nah...I don't really like cleartype...it makes the fonts look funny on my desktop. Maybe I'm not used to it, but I tried Cleartype and I'd rather stick with my normal font :)

How did you try it out for? You should give it a few hours before you really start to notice a difference.

Scott

I always used to use it on my laptop, but on my desktop...it just seems to make things a bit blurry.

..especially on the desktop icons and stuff.

I'll leave it on for awhile just to try it out though. :D

Trying out the ClearType. It does seem to make things a bit brighter and bolder to the eye, but also seems to lose a little of the sharpness. I am not sure which I prefer so far, will give it some time.

I've had it on for 2 days now. Ok I guess.

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for the clear type link, I came to your site through matrix essays and like the content that you provide.

It's browntype not cleartype.

You've persuaded me to give it another go.

Repeat: brown is good.

What are you talking about "brown type"?? it clearly says "Clear type" on the windows webpage.

Anyway it realy does make the desktop icon font blurry, and the only way that I can remoce this is by disabling the "use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop' but this puts a horrible monocolour rectangle behind my text. What can I do about this?

Nah its browntype. Mainly due to the fact it looks distinctly brown on my monitor.

In short a failed attempt at levity, humour even.

I'll get my coat.

Don't sweat it, mcl. I got the joke. :)

Isn't that 'blurry' look simply anti-alias???

Y'all need to read a little closer... ClearType will only give you great improvements on LCD screens... it takes advantage of the fact that a pixel on an LCD screen is arranged in smaller rectangles of red, green, and blue (I forget the order, but it does differ on some monitors). ClearType performs antialiasing at the *sub-pixel* level... effectively increasing your resolution for displaying type.

ClearType is, for me, the main reason for upgrading to winXP and an LCD screen. The font rendering FINALLY looks halfway decent!

A technical problem: Cleartype & courier new, in certain text editors including editplus and Dreamweaver's code view, renders double quotes that look like SINGLE quotes.
As a coder, this has the potential to cause _massive_ headaches.
Cheers,
k

I am experiencing the Cleartype issue that affects Dreamweaver's Code view. VERY annoying. I figured it out and then found this page via Google. Good to know I'm not the only one.

you can see the double quotes when the code is highlighted. Then they disappear when regular. It's some sort of kerning issue, since other characters are clipped on their right side depending on how wide they are. If you use a TrueType font designed for screen display (other than system fonts, which are NOT an available option for the Code view), things appear better.

I have just enabled ClearType, and am astonished at how much more clear all the fonts look... I can see the blurriness surrounding the font, but it still appears much more vibrant than before...

However, I am etremely disappointed with how blurry all of my Start Menu, System Tray, Quick Launch, and Taskbar icons have become.

And now, even when I disable ClearType the icons remain blurred... Any help would be greatly appreciated...

To the person who commented that ClearType is "brown type" -- you need to tweak your ClearType a bit -- get the program called "ClearTweak"

This feature actually gives a pink/Cyan hue surrounding the characters on the screen which makes readibility more difficult. Once you notice it it's hard to not see it. I turned it off. I thought my LCD on my Dell was going out, but wasn't the case.

yeah-installed XP on my TP .. damn got a shocker at first - all blurry and with lots of fringing around the letters-and it is pink. downloaded the cleartweak software-healped a little. but still playing around with it.

Those finding it fuzzy can use the sharpening features offered by most lcd video grahics cards like NVIDIA. It does wonders fro cleartype fonts

gah, i got a 17" CRT flat, and when i use ClearType my eyes always hurt when trying to read anything on the screen, so I'll stick with the standard smoothing method for now..

O.o The bad thing is, I can't get Japanese IME text to be ClearType'd unless I change the size to 18+ :/

Oh, bless your heart for these clear step by step instructions. I've spent more time trying to figure out how to enable this. Thanks much!

I am having a problem with clearType. This is the first computer that I had with XP. When Clear type is on, I have problems in outlook or other programs that have alot of bold text. There is a red bleed or hays between letters like "i and l". can this be fixed.

first off, microsoft has been using "clear type" a lot longer than since xp came out. second, apple has not been using clear type since the 70's. they're simply basing it off of something that apple USED to use (which is not cleartype). and i dont care what you call it, it still means anti-aliasing and despite what you may have told your brain to believe, it does not make anything easier on your eyes. it just makes your desktop *look* better. that's it.

this review would have been infinitely more helpful had you explained how to turn on cleartype for only fonts over a certain size. that's the problem some of these people are having. cleartype on fonts under 10pt looks horrible.

retard.

