Author Topic: What is your preferred font? (Read 141,939 times)

Curt · « **Reply #100 on:** May 25, 2010, 02:54 PM »

-I guess most of our little kingdom is 'familiar' with at least one member of the Allers'. The woman in head of the dynasty is well-known for her visit to the northern Greenland and the North-pole on a sledge, for climbing Mt Everest, for being the first white person to ever visit certain man-eating Guinea tribes (and survive the meetings, that is), among other hobbies!

The Aller font is okay, but I don't like "Q" and "f".

MilesAhead · « **Reply #101 on:** May 26, 2010, 02:20 AM »

Now here's a cool looking font:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Font-Utils/Royal-Acidbath-Regular.shtml

It also comes with an outline font counterpart.

Curt · « **Reply #102 on:** May 26, 2010, 06:34 AM »

-yeah, Royal Acidbath is really good looking, Miles

But it's not Unicode

[attachthumb=#]

Shades · « **Reply #103 on:** May 27, 2010, 12:22 AM »

Well, there is a piece of software promoted lately that enhances the rendering of fonts. Whatever font tickles you, it looks better when using this open source renderer, gdipp.

The link leads to a descriptive page with screenshots that show the differences between the results of the Windows rendering software and gdipp rendering software.

40hz · « **Reply #104 on:** May 27, 2010, 12:06 PM »

Quote from: Shades on May 27, 2010, 12:22 AM

Well, there is a piece of software promoted lately that enhances the rendering of fonts. Whatever font tickles you, it looks better when using this open source renderer, gdipp.

The link leads to a descriptive page with screenshots that show the differences between the results of the Windows rendering software and gdipp rendering software.

I remember seeing a write-up on gdipp recently.

Looks to be a promising bit of technology that I hope makes it all the way since I was never overly impressed by Microsoft's text rendering capabilities. I split my time equally with Linux and I can't help but notice how much better screen text looks in that environment - and on the exact same hardware.

ClearType used to just mildly annoy me. But now that I've gone over to non-CRT monitors, the overall poor quality of the text often drives me right up the wall.

Definitely going to have to give gdipp a try soon.

Has anybody here tried it yet?

Eóin · « **Reply #105 on:** May 27, 2010, 12:17 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on May 27, 2010, 12:06 PM

ClearType used to just mildly annoy me. But now that I've gone over to non-CRT monitors, the overall poor quality of the text often drives me right up the wall.

Personally I can't stand Linux font rendering. But I guess I'm just used to the Windows approach. I couldn't live without ClearType though. Even on CRTs I turn it on.

gdipp looks very interesting, I may try it out. Though from the screenshots it looks a lot like they just made the font strokes thicker. Whereas I do like thinner weights by defaults.

40hz · « **Reply #106 on:** May 27, 2010, 12:32 PM »

Quote from: Eóin on May 27, 2010, 12:17 PM

Personally I can't stand Linux font rendering. But I guess I'm just used to the Windows approach.

Thank goodness there are choices!

Quote from: Eóin on May 27, 2010, 12:17 PM

I couldn't live without ClearType though. Even on CRTs I turn it on.

+1. It makes things slightly more bearable. But again, it's what looks best to each individual.

Curt · « **Reply #107 on:** May 27, 2010, 12:35 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on May 27, 2010, 12:06 PM

... give gdipp a try soon.
Has anybody here tried it yet?

I installed it as a service, and re-booted, but don't see much difference.
The biggest difference is in details' view in Explorer where the file names' characters now have a thinner line. All in all, this is very little to go for. However, I already have ClearType installed. The combination may diminish the effect?

superboyac · « **Reply #108 on:** May 27, 2010, 04:54 PM »

I just installed gdipp. I can't tell the difference. It's a service, so I stopped it and restarted and I didn't see anything change. but maybe I don't have an eye for these things. What should I be looking for?

tomos · « **Reply #109 on:** May 27, 2010, 10:30 PM »

should we start a new thread >> My Least Favourite Font << ??

Quote from: Curt on May 27, 2010, 10:03 PM

Does ghacks have the most ugly font display on the Internet?

in my Firefox 3.6:
()

Anyone know what font it is? Something narrow. I find it difficult to read (@ 1680 x 1050) but I like it at about 300% of that ... FWIW

[edit] oups

forgot the link to the lifehacker page http://www.ghacks.net/2010/05/27/switch-default-computer-printers-automatically/ where you can actually see the font [/edit]

Curt · « **Reply #110 on:** May 28, 2010, 10:58 AM »

Quote from: tomos on May 27, 2010, 10:30 PM

should we start a new thread >> My Least Favourite Font << ??

Quote from: Curt on May 27, 2010, 10:03 PM
Does ghacks have the most ugly font display on the Internet?

in my Firefox 3.6:
[attachimg=#]

... the link to the lifehacker page http://www.ghacks.net/2010/05/27/switch-default-computer-printers-automatically/ where you can actually see the font [/edit]

[hint] It would be interesting to see what that page looks like in other peoples' browser [/hint]
Wold you people care to take a similar screenshot and upload it, please?

tomos · « **Reply #111 on:** May 28, 2010, 11:06 AM »

here you go!

