Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Anonymous

Apparently there is a huge problem with **** font rendering in Windows 8. Text appears very blurry. Programs affected by the new rendering are: Internet Explorer 10, the modern interface (start screen), Office 2013 and other 3rd party applications that rely on this rendering technology. There is no way to fix this problem, unless Microsoft recognizes it.

I 've gathered links bellow that refer to the same problem to highlight its importance and display the number of users that are affected:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-blurryfuzzy-text-and-icons-on-menu-not/ef8945ff-9920-47b2-b4ec-db1c5fbab7de

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-fonts-in-metro-ui-and-ie-10-blurry/3c29c415-54fd-44c8-b290-1c01dd05beaf

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/font-are-blurry-in-internet-explorer-10-windows-8/95fba606-5f45-43fa-bd96-413f6d9d9ad6

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/after-upgrading-to-windows-8-pro-my-fonts-in/210e46c9-4d16-4de7-8b59-2a1b0a7c738a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/internet-explorer-10-windows-8-font-rendering-blur/f3b33400-bb95-450c-9587-68adbf298a2f

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_cp-winapps/blurry-text-windows-8/576183c0-e5e2-4916-8283-0a193d633018

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-hardware/blurry-text-problem/d07ac513-de07-49d9-8718-7fbb6d07b634

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10-windows_8/windows-8-browsers-font-rendering-issue-blocky/86139808-9c3f-48d9-bfa8-61afebd5761c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/windows-8-preview-release-blurry-font-rendering/668f454e-012f-498f-a086-b550a96d47e1

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/horrible-windows-8-font-rendering/cc263629-f4c8-4653-af36-435f4e6b7d38

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-desktop/will-windows-8-have-better-fonts-or-at-least/ad35ce7b-45a9-44b4-83d9-aae34df8dd97

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/fonts-are-suddenly-ugly-why/ba024dcc-c143-4ede-8f04-27930527c5be

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie10_cp-windows_cp/installation-of-windows-8-cp-causes-blurred-fonts/75352b20-cb08-4312-b7f3-6c38bb5f5f0a

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-desktop/monitor-fonts-windows-8-fuzzy-and-no-longer-crisp/052e7a57-79a7-49c5-93dc-bffb01969cbd

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie9-windows_vista/some-fonts-are-fuzzy-and-thicker-in-ie9-in/47f1846f-7817-464b-8121-d1ca02dbb71d

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/blurry-text-in-windows-8/ed053d17-b525-4e09-bdbc-de91114d975c

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-performance/windows-8-has-made-my-text-blurry/7e9977e0-335f-4e8b-b321-eb2d156f36c1

Microsoft MSDN/TECHNET

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winappsuidesign/thread/4ddc57e1-de74-4044-940e-76e35a3e76b9

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/w8itprogeneral/thread/034ef255-40d5-41d5-9c58-841868326832

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/br/w8itprogeneral/thread/831ee84b-95a1-437a-b051-b7d51e13ba0f

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/d9c1ce96-58aa-401f-a5f4-1c62660077ca

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/W8ITProPreRel/thread/409d4e85-1124-4e1c-9cc0-3b2acfd519dd

External forums:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1120890-internet-explorer-10-fonts-fuzzy-in-windows-8/

http://www.eightforums.com/browsers-mail/5432-blurry-text-ie10-desktop.html

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f56/blurry-website-fonts-in-ie10-675564.html

http://www.techplex.net/postst78315_Text-in-Internet-Explorer-10-and-Metro-UI-is-blurry.aspx

http://superuser.com/questions/506192/disable-cleartype-blurry-fonts-in-internet-explorer-10-on-windows-7

http://bugsort.com/computer-users/computer-unclear-type-in-internet-explorer-on-windows-8/?PHPSESSID=10368ff87086c902a678043f63e39762

and there are lots of more...

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518 answers

Anonymous

2013-12-12T03:01:51+00:00

I am also having the same issue, but it didn't show up until I installed 8.1. I am having the problem on my new Asus laptop and things were great until I upgraded. I have gone through forum after forum to try to correct the problem and nothing seems to work. Most programs that use their own fonts don't seem to have the problem, it's only the programs that use the Windows 8 font to render.

Please Microsoft, fix this problem because it drives me nuts!!!

Asus G75 laptop

Nvidia Geforce GTX 660M

1920x1080 Res

Win 8.1 fully updted
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Anonymous

2013-12-11T08:26:33+00:00

Big Changes Are Coming to Windows

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-81/microsoft-windows-big-changes-coming

We can hope...
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Anonymous

2013-11-27T15:22:12+00:00

For those of us getting lost in the technical aspects here, this servers as a primer:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20120303/cleartype-takes-a-back-seat-for-windows-8-metro/
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Anonymous

2013-11-27T14:42:04+00:00

I write about this problem in Microsoft Connect... and see what they replied to me:

"Thank you for your feedback.At this time we do not plan on making this change.In Windows 8 Internet Explorer switched to using greyscale anti-aliasing across the Windows Platform.Your feedback is helping us see the needs of our users so we can improve the quality of Internet Explorer. We continue to welcome more feedback and look forward to hearing from you again soon.Best regards,The Internet Explorer Team"

So, they really doesn't care about Internet Explorer... I will continue to use Chrome till this is fixed some time in the future...

You can see my post here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/803978/blurry-text
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Anonymous

2013-11-22T07:39:54+00:00

I had the same issue and could fix it easily by simple windows settings:

It was in the display settings to change the size of items to small.

Its explained in detail here:

http://codeskaters.blogspot.ae/2013/10/windows-81-blurry-text-fix.html

Habeeb, that only applies to scaling up window contents from executables which are marked as not being dpi aware, which even system tools like mmc.exe for event viewer and service manager are not.

What you meant is fixed as soon as you disable per monitor scaling. You can leave the DPI for all monitors setting at higher values, to get clear and larger text in (almost) all applications *except* IE11.

IE11 does not use GDI like other (older) windows applications so it does not use the Windows setting to not smooth font edges. It displays text on its own with DirectWrite and always uses anti aliasing. Some people don't like the switch from ClearType with RGB sub pixel anti aliasing to grey scale anti aliasing, other's did as the problem of colored borders around letters went away.

But some people, me too, do not like anti aliasing/font smoothing at all as it makes text blurry which hurts our eyes which are used to see sharp contrasts.

So, in short, no, your solution does not solve the text smoothing problem in IE11.

It seems there is no built in way to solve it, so we still hope for Microsoft to implement a fix.

Until then I stick to Chrome, except for msdn subscriber downloads as Chrome cannot use the File Transfer Manager. But then again: IE 11 cannot use the File Transfer Manager if you do not change IE11 to IE8 mode from the dev tools - oh my, some more dog fooding might help, to keep the parts working together smoothly ;-)
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