Matt and Nancy Heerema

ClearType

This isn’t exactly news. But I just remembered to link to this today.

If you don’t have ClearType activated on your Windows XP machine, you should do it now. It will make everything look prettier (it’s subtle, but worth it).

How to turn on ClearType for Windows XP

I don’t know why the default for this setting isn’t “on”.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 7th, 2005 at 11:41 amand is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

8 Responses to “ClearType”

1. Bob B said on: February 7th, 2005 at 12:50 pm

   Hey Matt, Methinks it’s time to get moving on this Biang collabrative blog-thing. Do we need to supply some cash before you make it, or what?

2. Tony said on: February 7th, 2005 at 1:11 pm

   Actually, ClearType only makes things look prettier on LCD screens. CRTs get no benefit.

3. Matt said on: February 7th, 2005 at 1:17 pm

   Acutally tony, that isn’t entirely true:

   “ClearType font technology works with current displays. Readability on CRT monitors will be improved somewhat, but it will be dramatically improved on color LCD monitors, such as those found in laptops and high-quality flat desktop displays.”

   Microsoft.com: What is cleartype

4. Tony said on: February 7th, 2005 at 1:35 pm

   I stand corrected.

   From the FAQ:

   However, because ClearType still applies a form of filtering similar to traditional antialiasing, you may see some improvement when enabling ClearType on a CRT screen.

   I made my claim about CRTs and LCDs based upon my understanding of how sub-pixel rendering works. As it turns out, Microsoft’s default font rendering doesn’t even use any anti-aliasing, so ClearType makes things better on CRTs by applying some anti-aliasing.

   My bad.

5. Matt said on: February 7th, 2005 at 1:39 pm

   ya, easy mistake….

   (???!!!?)

   You actually have an understanding of how sub-pixel rendering works? That’s pretty amazing.

6. Pat said on: February 7th, 2005 at 2:39 pm

   I’m pretty sure everything just got fuzzy around the edges. Don’t think I like it.

7. Ben W said on: February 7th, 2005 at 2:57 pm

   Wow, that WAS noticable!! Now all I need to do is update my prescription lenses. Thanks, Matt.

8. erik said on: February 7th, 2005 at 4:27 pm

   “I’m pretty sure everything just got fuzzy around the edges.”

   yeah, that pretty much is how it works….i enjoy it most of the time when i use windows, im not certain what mac os x uses by default but it’s not bad

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