[attachimg=#]

tomos · « **Reply #112 on:** May 28, 2010, 11:14 AM »

hmm looks a lot better in mine Curt !! (also FF - 3.6.3)

the spacing between the letters on your shot can only be described as, eh, very bad

I think it's a different font - they look similar but yours is definitely narrower
What's your default font in Options>>Content ?
(Verdana here but I dont have time to check if that Verdana in my screenshot..)

Curt · « **Reply #113 on:** May 28, 2010, 11:44 AM »

Normally I have it set for Times New Roman 16
With Verdana 16 as default it looks like this:

[attachimg=#]

-but that doesn't look at all like Verdana.
Nor did my first screenshot look anything like Times New Roman.

I don't understand this subject.

superboyac · « **Reply #114 on:** May 28, 2010, 01:36 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 27, 2010, 04:54 PM

I just installed gdipp. I can't tell the difference. It's a service, so I stopped it and restarted and I didn't see anything change. but maybe I don't have an eye for these things. What should I be looking for?

Actually, i rebooted, and there is quite a bit of difference. Wow.

Curt · « **Reply #115 on:** May 28, 2010, 01:48 PM »

- I also have re-booted but still don't see any difference worth mentioning. So now I am the one asking, what should I be looking for?

And, do you have ClearType as well?

Edited:
Looking inside some text files has made me see one of the improvements:
Courier New 10 is A LOT nicer now!

superboyac · « **Reply #116 on:** May 28, 2010, 02:26 PM »

I think gdipp initially screws up some stuff on your computer. there's a lot of flickering, errors, weird problems. But then they go away. Almost like it's rendering for the first time, and once it does it, things are ok.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #117 on:** May 28, 2010, 09:24 PM »

This site is supposed to help you roll your own:

http://www.freedownloadaday.com/2010/05/28/build-your-own-fonts-for-free/

Eóin · « **Reply #118 on:** May 28, 2010, 11:11 PM »

Curt, is it working for you yet? I had to manually start the services on my Win7 x64 before the new rendering engine kicked in.

For anyone else curious I'm attaching a screenshot from Iron, other programs all look similar.

[attachthumb=#]

Sure does feel like I'm on Linux all of a sudden

. Needless to say I'll be uninstalling it ASAP. I can appreciate it may just be that I'm too accustomed to the Windows style of font rendering, but all the dodgy spacing/kerning that can be seen in the screenshot just looks very inelegant to me.

Curt · « **Reply #119 on:** May 29, 2010, 11:40 AM »

-as far as I can(not) understand, any effect of gdipp also has to do with what type of monitor I am using? Mine is a LCD screen from the previous century, named Eizo FlexScan L360, (a TFT type, I am told). Very hype back then, but now just very old.

40hz · « **Reply #120 on:** May 29, 2010, 01:53 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on May 28, 2010, 02:26 PM

I think gdipp initially screws up some stuff on your computer. there's a lot of flickering, errors, weird problems. But then they go away. Almost like it's rendering for the first time, and once it does it, things are ok.

I suspect that's probably caused by some sort of initial background font rendering and caching of all the fonts on your machine. Once the metrics and outlines got cached the problem would go away if that is the case.

Man, I gotta get this little ogre up on something so I can check it out!

40hz · « **Reply #121 on:** May 29, 2010, 04:47 PM »

OK it's installed (XP-SP3), and as others have already noted, there are some subtle but big differences in text appearance. Looks like they optimized letter appearance at the expense of spacing whenever push came to shove.

Kerning is a little dodgy at times. Primarily in web browsers (FF and IE).

But for everything else I'm looking at, I think I like gdipp's rendering more.

Verdana's lowercase M likes to 'crash' into most following characters, but it doesn't pose a problem for reading purposes.

Text rendering, like most things, is a series of trade-offs. I guess it all comes down to what looks best to you.

mwb1100 · « **Reply #122 on:** May 29, 2010, 05:29 PM »

Quote from: Curt on May 28, 2010, 10:58 AM

[hint] It would be interesting to see what that page looks like in other peoples' browser [/hint]
Wold you people care to take a similar screenshot and upload it, please?

This is on a Vista laptop with ClearType enabled:

Though I can't say it's the nicest font, the rendering looks fine to me...

Curt · « **Reply #123 on:** May 29, 2010, 05:36 PM »

mwb1100; your's are fine.
But what font do you have for default in that browser?

tomos · « **Reply #124 on:** May 29, 2010, 07:27 PM »

Quote from: Curt on May 29, 2010, 05:36 PM

mwb1100; your's are fine.
But what font do you have for default in that browser?

I dont think the default font makes any difference with that site - maybe I thought the font in your screenshot was different to mine because the kerning is so bad on yours: it makes the font look a lot narrower

zoomed in a little on your screenshot:

[attachimg=#]

definitely something odd going on there - was it after you installed that gdippy thingy for the type?

I see 40hz says:

Quote from: 40hz on May 29, 2010, 04:47 PM

Kerning is a little dodgy at times. Primarily in web browsers (FF and IE).

Curt's screenshot is more than a *little* dodgy though imo...