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
    2014-03-17T16:55:28+00:00

    I can live with the blur (mostly), but what frustrates me the most is when I create a PowerPoint in Office 2010 - it renders the text differently between my Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC - generally beautiful in Windows 7 and expanded, text outside the boxes in Windows 8.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-03-21T14:30:29+00:00

    I just got my new surface pro 2, and am puzzled by this problem. Many programs, including IE10, the modern interface (start screen), and Office 2013 render text perfectly fine. But R (an open source statistics program) does not. The text is very fuzzy.

    I have R installed on multiple other Windows machines. It renders text perfectly fine on a desktop with Win7, a laptop with Win7, and another laptop with Win8. So this problem seems specific to the Surface.

    Please fix this soon! It is a major problem. The ability to install programs to actually do real work was the whole reason I got a Surface, as opposed to some other tablet.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-03-21T14:49:19+00:00

    I just got my new surface pro 2, and am puzzled by this problem. Many programs, including IE10, the modern interface (start screen), and Office 2013 render text perfectly fine. But R (an open source statistics program) does not. The text is very fuzzy.

    I have R installed on multiple other Windows machines. It renders text perfectly fine on a desktop with Win7, a laptop with Win7, and another laptop with Win8. So this problem seems specific to the Surface.

    Can you locate the exe file of R?

    Then you can open the properies dialog of that exe file and see if you have a Compatibility property page. If yes, try to check "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". Apply the changes and restart R. Is it still blurry?

    --

    SvenC

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-03-21T15:04:15+00:00

    I just got my new surface pro 2. Many programs, including IE10, the modern interface (start screen), and Office 2013 render text perfectly fine. But R (an open source statistics program) does not. The text is very fuzzy.

    I have R installed on multiple other Windows machines. It renders text perfectly fine on a desktop with Win7, a laptop with Win7, and another laptop with Win8. So this problem seems specific to the Surface.

    Can you locate the exe file of R?

    Then you can open the properies dialog of that exe file and see if you have a Compatibility property page. If yes, try to check "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". Apply the changes and restart R. Is it still blurry?

    --

    SvenC

    That fix worked perfectly! Thanks a bunch, SvenC.

    For anyone else with blurry text rendering issues with R on Surface, checking "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" in the Compatibility tab of the Properties box for R.gui.exe completely fixed the problem.

    On my machine with default install, it is at:  C\Program_Files\R\R-3.03\bin\x64\Rgui.exe 

    Thanks again.  :)

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-04-29T00:47:59+00:00

    FreeType font rendering should be in Windows by default. It is much more pleasant read text in high resolution using MacType software than using Cleartype. It is a shame Microsoft not deliver font smoothing similar quality used in MacOS X and Linux operating systems to date.

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