Sunday, January 07, 2007

ClearType and XP - how come I never knew ?

OK, only for those stuck in the real world who use Windows. Further only really for those using a LCD monitor or laptop (although my CRT has a new lease on life too).


Microsoft have implemented sub pixel rendering for LCDs and made ClearType fonts that look gorgeous. It feels like I've just put my lost glasses on. I can't believe that I never knew this was in XP all along (I'm only 5 years late).


I started to wonder what was going on when IE7 was rendering pages beautifully and Opera was kinda splodgy.





vs





So I turned on ClearType rendering and voila the laptop looks gorgeous and the CRT is perty too.


The official example.



Amaze your friends, win contracts, enlarge your loins -ok it won't enlarge your loins.


Heaps more info here ;


http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypeInfo.mspx 

1 comment:

ntt said...

Sorry Dave, I should've told you about cleartype.
When you move across to Mac OSX you will see how much better the OSX rendering is than even ClearType. For evidence, I present:

http://www.xvsxp.com/system/fonts_view.php

It may be an example of excessive pixel-peeping but I have always found the OSX version of sub-pixel rendering to be less blurry and generally crisper and clearer to read.

Also of note, but completely irrelevant for all of us, is the fact that Windows cleartype does not work for Japanese or Chinese fonts/character sets. But OSX does, of course.