I’ve only worked on or played around with a Mac for a total number of hours that can be counted with my two hands, and most of those hours were spent testing how Web page layouts would hold up on Safari. So when Apple made available Safari 3 Public Beta to Windows users, it meant that I could finally complete my cross-browser testing suite (Swift just doesn’t cut it for me).
The problem is, I’ve always found Apple’s on-screen font smoothing a little too blurry for my taste, And Safari for Windows is no different. Is this normal of someone who’s gotten used to the sharpness and readability benefits offered by Microsoft ClearType? Does my inexperience with Apple products disqualify me from voicing out such opinions that might enrage the Mac community? Will constant exposure to Apple’s own font-smoothing technology change my views? Will this nitpicking on font rendering differences make me go blind?
Update 2007-06-14: Joel on Software writes a very enlightening article on the differences between Apple’s and Microsoft’s font display philosophies. Now I can sleep soundly.
Interesting, the text rendering was the one thing that most of those in our workplace noticed right away. They saw it as a huge improvement, but i could see if you were used to jagged type all day how it might come off blurry. :)
Cleartype is basically a revision of subpixel rendering done as early as the 1980s on Apple II. See the wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering
What makes Microsoft’s Cleartype stand out however is not the technology, but rather the man hours wasted in the alignment of pixels to make typefaces more rigid and symmetrical. Just print a column of text in Lucida font out on paper and compare it to the copy on screen. They’re not even the same shape and form. That’s not all, Google around enough and you will find the net is full of Windows users who detest Cleartype with a passion. To these people, Cleartype is “Blurtype”, as it fails to serve its intended purpose. The only way these people can use their Windows is by turning off Cleartype leaving the fonts in the original blocky way.
OTOH, there are those who, like me, come from OS X and swear by LCD screens, we tend to see Cleartype as being far too sharp for our eyes to withstand long hours of reading.
So, back to the topic. Safari giving you “blurtype”? Simple. Just set your screen to your LCD’s native resolution. On a widescreen 20″ screen it should be 1680×1050. 17″ should be 1440×900. That oughta fix it.
Guy: I don’t settle for less than native on any of my LCDs. ;) It’s nice to know that the font-smoothing situation goes both ways. Since I’ve written this article, I’ve been slowly getting used to The Ways Of Apple, so the blurry fonts aren’t as much of an issue now, especially knowing why certain companies do things in a certain way. :)
I have to say I detest both Windows Blurtype and Mac text rendering.
When I first started using a Mac, I loved how smooth the text looked! However, I quickly realized that didn’t actually make it any more readable. In fact, I noticed I had to strain more to actually read things, and it was only a short while before I actually noticed my vision start to decline! Coincidence? Maybe. But I still find my eyes always most “at ease” when starring at old fashioned, jaggy, properly aliased text.
Aaron: Huh, i didn’t think of it that way. Turns out there are 3 sides to this coin. :)
I hate jaggies in my text, so much so that I even love the way fonts are rendered in the newer Sony Ericsson phones. Looks a lot like ClearType, if you ask me, but it does the job well.
your eyes are clever tools, but you have to trust how they feel and not kid yourself. The fuzzy in a small type is hard – I don’t know why!!!! I know that sans serif fonts such as times new roman are faster to read and helps you to comprehend better, compared to an arial size – I guess unconsciously the increased originality of each letter helps. Your brain and eyes together are even more tricky if I slpel the wrdos in fnnuy oderr aarepptnlty you can raed it aynawy – I am not so sure that always works, but have seen other people write things that way and as long as you have the first and last letter in the normal place – your brain mixes them back to make sense!!! How amazing!
I tried some modifictions – first turn font smoothing to LIGHT, then increase font size and then choose fonts with wide spacing as default. Lucida Console 24 and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 24. Have not tried it on many websites – I guess I will need to go back to a smaller font for most sites.
I mainly use Windows, and much prefer Cleartype to the Mac font smoothing, as seen on Windows Safari. It’s just a lot crisper to my tired eyes. I think there’s a lot of personal preference though.
Reg
This article does a good job of explaining why:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html
I have perfectish vision. Doctors won’t give me glasses, even when I say that I think they’ll make me look smarter.
I can’t stand ClearType (even after I got excited about the sensationalist claims that they’d improve my reading speeds 3x over). I also can’t stand Mac text. I’ve gotta go Windows, with ClearType off, to enjoy life.
Note: I can stand well-aliased text in Fireworks.
I have been using Macs for a year and 3 months and I still prefer windows cleartype font rendering.