UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

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afx
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UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by afx »

Hi,
I recently acquired a PA301W. No matter whether cleartype is on or off, the UI fonts look mushy. Slightly less so on PWP 5.

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afx
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afx
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by afx »

Am I the only one with this problem?
here is an example, comparing PWP with other apps (click for a 100% version).

Image

Note, LibreOffice also has this Problem, but most apps don't.

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afx
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jsachs
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by jsachs »

The latest version uses the TrueType Arial font - font rendering is done by Windows. You might want to check that your display resolution is set to the native resolution of your monitor.
Jonathan Sachs
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afx
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by afx »

Of course I use the native resolution, why else would I get a 30"? ;-)

I tried ClearType on or off, Font Smoothing on or off.

No change in PWP. Font smoothing off did make a change for some other apps.

Some apps do have decent UI font display, some don't, as shown in the screenshot.
Unfortunately PWPW is one of the worst.

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afx
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jsachs
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by jsachs »

Here's how it looks on my Dell 23" monitor.
Test.jpg
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Jonathan Sachs
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afx
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by afx »

Yup, I never had any issues on my 21".
But I found the reason...

Microsoft insist that every screen is 96PPI no matter what the actual value is.
If you use the adjustment tool to tell it the real DPI value by dragging an on-screen ruler to match a real ruler, UI fonts get scaled. Works quite fine on my 144 and 125 DPI laptops.
But fails miserably when there is only a small bit of scaling involved, the 30" is actually 100PPI.
So apps that rely on the OS to give them a properly scaled font get mushy fonts from the OS.

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afx
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jsachs
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Re: UI fonts mushy on 30" screen

Post by jsachs »

That was going to be my next suggestion.
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