In response to the comment about ClearType not working on small Japanese text, this is actually a very good idea. In Japanese, the ratio of black ("ink") to whitespace in any given character is *much* higher than for alphabet based languages. Anti-aliasing a character that has, for example, only 10% whitespace would turn it into an illegible black square. (Admittedly kana characters do contain sufficient whitespace.)

In response to the respons to the comment about ClearType not working on small Japanese text:

Way to talk out of your ass.

Discover the anti-aliasing of Japanese text on OSX. It's gorgeous and still allows for perfect legibility of kanji, even at small font sizes. Have you even done any work with Japanese text in a medium employing anti-aliasing? Doubtful.

Thanks for the tip about the sharpness features on Nvidia cards. I was going crazy trying to rid myself of the blurry text.

Is Microsoft's CLEARTYPE technology for notebook better than Apple's technology for notebook.

I have an Nvidia card and an LCD monitor, but I don't see anything about a sharpness adjustment. I looked at the desktop | Properties (= Display Properties dlg) | Settings tab | Advanced button | Adaptor tab. This has buttons for "List All Modes" ( = resolution x refresh) and Properties ( = driver, etc.). How do you adjust sharpness?

I have a solution. Go into control panel -- display -- appearance -- advanced -- and then "caption button. Reduce the font to 24 or 18. This should reduce your icon back to a non-blurry state.

Good luck!

Hey,
I'm not sure what's going on w/Clear Type, but I don't think the problem is font size. My issue is fuzzy red letters. It is really obvious if I open MYCOMPUTER- the bold heading fonts are reddish, the other not bold fonts are fine. The effect is really bad around i's and l's.(something to do with kerning?) I noticed that the red blur goes away if I change my display settings and then change them back again. Then everything looks fantastic until I reboot. That kind of makes me think it has something to do with the video drivers. BTW, I'm using a Dell w/ integrated Intel graphics.

Bad Dog, No Biscuit

Hi,
I too had the red i's and l's, especially when
they're doubled like in 'will' with non serif fonts.
I think a lot of modern drivers have a similar anti-aliasing built-in.
But you may try the MS powertoy page at

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

as it has a 'Clear-type powertoy' to make it easier to muck about with the settings to get
it looking better.(wizard driven).

cheers
bdf

" Posted by: sfscribe ( xx.198.131.77)
February 17, 2006 02:19 AM

I have a solution. Go into control panel -- display -- appearance -- advanced -- and then "caption button. Reduce the font to 24 or 18. This should reduce your icon back to a non-blurry state.
Good luck!"

Thanks that did the trick for the icons however, the text is still a little fuzzy on screen.
moonbeam

The whole fact that ClearType doesn't work on Japanese text below 18+ makes Windows completely useless for me. This and the fact that the default line spacing for Japanese text on Windows is pretty close to 0 pixels makes Japanese on Windows almost illegible.

I have no idea how my coworkers here in Tokyo can stand working this way even a day without having their eyes bleed.

Right now the pixelfonts used for smaller point sizes in Japanese use character forms that are especially simplified for pixelated small text, which makes it unproportionally harder to read than even a slightly blurry smoothed full detailed version of the same character.

I've been working for years with OS X in Japanese and never had any problems with legibility, on WinXP it's just a nightmare. I still wonder whether there isn't just some hack to "force smooth" Japanese fonts...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

If you go to the link above it is a Powertoy by Microsoft which has a Wizard to take all the hard yakka out of setting up Cleartype.

Regards.. Phil

I use a CRT and I really like what cleartype does, however it really screws up the display of some pixelfonts, making them look purple and such :(

Questions and Comments. I have 2 computers, 1 w/XP and 1 w/ME. I decided to format C and do a clean install of XP on the 2nd machine. It installed fine but now the display is fuzzy and hard to read. It was fine with ME on it. I have used the clear font crap, I have the newest driver for everything in the machine. I have messed with the contrast, brightness, refresh, I have used 120% on display dpi, large fonts, large icons and every combination I could think of. The only way to read it is to make it huge, 600X800, lg fonts and icons. This sucks!! The other computer is newer and it doesn't and has never had this problem. I don't get it. After 2 days of screwing with it I decided to format again and reinstall the unstable ME, guess what it won't take it now, it says my serial is wrong? So I am trying a full format, not a quick to see if that will do it (Maybe XP has something on the disk that is interferring with the re-install. Heck I'm about ready to go back to 98SE, ME in the most unstable system BSOD just goes wild in it.
Thats my story anyway.