Mac OS X like font smoothing in Windows

April 8, 2009 Alternatives, Apple, Apple Mac OS, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Tips & Tricks

Ever wondered why everything looks so beautiful and clear in Mac OS X? It is basically it’s font rendering engine and graphics abilities. Windows is already playing catch up with the font rendering using their own ClearType technology. However, even ClearType can’t stand up to the beauty and clarity given by Mac OS X font rendering. Anyone using Apple Safari on windows would’ve already know about this. I used to switch to Apple Safari on my Windows PC just to read new sites in that glorious smooth font rendering.

My longing for this has been answered mightily by a Japanese freelancer who developed a small program named GDI++ that works on top of a Open Source product named FreeType (an advanced font rendering program across OSes). This small program works beautifully and adjusts the font rendering to Mac OS X like smooth and clarity all over the Windows. It is so beautiful how it can turn a boring looking windows to smooth and clear display. See the comparison shots below:

Without GDI++

With GDI++

Here are some instructions on how to get this working on your computer:

  1. Download GDI++.
  2. Extract this ZIP file in any directory, for example: C:\gdi
  3. Double-click the file: gditray.exe
  4. Now, your task bar you can note a “G”, like the image:
    howto-image3
  5. Double-click it, it should start glowing green:
    howto-image4
  6. Enjoy this beautiful font-smoothing.
  7. You can adjust the font-smoothing level by right clicking this icon and choosing Use Preferences and selecting any of the three Japanese letters shown there.

Try it out…

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Comments (7)

 

  1. abbie says:
    April 23, 2009 at 11:18 pm

    You are now my hero. I love this program, and now I can use Opera again, and I am not restricted to Safari for readability.

    Reply
  2. Anon says:
    April 28, 2009 at 11:10 pm

    holy crap this is amazing! :-D :-D :-D

    Thanks!

    Reply
  3. winjay says:
    September 25, 2009 at 6:47 pm

    WOW! U should publish this article somewhere else where it will be noticed…
    I thought it was impossible
    this so cool…

    Reply
  4. Yonathan says:
    November 7, 2009 at 12:49 am

    After comparing it with Safari’s font rendering, I found that they are not exactly the same, but very close, though.
    Anyway, text on my screen is much more readable now. I hate ClearType.

    Reply
  5. Srinivasan A Paul Joseph says:
    November 13, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Abbie, Anon and WinJay and Yonathan thanks a lot.

    Yonathan, you can try various settings in the software (available in the .ini and the tray icon) to try and match it with Mac OS like. However, I guess there will always be a variance between native OS feature and an Add-on. ;)

    Reply
  6. Jacob Davis says:
    January 8, 2010 at 5:02 am

    I like this program. It actually replicates the font smoothing capabilities of the Macintosh OS X. I’m never going back to ClearType again with this on hand! Besides, this program has the advantage over Windows’ current font smoothing technologies.

    Reply

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