Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text)

Anonymous
2013-02-24T00:17:00+00:00

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...

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

518 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-06T02:03:50+00:00

    Heck, they don't need to fix it. They can leave it on by default for all I care, just give us an option to disable it. Would it really be hard? They already have the option to enable/disable "Smooth edges of screen fonts", just add another option under the Performance Options for us to disable it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-04T18:17:27+00:00

    Wes,

    I know about the issue of which you speak. Namely, that in recent versions of Internet Explorer (even before Windows 8), Microsoft decided to always force ClearType to be on, despite the OS's setting to disable ClearType. I still disagree with their decision to have done that.

    But the issue in this thread is separate; it is about how ClearType is applied within the Windows 8 Start Screen, Windows 8 Modern Apps, Office 2013, and the most recent versions of Internet Explorer.

    It is a separate issue. And I do agree with your statement that the font rendering problems have indeed gotten worse, in a sense, because now we have an additional issue affecting more than just Internet Explorer.

    The only way forward is for Microsoft to change. And, while I do agree it would be neat to have the option to disable ClearType across the board, I believe their higher priority should be to fix the grayscale ClearType antialiasing that they have "forced" upon us with the affected OS's and applications.

    I really hope Microsoft cares. It reminds me of a video I once saw, where a Microsoft head described how swiping left and right on the Start Screen would make sure that, if the animated groups of content were going to stop very nearly lined up with the word "Start", the OS would make sure that it did line up exactly. We need that sort of "care" to be involved with implementing the solution that I proposed.

    Microsoft, please fix this.

    Thanks,

    Jacob Klein

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-08-04T17:23:54+00:00

    Jacob,

    About a year ago I had a similar discussion with a guy who tried to analyze and examine everything like you do. The page with that thread took something like 5 minutes to load - that's how much material that guy provided. The discussion was about fonts in Internet Explorer 9 (if my memory serves me well) looking like puke, and about users' inability to turn the font smoothing off.

    I can see the problem not only has not been fixed, it only has gotten worse. To me it looks like still the same problem - fonts looking blurry and unreadable.

    The way I see it, Microsoft should throw the whole thing out the window and start over. Buy the license for font smoothing algorithms from Apple, if they can't figure it out themselves.

    Or provide the ability to turn if off completely, as I've been requesting over and over and over again.

    Wes

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-04T16:57:02+00:00

    Jacob,

    You don't understand the real issue here, which is: the customer is always right.

    See http://gs.statcounter.com

    A few years ago I was "all Microsoft" against Apple fan boys, etc. Now I stay with Windows *only because* I was able to turn ClearType off completely on my Windows 7 machines.

    Wes,

    I actually do understand the real issue. It affects Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Office 2013, and the most recent versions of Internet Explorer. And I have explained it as clearly as I could.

    Furthermore, I proposed a solution so that Microsoft could move forward in fixing it.

    You, of course (as a Microsoft customer), are "right" in sticking with a certain configuration if you want ClearType turned off completely, and if that configuration supports your goal. However, that work-around (sticking with Windows 7) is not a way to move forward with a fix to this real issue, and citing a stat page regarding web browser usage does not help explain/solve it either.

    If you are going to reply to this thread, I'd kindly ask you to please be sure to contribute information relevant toward defining the problem or determining the solution.

    I have done my best to do exactly that.

    Thanks,

    Jacob Klein

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2013-08-04T16:15:51+00:00

    Jacob,

    You don't understand the real issue here, which is: the customer is always right.

    See http://gs.statcounter.com

    A few years ago I was "all Microsoft" against Apple fan boys, etc. Now I stay with Windows *only because* I was able to turn ClearType off completely on my Windows 7 machines.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments