IE 7 fonts too bold?

[robertsaunders]

I have just installed the new IE7 and now I find that all the fonts especially sens-serif are looking too bold/fat.

I have the font setting to 100% with no magnification but the verdana and arial fonts on all sites now appear too bold in IE.

Anyone else finding this?

Rob

[thetestingsite]

Yes, I find that IE7 has done this as well, and it is for that reason I do not use it for anything other than testing layout designs in mulitple browsers.

[tech_support]

Yep, it's Microsoft's patented technology, ClearType.

[Twey]

Doesn't matter -- your design shouldn't rely on a certain font looking exactly as it does on your setup anyway :)

[jscheuer1]

Yep, it's Microsoft's patented technology, ClearType.

If it is ClearType that is causing this, you can disable it in the configuration. It is under Tools > Internet Options > Advanced (tab) > (scroll to) Multimedia > uncheck 'Always use ClearType for HTML'. Click OK and all that good stuff. You will need to restart the browser for this to take effect. ClearType started to become the default in new installations of IE 6 at some point but earlier IE 6 installations had this feature disabled by default. In IE 7, it is on by default or is an innocuous option during installation. It is supposed to smooth out the appearance of characters, like anti-aliasing in a paint or image program. This can make some fonts appear bolder, more legible.

[Twey]

I can see most of the East Asian community going up in arms about this. A common theme seen is "X is anti-aliasing my fonts and making the strokes blur together so I can't read them, how do I stop it?" Looks like Windows has the same problem now.

[robertsaunders]

If it is ClearType that is causing this, you can disable it in the configuration. It is under Tools > Internet Options > Advanced (tab) > (scroll to) Multimedia > uncheck 'Always use ClearType for HTML'. Click OK and all that good stuff. You will need to restart the browser for this to take effect. ClearType started to become the default in new installations of IE 6 at some point but earlier IE 6 installations had this feature disabled by default. In IE 7, it is on by default or is an innocuous option during installation. It is supposed to smooth out the appearance of characters, like anti-aliasing in a paint or image program. This can make some fonts appear bolder, more legible.

Thank you. I have disabled ClearType and now the fonts are much clear again.

[tech_support]

And remember if you're using Windows Vista, disable ClearType on it too. It comes standard on Vista as well.