all fonts on OS X look great-to-passable, while unhinted fonts on Windows look really bad and are simply unusable.
- notJim 15y ago
  The (IMO, terrible) font rendering on Windows is actually the second biggest reason I strongly prefer OS X (the biggest reason is not relevant to this discussion.) So yes, this is quite subjective.
  - baddox 15y ago
    Can you explain why you prefer the font rendering in OS X, or do you think it's just a matter of what you've grown used to? I think fonts in OS X look notably fuzzy, and the strokes all tend to look too bold.
    - sarenji 15y ago
      Anecdotally, there's definitely some truth to it being a matter of what you've grown used to. I moved from an old Windows desktop to a Mac OS X laptop. I found the fonts on Mac OS X to be exactly as you described -- fuzzy, bold, fairly annoying. After a month of heavy usage, I stopped noticing it. When I visited my old Windows computer a year later, I realized I perceived all the fonts as incredibly jaggy, thin, and hard to read. But after a while (1 week) I stopped noticing as much.
      - pbz 15y ago
        I have a similar experience, but while I can get used to the blurriness, and after a while I don't notice it as much, going back is always a breath of fresh air. I imagine it like putting your glassses on - if I had to wear any - everything just aligns right. In fairness this happens on Windows as well if I have ClearType turned on, but not quite as much. Mind you the MBP has a higher dpi than my desktop monitor, and the bkurriness is still noticeable. On a different laptop that has Linux running, slightly higher dpi looks good; same with my Android phone. No matter how long I use font aliasing, without some very high dpi my eyes just cannot adjust, cannot totally ignore the bluriness. Seems like I'm in the minority though.
    - tesseract 15y ago
      On the flip side I'm an OS X (and Linux) user and I tend to think fonts on Windows look spindly and have erratic kerning. It really is a matter of taste and what you are used to. Also because antialiasing is basically a trick of visual perception, it wouldn't surprise me if there really are differences in people's vision systems such that some people are more likely to see heavily antialiased text as blurry, similarly to the way some people are more likely to object to low framerate video or get a headache when viewing stereoscopic 3D.
      - Flow 15y ago
        I can't count the number of times people have tried to correct errors in my Visio diagrams because they see bad kerning as if I accidentally included an extra space in the middle of the word. I recently found that one can go into Options in Visio and change font rendering so it uses gray-scale. Then the kerning is just fine.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > I suspect there is at least one person who thought it over and genuinely thinks their font rendering is the better choice. Basically, the OSX font rendering is as close as they can to print, where the Windows font rendering gives primacy to on-screen font clarity. This leads to a "fuzzier" OSX look, but a much better match to the actual typeface where windows's renderer "breaks" fonts to make them "clearer". This, of course, comes in no small part from Jobs's background in loving the written/printed word. I'm sure it's also helped by the Mac background/history in design and print.
frou_dh 15y ago
I think it's mainly a matter of what you're used to. Each time my main computer has moved to a different font rendering tech (Aliased → ClearType → Apple) I've initially been spitting mad like you seem to be, but have ended up preferring it.
- xpaulbettsx 15y ago
  It's also a matter of what monitor you have - (at least on Linux where you can tweak it) configurations that look great on some monitors can look really bad on others
- imd 15y ago
  Sounds like Stockholm syndrome.
  - frou_dh 15y ago
    Not really, because there's no absolute ranking of the 3 to be corrupted.
ralfd 15y ago
As a Mac guy I have the opposite reaction. What you describe as "sharp" I see as "wrong and too thin and pixely". It is like frou_dh said that someone prefers what they are used to.
rits 15y ago
While aggressive hinting provide sharp glyph rendering it ruins precise text positioning and geometry - http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/ http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/
cop359 15y ago
I've got the same issue with all the Linux distros I've seen. There might be some way of fixing it... but I just end up almost never using a GUI.
Cushman 15y ago
Mac font rendering is more accurate (pretty) but less precise (fuzzy). Windows font rendering is more precise (sharp) but less accurate (ugly). Comes down to taste.

by benhoyt 15y ago

baddox 15y ago

Apparently, this is subjective. I agree with you that OS X fonts look awful, but it's clearly a deliberate design choice, and knowing Apple, I suspect there is at least one person who thought it over and genuinely thinks their font rendering is the better choice. I can't fathom why anyone would prefer OS X fonts, but apparently people do.

