Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

"Electronically displayed type attempts to imitate printed type—it has no choice in this matter. But while our entire typographic tradition (and calligraphic tradition before that) is based on black letters on a white background, electronic devices always display black by also using gray or color. It's a technique called font smoothing. Crisply defined black characters do not exist in this electronic world. All text is intentionally made slightly blurry (see**Figure 2**) to smooth out what would otherwise be jagged-edged characters, where individual pixels are distractingly visible."

"Electronically displayed type is normally rendered using shades of gray (top, in 14-point) to make its component pixels less visible. The type looks less jagged, but it's also blurry. "

http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1747367&seqNum=2

It seems that "something" in particular decide people to prefer blurred edges to jagged edges or the opposite as the author of this text says that individual black pixels are distracting whereas I find myself that, on the contrary, shades of gray or colors added to characters are more distracting.

In an ideal user interface, everybody should be able to choose what they prefer though, in my opinion, without the creator of this interface, Microsoft here, choosing themself what they prefer.

I guess it might be kind of resolved when higher PPI screens are available on all devices though. I don't have the same problem with anti-aliasing on screens having around 200 PPI (my computer screen has around 100 PPI).

I just used the terms "my standards" because, after reading more about this topic here and there, I found out that some people just get uncomfortable when they see a "staircase" effect in fonts without anti-aliasing, they often qualify them as "jagged", and it seems they just take the esthetic appearance into account.

I read an article with a link to a text without anti-aliasing with the author inviting the reader to take a look at the ugly rendering and, well, it was exactly the best rendering for me and not ugly... I don't mind the jagged appearance because it's "physically" more comfortable to read for my eyes.

There seems to be a battle about the esthetic appearance and I'm glad some big companies seem to have understood a bit more about it, like some news sites, and still use web-safe fonts which follow the setting you choose in your browser while some websites now forces Google web fonts with their anti-aliasing on you (new 2013 fashion trend) whatever the setting in your browser because they find it more beautiful (are you kidding me?) and it, unfortunately, works with Chrome.

Well, I tried Ubuntu 13.10 a few weeks ago because of what we're talking about here and, unlike Windows, it gives you the ability, for the whole use interface and after installing a little program, to choose no anti-aliasing, grayscale or RGB anti-aliasing and you can also change hinting. Truly a luxury of possibilities compared to Windows and I thought, why can just Windows do that? But, unfortunately, it's all messed up when using browsers, Chrome included, because they don't follow the settings of the UI in Ubuntu and I didn't find any way to turn anti-aliasing off. So, I'll stick with Windows 8.1 for the moment...

I have been using Windows on a desktop PC for many years.

 

I don't remember the XP install I did, but when I installed Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 ClearType was enabled by default.

 

Irrespective of arguments about ClearType vs DirectWrite, the disturbing fact is Microsoft don't care, and that apathy is an absolute disgrace.  It reflects very badly on Steve Ballmer.

 

I hope the new CEO, whoever that may be, has the intelligence and initiative to do something about it.

Full ack on the disturbing "don't care" part when it comes to give us an option to turn any anti aliasing off.

Off topic: But I am not sure if it really reflects Steve Ballmers thinking. My guess would be that Sinofsky and some "semi-technician-software-ui-designers" were driven to make things "easier" and more "beautiful". And that wish is and was *user* driven. So somehow we (the "anti-alias-not-wanters") are the victims of people who think Windows should be easier, which means less options in their eyes. So there is another Steve to blame: Jobs. He made people believe that his MacOS is so much easier to use. Microsoft had to react to that and they overreacted by thinking that they can merge their OSes for all form factors (PC/laptop, tablet, phone, what next? watch, car, fridge...) into one Windows with one UI, the new One Microsoft. Might turn out that different things need different UIs and different persons need different options ;-)

Let's see what Windows 9 brings back :-)

Or even 8.1 Update 1?

--

SvenC

Oh well. We agree on one thing.

The responsibility for this mess rests with somebody called Steve.  :-)

I sure hope it is fixed by the time Windows 9 arrives, otherwise I will have to install Linux.

Guys it is obvious that some people prefer non-antialiased text and they should have the option to select this. I myself sometimes prefer the non-antialiased rendering for some fonts/sizes, but not all. The ClearType or Grayscale technology is good and does improve readability in medium dpi screens (low dpi monitors will probably look crisper when non antialiased, while in high dpi monitors it doesn't really matter).

On the other hand, this topic is about the bad rendering and lack of options for the new grayscale renderer for anti-aliased text, not about personal preferences or "standards". It's about what technology and set of parameters improves readability when used with a particular display. The previous ClearType renderer has some settings to choose from for various displays and you can turn it off. The new grayscale renderer does not and you cannot turn it off. This is a problem, as not all displays are equal. Some look fuzzy, others look contrasty etc. On these same displays, non-antialiased text can look even worse.