Windows 7 Fonts - I hate them! Requested Assistance

By rwx
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rwx

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Hi there,

Is there anyway to make Windows 7 fonts look in XP? Windows 7 fonts are driving me crazy! They make my eyes hurt. Literally, I am straining my eyes. I know there are people out there that love them but I hate them, seriously, I can't use W7 with those fonts.

My fonts on XP are Tahoma, Size 8 at 96dpi (which is the default DPI) and the fonts are really nice.

With W7, I choose Tahoma, size 8 and it looks nothing like in XP! The fonts DPI is set to 100% and Size 8 at 100% is too small + the shape of the Tahoma version in W7 is nothing like in XP. It looks squashed. It's like running X.ORG! What has happened? I tried going through the ClearType settings wizard but could not get the desired result. In my XP, I have ClearType turned off and I recently turned it ON but either way, the fonts are really nice.

So please, if anyone knows some way to make my W7 fonts look identical to XP literally, please speak up.

Rising Star

Sem XL

Posted
Posted
Hmm I will try, I don't think this will work but it is good thinking anyway.

As far as I know, W7 is using a different font rendering engine. I could be wrong though.

i think this is the reason

replacing tahoma from xp to win7 wont make a difference

its the same reason Segoe UI and Calibri dont look the same on xp as they do in vista/win7

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rwx

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i think this is the reason

replacing tahoma from xp to win7 wont make a difference

its the same reason Segoe UI and Calibri dont look the same on xp as they do in vista/win7

It didn't work as expected but I have come close to the shape that I desire. In Windows XP fonts (Tahoma) are rounded (not tall) but in W7 the fonts seem to be tall/thin. So I tried playing with the screen resolution.

I have found that 1280x960 and 1280x1024 give me enjoyable view of the fonts but unfortunately the whole desktop seems a bit stretched :( Like the taskbar looks a bit weird with this resolution. My screen is 20" Samsung LCD wide screen. I think it's 16:10 rather than 16:9.

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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Hmm I will try, I don't think this will work but it is good thinking anyway.

As far as I know, W7 is using a different font rendering engine. I could be wrong though.

Same rendering engine, but it apparently does hinting differently, which could cause some differences.

Grand Master

XerXis

Posted
Posted
It didn't work as expected but I have come close to the shape that I desire. In Windows XP fonts (Tahoma) are rounded (not tall) but in W7 the fonts seem to be tall/thin. So I tried playing with the screen resolution.

I have found that 1280x960 and 1280x1024 give me enjoyable view of the fonts but unfortunately the whole desktop seems a bit stretched :( Like the taskbar looks a bit weird with this resolution. My screen is 20" Samsung LCD wide screen. I think it's 16:10 rather than 16:9.

1280*1024 is not even a widescreen resolution, ofcourse it doesn't look good

Grand Master

ToneKnee

Posted
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Hi, I know it is not a wide screen resolution. I was just making a point to describe how I want the fonts to look (rounded). Because it stretches the fonts, they become rounded :)

Still not seeing what you mean, what way to suggest to you that you are not using 'ClearType' in XP (which is disabled as default) which is making you think the fonts in Vista/Windows 7 look bad. The other way round this is to use the method posted above and use the ClearType adjustment tool to help.

Grand Master

Minifig

Posted
Posted
Go to start menu and type "clear". Open "Adjust ClearType text" and follow instructions.

Ftw.

They're the exact same fonts.

You just haven't enabled clear font and set it according to the way you like it to be.

Font's don't change from OS to OS. Your eyes are deceiving you.

Enable the true-type and see if that fixes your problem.

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rwx

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Just for everybody's information, in one of my posts on the first page, I did say I already went through the ClearType wizard :) However I was not happy with end result hence for coming here :)

Anyway, I think I am getting used to the fonts in W7 and when I go back to XP it looks kind of weird :)

Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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Take screen shots to compare them because I don't see any real difference between XP, Vista, and Win7 for the fonts

XP.pngVista.pngWin7.png

First picture is XP SP3, Second is Vista SP1 and the last is Win7 7000.

Each picture is using Arial, each picture was taken in Firefox 3.0.10, in each case Firefox was using Uniscribe and normal GDI to draw the text.

There are differences, but only due to positioning and that's the only real change from XP to Vista (The only difference between Vista and 7 is the colour of the sub-pixel elements)

(Ignore the whole Condensed/Expanded stuff, Pretty much no browsers support that, and it was the easiest page for me to use)

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

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XP.pngVista.pngWin7.png

First picture is XP SP3, Second is Vista SP1 and the last is Win7 7000.

Each picture is using Arial, each picture was taken in Firefox 3.0.10, in each case Firefox was using Uniscribe and normal GDI to draw the text.

There are differences, but only due to positioning and that's the only real change from XP to Vista (The only difference between Vista and 7 is the colour of the sub-pixel elements)

(Ignore the whole Condensed/Expanded stuff, Pretty much no browsers support that, and it was the easiest page for me to use)

yeah besides the smoothing/subpixel rendering for cleartype being slightly different I dont see any font differences

  • 2 weeks later...
Neowinian

paranoyd

Posted
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The font rendering is the only reason I haven't switched to Windows 7 full time. No matter how much I play around with the cleartype adjustments fonts look grainy to me. I find that I'm straining my eyes just to gain some kind of clarity. Also fonts like Arial look different in Windows 7 then in XP. It's completely thrown me off since I use it for system menus, icons, etc. In XP cleartype looks perfect on all my desktops and laptops.

For example, the first screenshot are my Thunderbird folders in XP. Arial font (9pt, bold). The fonts are smooth, clear and not to dark.

thunderbirdxparial.png

The second is Windows 7, same font and settings as above. The font here is ultra dark and looks more grainy to me. Also it's clear that Arial looks different in Windows 7. The "h" and "n" for example are more narrow (squashed). Now an entire screen of this makes my eyes very unhappy.

thunderbirdwin7arial.png

I see this on my laptops and several different workstations. I think Windows 7 is a worthy successor to XP but I can't see myself using it with the current font rendering.

Just so no one wastes their time posting... no, this is not a LCD native resolution issue.

  • 5 months later...
Grand Master

Fraud OS 11

Posted
Posted

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_featu...ed_in_Windows_7,

"ClearType cannot be turned off entirely in order for the user interface font, Segoe UI to maintain optimal design for certain shell components and Windows Explorer. Parts of the user interface (such as the start menu and Explorer) still use ClearType regardless of setting."

The same is true of Segoe UI unless you do font substitution to force Tahoma instead of Segoe UI in which case it doesn't look very pretty either. This has been a problem since Vista actually and especially burns my eyes on my CRT comp, on my laptop it's fine. Segoe UI is so heavily anti-aliased and subpixed rendered, but apparently now MS only cares about users with LCDs.

Btw you ARE using an LCD right? If using a CRT, always disable ClearType but keep standard font smooth enabled. Also did you try adjusting using this powertoy that offers you advanced settings and can change your LCD screen striping instead of forcing your eye to take the decision?

Rising Star

mzta cody

Posted
Posted

I think it can be attributed, for reasons I could not explain, to the 3-D desktop composition. To me, Segoe looks different in Basic versus Aero. Barely perceptible difference, but there. I've noticed this on different computers, and I'm not imagining it.

  • 3 weeks later...
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