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Mac Font for Windows 7?
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Mac Font for Windows 7?

by Vyncent ChanNovember 5, 2014
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Ever used a Mac and wondered how they got their text so nice? Ever wanted it on a Windows PC? For starters, it’s like really smooth. Less strenuous to the eyes, if I may. Probably some will say the text isn’t as sharp as on Windows. Heard about font rasterization? What is that? Well the exact definition doesn’t really concern me. What concerns me and I believe most of you too, is the effects it has to the text displayed on your screens. For those who are really interested in what it means, have a look at this Wikipedia article.

The reason I am writing this article cum guide is because I dabbled with Mac OSX 10.9 in VMWare lately, and one of the major difference besides MAC HAS NO GAMESSSSSZZZZ!!!11!!1! is the smoothness of the font in Mac OSX. Much smooth. So wow. At first I just assumed it was just a case of the grass being greener on the (virtual) side of my machine, but after some googling, apparently what I am noticing is an actual difference in terms of the smoothness of the font.

OS X Mavericks-2014-11-03-23-20-14

OS X system font smoothness

While I am unsure about whether Windows 8 implementation of ClearType is on par with OS X, Windows 7 really lags behind especially after you have seen them on the same screen. But fear not all ye Windows loyalist. This post offers a fix to bring the PC master race to the same level as Mac OS X users.

 

Enter MacType. Dubbed the ultimate font rasterizer, it does it’s job and it is also configurable. After downloading the software, open MacType Wizard.

configI selected Registry because I really like the word “seamless”. Now press Next.

config 2

Pick whichever profile looks best to you. I picked the LCD.W7.(chinese words)Mac because I was after the Mac look anyway. You can try the others. And if you noticed, for Registry mode, it is stated that you have to reboot to enable or disable rendering. Actually, you just need to log off and re-log on to change profiles or stop the rendering mode.

Untitled

I hope you guys can see the difference. However you must remember YMMV with these rasterization methods.

Next, you will notice that Google Chrome doesn’t change the way it renders the text in the page, but the tab titles and address bar are all rendered in the new smoother font. Fret not, just type into the address bar   chrome://flags   and disable enable DirectWrite.

disable

Marvel at the new way you see Facebook. Scroll FB all day. Be proud.

 

About The Author
Vyncent Chan
Technology enthusiast, casual gamer, pharmacy graduate. Strongly opposes proprietary standards and always on the look out for incredible bang-for-buck.

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