Font Smoothing and Web Design
Something that had never occurred to me before today was font smoothing and the web. Cleartype is a font smoothing technology that was included in Windows XP, but was not turned on my default (I have no idea why it’s not the default). I have had it turned on for as long as I can remember, and it never occurred to me that some computers might not have it turned on.
This is a serious problem, I’m not sure how I never thought about it. Here’s a screenshot of the differences.
The effect is not so bad on headings, since the letters are thicker. It’s more obvious on smaller letter forms. And you can’t really get a feel for the effect with just one word.
When you have a text-heavy website, all the jaggies make it nearly unreadable. Especially when you’re looking at large amount of technical text.
Does anyone know about a solution from the web developer side?