huhtenberg 15y ago
The reason is rather simple - this makes all fonts on OS X look great-to-passable, while unhinted fonts on Windows look really bad and are simply unusable.
notJim 15y ago
The (IMO, terrible) font rendering on Windows is actually the second biggest reason I strongly prefer OS X (the biggest reason is not relevant to this discussion.) So yes, this is quite subjective.
- baddox 15y ago
  Can you explain why you prefer the font rendering in OS X, or do you think it's just a matter of what you've grown used to? I think fonts in OS X look notably fuzzy, and the strokes all tend to look too bold.
  - sarenji 15y ago
    Anecdotally, there's definitely some truth to it being a matter of what you've grown used to. I moved from an old Windows desktop to a Mac OS X laptop. I found the fonts on Mac OS X to be exactly as you described -- fuzzy, bold, fairly annoying. After a month of heavy usage, I stopped noticing it. When I visited my old Windows computer a year later, I realized I perceived all the fonts as incredibly jaggy, thin, and hard to read. But after a while (1 week) I stopped noticing as much.
    - pbz 15y ago
      I have a similar experience, but while I can get used to the blurriness, and after a while I don't notice it as much, going back is always a breath of fresh air. I imagine it like putting your glassses on - if I had to wear any - everything just aligns right. In fairness this happens on Windows as well if I have ClearType turned on, but not quite as much. Mind you the MBP has a higher dpi than my desktop monitor, and the bkurriness is still noticeable. On a different laptop that has Linux running, slightly higher dpi looks good; same with my Android phone. No matter how long I use font aliasing, without some very high dpi my eyes just cannot adjust, cannot totally ignore the bluriness. Seems like I'm in the minority though.
  - tesseract 15y ago
    On the flip side I'm an OS X (and Linux) user and I tend to think fonts on Windows look spindly and have erratic kerning. It really is a matter of taste and what you are used to. Also because antialiasing is basically a trick of visual perception, it wouldn't surprise me if there really are differences in people's vision systems such that some people are more likely to see heavily antialiased text as blurry, similarly to the way some people are more likely to object to low framerate video or get a headache when viewing stereoscopic 3D.
    - Flow 15y ago
      I can't count the number of times people have tried to correct errors in my Visio diagrams because they see bad kerning as if I accidentally included an extra space in the middle of the word. I recently found that one can go into Options in Visio and change font rendering so it uses gray-scale. Then the kerning is just fine.
masklinn 15y ago
> I suspect there is at least one person who thought it over and genuinely thinks their font rendering is the better choice. Basically, the OSX font rendering is as close as they can to print, where the Windows font rendering gives primacy to on-screen font clarity. This leads to a "fuzzier" OSX look, but a much better match to the actual typeface where windows's renderer "breaks" fonts to make them "clearer". This, of course, comes in no small part from Jobs's background in loving the written/printed word. I'm sure it's also helped by the Mac background/history in design and print.

frou_dh 15y ago

I think it's mainly a matter of what you're used to. Each time my main computer has moved to a different font rendering tech (Aliased → ClearType → Apple) I've initially been spitting mad like you seem to be, but have ended up preferring it.

xpaulbettsx 15y ago
It's also a matter of what monitor you have - (at least on Linux where you can tweak it) configurations that look great on some monitors can look really bad on others
imd 15y ago
Sounds like Stockholm syndrome.
- frou_dh 15y ago
  Not really, because there's no absolute ranking of the 3 to be corrupted.

ralfd 15y ago

As a Mac guy I have the opposite reaction. What you describe as "sharp" I see as "wrong and too thin and pixely". It is like frou_dh said that someone prefers what they are used to.

rits 15y ago

While aggressive hinting provide sharp glyph rendering it ruins precise text positioning and geometry - http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/ http://www.antigrain.com/research/font_rasterization/

cop359 15y ago

I've got the same issue with all the Linux distros I've seen. There might be some way of fixing it... but I just end up almost never using a GUI.

Cushman 15y ago

Mac font rendering is more accurate (pretty) but less precise (fuzzy). Windows font rendering is more precise (sharp) but less accurate (ugly). Comes down to taste.