Blurry Text in Windows 8

Anonymous
2012-10-27T01:27:12+00:00

I did a clean install of Windows 8 RTM when it became available.

The blurry font rendering that plagued the Preview versions has remained.

It is particularly bad in IE10 and Office 2013.

No amount of adjustment with Clear Type tuner helps much.

I have tried all the fixes recommended like ticking "use Software rendering instead of GPU rendering" in IE10 and in Options in Office 2013.

It makes absolutely no difference.

I installed Windows 8 on completely different hardware to check if it was a graphics card issue. The poor font rendering was still there.

I am currently dual booting Windows 7 and 8 on the same PC. Fonts in Windows 7 remain perfectly clear. In windows 8 they are so bad, the OS is basically unusable.

How do I get readable fonts in Windows 8?

Hardware: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO, Intel Core i7 3770K, ASUS Radeon HD7770 graphics, Samsung Syncmaster 2443BW 24 inch monitor.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-10-02T13:21:40+00:00

In Chrome 37.x go to chrome://flags and disable DirectWrite. That's the first thing i did with this update.

Torsten

Was this answer helpful?

6 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

65 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-27T14:42:25+00:00

    Thanks John, clicked Me too. I am not too optimistic they'll fix it though, I expect an approach similar to "we will not bring back the start menu/button, ever".  Here's hoping though, your post is a good move.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-27T14:00:04+00:00

    In order to attract Microsoft's attention, I've made a new post containing links to all previously posted threads about the same matter (blurriness - fuzziness  - bad font rendering in Windows 8).

    If you would like to help, please click "Me too" for having the same problem on my post and/or other users' posts I've gathered all in one place. I have already clicked "Me too" on all posts that refer to the same matter.

    Here is the link to my post:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/poor-font-rendering-in-windows-8-blurry-text/f52a2002-d748-485c-8b9c-4862806ea94a?page=1

    Thanks,

    John

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-02-01T23:17:08+00:00

    great post!! Finally we have a clean vision on this annoying/primary issue.

    I hope MS will release an hidden option in the settings to activate ClearType on Modern UI

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-01-30T12:19:39+00:00

    Thanks for the detailed explanation. It's funny how Office 2013 sometimes will look acceptable, and then while scrolling with the mouse wheel it'll look awful, and when the scrolling stops the text will again try to render properly. Similar behaviour for the Modern UI. Hideous implementation. I totally agree with: "downgrade back to Office 2010, ignoring Modern UI and all apps completely and ditching IE 10".

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments