Can ClearType anti-aliasing be turned off?

[Peter Olcott]

Can ClearType and Standard font smoothing be turned off for everything in
Windows Vista?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

You can try, right click Desktop > Personlization > Windows Color and
Appearance > Open Classic Appearance options > click Effects > uncheck the
option for "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts"

 

[Peter Olcott]

Can you try this for me? I don't yet have a copy of Windows Vista. The beta copy
either did not have such a feature, or Internet Explorer kept font smoothing on,
even when it was turned off.

 

[Michael Price]

IE7 has it's own place to turn clear type on or off. It is in the Advanced
settings dialog

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

MS have a Cleartype Tuning Utility and with that you can not only
adjust the settings to that the appearance is better (in XP and VISTA
and with CRT as well as LCD monitors) but I think you can turn off
Cleartype altogether.

Here's what VISTA Help says:

------------------------------------------------------------------

To tune ClearType
You can use the online tuner to further adjust the legibility of on-
screen items.

Go to the Microsoft typography website, and then follow the
instructions for tuning ClearType.

To turn on ClearType
Click to open Appearance Settings.

Click Effects.

In the Effects dialog box, select Use the following method to smooth
edges of screen fonts.

Select ClearType in the list, and then click OK.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Those are for turning it on -- there is a check box so you can also
turn it off or you can select Cleartype or Standard for smoothing.

I find it improves even on my CRT.

Here's the link to the Tuner that you can download or you can use the
on-line version.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx

 

[Peter Olcott]

That's great info, it seemed to solve my problem, thanks.