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
    2013-03-14T02:17:05+00:00

    I agree. I just got Office 2013 and it's blurry as **** to the point where I can't type anymore and I spend all day in Work and Outlook. Office 2010 is nice and smooth. But I did have an interesting observation today when installed Office 2013 for a friend. I went up to his office and, to my great surprise, he had an old-school CRT monitor running on Windows 8 (his LCD broke). The resolution was, I believe, 1200 x 800. After installation, I fired up both Word and Outlook and everything, the text and icons, looked smooth like butter. Why? Also, I played with Surface Pro over the weekend, which is full HD, and Office looked smooth as well, unlike Surface RT. MS better fix this problem. Office 2013 is great but the text rendering makes it unusable.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-03-11T20:49:42+00:00

    Apparently there is a huge problem with **** font rendering in Windows 8.

    Can we hope in any update from Microsoft?

    This issue is really out of this world, leading to a complete unusable system...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-03-11T09:12:42+00:00

    Yes, indeed. The workaround that someone found for IE 9 was by changing the use of DirectWrite with custom dll files to disable font smoothing.

    Introducing DirectWrite (Windows): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd371554(v=vs.85).aspx

    DirectWrite (Windows): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd368038(v=vs.85).aspx

    What's new in DirectWrite for Windows 8 (Windows): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh802480(v=vs.85).aspx

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-03-11T07:21:57+00:00

    The font rendering on Metro Apps, Metro & Desktop IE10 is truly unusable. It's O.K. about Metro bloat, but IE 10 on desktop? Too bad, I'd really like to use IE10.

    I can achieve the exact same bad results on Firefox deliberately in order to show the case... If you know how, enable manually Directwrite, disable GDI-Table-loading, use Natural Symmetric font-rendering technique and the most important, after you do this, disable Hardware Acceleration

    http://i4.minus.com/iWGFXyP80yDt9.png. 

    This is how you can do it; don't forget to disable HWA afterwards. If you simple do this without to disable HWA, you can see how IE10 should be with Natural Symmetric Technique.

    This is exactly the point I don't understand. On Firefox with HWA enabled, even the Natural Symmetric is somewhat good.... But Natural Symmetric without HWA and Cleartype applied, is truly bad. It's what I see on IE10. Do I have a bug on my end? Drivers maybe? IE is being disconnected from my graphics settings? Or this atrocity is truly intended?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2013-03-08T15:19:09+00:00

    You can also add a like to http://www.facebook.com/IHateBlurryTextInWindows8Ie10AndOffice2013

    Best wishes

    Jamie

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments