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

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-09T19:55:00+00:00

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-12T13:09:54+00:00

    For me this solved the blurry text in Windows 8.1.

    http://www.askvg.com/fix-bold-blurry-or-hard-to-read-font-problem-in-windows-8-1/

    Someone posted this before on one of these Blurry Text threads.

    I tried it again but as before, it made absolutely no difference to the terrible font rendering in IE11.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-16T20:22:50+00:00

    I think I found  the solution .

    Windows 8 font Rendering depends heavily on the machine it is used on. For example on a brandnew Asus Laptop with Intel HD graphics all is perfect out of the box.

    On a 4 year old Toshiba with Ati 4650 ( win8 inbox Drivers ) everything Metro and IE Looks horrible and tweaks are needed :

    You Need to Bypass Internet Explorer 10/11's fontsettings how to render text. It seems that almost all Metro Apps use in fact the IE engine or whatever systemfiles that depend on it. Remember that Metro Apps are almost all written in HTML5 and Javascript. So to say they are nothing else but boxed Websites that live on the startscreen. 

    To do so you must open Internet Options from Controlpanel and go to the section where it allows you to ignore the webmaster's font style on your visited Websites. After you click this first Setting, you click on the second button "Fonts" and  Instead you choose here  what specific fonts to use for IE/Metro Content text. Try Tahoma or other eye-friendly Fonts and choose for example "Consolas" for fixed Fonts.

    Optionally double this Setting with disabling Hardware Acceleration in IE's advanced Settings and you should notice a difference in your next open Metro App and within IE10/11 .

    This works exactly the same in Win8 and 8.1.

    My Windows is german, so the screenshot Shows you the button to click, but I don't know how the Setting is named in US/EN Versions .

    Simply find the  circled Control Panel Setting and click first button labeled 1 , choose "ignore font style".

    Then button labeled 2 and tell IE which fonts to use.

    Hope this helps some People .

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-09-16T20:48:51+00:00

    Thank you for your suggestion, it is well put together.  Can you see it helping people who are complaining about blurry fonts in Office 2013 throughout this post?

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-09-16T22:21:05+00:00

    That's cool. It works very fine on 99% of my favorite websites. I think I have to re-calibrate the optical front sensors in my head...

    Some bigger fonts are still blurry, but that is no problem.

    But ... is there a way to make exceptions for single sites? I use a local html file as IE start page, and for some reasons I use the Haettenschweiler font. Ignoring this font crashes the design ... :-)

    Good night for now.

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