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
    2013-09-06T20:19:31+00:00

    I hopped into Windows 8.1 Preview's Mail app today, to remind myself why I don't use it.

    I was greeted with this horrible font rendering.

    It won't be fixed by 8.1. It may never be fixed. And I may never use the Mail app in the future, except to verify that the ugly font rendering is why I don't use it.

    Look closely at the image, in it's full size. For proper results, you need to

    • View this post in Firefox
    • Right click the image, and click View
    • Save the image to disk
    • Right click the file, then click Edit so it opens in Paint. (Apparently rendering in a browser window makes it look different than rendering it in Paint, imagine that.)

    Once in Paint, notice how the text looks bold in some areas, and not in others. (Note: there is 1 bold line in the email). Very ugly, don't you agree?

    Fix this Microsoft!

    • Jacob Klein

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-02T10:19:13+00:00

    I also have this problem on a Dell L502X with nVidia 540M GT. I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and in a couple of hours I started to feel my eyes getting tired. Then I looked at another computer here at my company and noticed the difference in text.

    Since then I've tried all the suggested solutions with DPI, resolution, ClearType, switching cables, different graphic drivers and nothing worked.

    I reinstalled Windows 7 but 1-2 months ago I tried W8 again hoping the problem was fixed... but its was the same.

    After I wrote this I decided to try W 8.1 Pro Preview Build 9431. I installed the 326.80 nvidia graphics driver and I can see a significant improvement- still not perfect but close to how it works on W7. 

    I've disabled for all programs scaling for high dpi

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-02T04:52:02+00:00

    They have definetly not fixed it some people are saying they are planning a fix which may be in the GA

    You can test a few sites

    nytimes.com

    arstechnica.com

    theverge.com

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-08-31T07:54:07+00:00

    I can't say they are better. The fonts appear less bold but still the same blurry. Maybe it's different in different monitors.

    It would be nice to have an option to adjust the font contrast for each monitor, to optimize the result.

    Could you post one more image, including a website with lots of small font size text? Such as a newspaper - e.g. nytimes.com.

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-08-30T05:10:43+00:00

    Hey guys, I got my hands on 8.1 RTM and it seems they've improved the font rendering issue, but it's not 100% fixed. You can still notice the problems here and there, but it's a big improvement. I took some screenshots for everyone which should be uncompressed, just make sure you right click the image and click "view original", once it's done loading click the image to view it at its native source. If you don't do that, the images are downscaled to fit your browser and make things look sharper Sorry for the on-screen keyboard, my prt screen button is broken.

    These were taken on 8.1 PRO x64 RTM Build 9600 using Nvidia 326.80 8.1 beta drivers.

    https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=2D0A60482B52A66A!104&authkey=!AATYtxVstry371M

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