MacType: Better Font Rendering for Windows

Post by graftak » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #41

crazygringo wrote: post #7

It's bizarre that neither the README nor the associated minimal site explains what it does in detail, with screenshots or anything. I'm assuming this is a modern version of GDI++, which a decade ago brought Mac-style font rendering to Windows, but stopped being maintained a while ago. For people who aren't aware of the difference, it's essentially that Windows uses heavy font hinting to try to align character strokes…

A side-effect of Windows pinning fonts to pixels is that you can't get arbitrary font sizes and scaling. E.g. I had to use “font-size: 82%” in CSS, because at 80% the text looked bad (pinned to the wrong pixel, and possibly became blurry, can't remember for sure). Likewise, zooming in browsers was a mess. This was ten years ago, so dunno if anything has changed.

Post by aasasd » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

graftak wrote: post #121

aasasd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A side-effect of Windows pinning fonts to pixels is that you can't get arbitrary font sizes and scaling. E.g. I had to use “font-size: 82%” in CSS, because at 80% the text looked bad (pinned to the wrong pixel, and possibly became blurry, can't remember for sure). Likewise, zooming in browsers was a mess. This was ten years ago, so dunno if anything has changed.

You were likely looking for 81.25% which—with the universally accepted default browser font-size of 16px—equates to a whole 13px (16 * 0,8125).

Post by mastazi » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #109

mastazi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, in my experience fonts look better on Windows at low DPI, and better on Mac at high DPI. I guess it's personal preferences. To me, at low DPI fonts on Mac look as if they had rough edges. At high DPI however fonts on Windows look like the edges are too soft.

There isn't much difference between windows and macos font rendering at large scales - you can try it in something like browserstack, so you can compare two oses on one screen simultaneously. I mean, it's not imperceptible side-by-side, but edges certainly aren't sharper or softer on either.

Post by mastazi » Tue, Aug 03, 2021, 4:43 AM UTC

simondotau wrote: post #114

mastazi wrote: post #73

I use both Windows and Mac daily and I'm not sure that Mac font rendering is always better. Here is my experience: On low DPI screens (think 24" or 25" at 1080p) I prefer how fonts render in Windows. It seems they have better antialiasing, while Mac fonts look slightly pixelated. However on high DPI screens (13" Retina, 25" 4K etc.) fonts on Mac look sharper while Windows fonts look a bit "soft". So I prefer Mac on t…

I agree that macOS does the better job on high DPI "retina" screens. On low DPI screens I also prefer how certain fonts render in Windows, specifically, only with fonts that have excellent hinting. Verdana and Georgia look great in low resolution on Windows, but non-standard fonts tend to look like garbage. Putting this in table form: | System fonts | Other fonts | |--------------|--------------| low DPI | Windows |…

Post by danybittel » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 7:15 AM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #103

danybittel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it does.

I don't understand why you write an incorrect comment when checking whether GP is right takes literally seconds in front of a Windows box (open start menu, screenshot, enlarge, clearly not using subpixel AA).