Last week, I mentioned Firefox 對文字處理不佳. Just to extend that article, I decided to make a comparison of text display in browsers in different operating systems, and why you should switch to a Mac.

Let's start with the most popular browser running on Windows XP

Internet Explorer 6, Standard font smooth display setting. (Windows XP)


Internet Explorer 6, ClearType font smooth display setting. (Windows XP)


Firefox 2, Standard font smooth display setting. (Windows XP)


Firefox 2, ClearType font smooth display setting. (Windows XP)


Now, let's take a look if we use Mac OS X.
Firefox 2, with Mac OS X's built-in font smoothing technology. (Mac OS X)


Safari, with Mac OS X's built-in font smoothing technology. (Mac OS X)


I think I can draw some fair conclusion:
ClearType does not improve the text display of Chinese characters, only English text. The above example may not show any improvement on English text, we shall conduct a separate test with text not specifying using Chinese font or language.

In Windows XP, it's easy to note that MSIE and Firefox calls different typefaces to display Chinese.

In Mac OS X, Firefox 2 and Safari display Chinese in slightly different way (they use different different "weight" of font).

One thing we can agree on is... Text on Mac OS X looks much better than on Windows XP.

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Netscape 9 | SillyDog701: Switch guide | Browser Archive | MozInfo701
MacCentre701 | AntBlog701
Don't steal music.

Wow, you are right.

This is MS Jhenghei:

微軟正黑體果然支援 ClearType，可見 Vista 至少像點樣。

It is well know that up till now, ClearType has a bad support for Asian fonts.

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korp + korp 中文站（沒精神更新）

不得不提的是
新細明體中有bitmap font
而系統會優先使用bitmap font的

試試把新細明體的bitmap font去掉再試啊 XD

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I am the bone of my firefox.

Source is my body, and library is my blood.

I've created over a thousand of builds.

Unaware of notice.
Nor aware of warning.

With stood pain to create binaries.
Waiting for one's download.

I have no regrets. This is the only path.

My whole life was "Unlimited build works"

「只有宗教狂熱分子和極權主義國家才將道德等同於法制。」 Linus Torvalds寫道。
我的廢棄日記

檔案名字叫做....?

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挑選‧儲存圖片　 History Submenus Ⅱ　 Personal Menu
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MingLiu.TTC
（都包在一起了）

其實王漢宗字型沒有嵌點陣字，在字級比較小的時候反而是AA到整個字糊成一團，根本不能看；所以細明體內嵌點陣字還是有其歷史意義的。Firefly不也是辛苦去點出一整套自由點陣字了嗎？

是的，我很感謝微軟的點陣字。
在有預算換顯示器之前，看得清楚比美觀表現重要得多。

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站起來，走出門外，數到 300 再回來。

正黑體太細了，這害我非常不想升級。

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吟風齋

投靠黑暗的力量吧！
話又說回來...新的新細明體的點陣很醜，舊的比較好看，我現在還在用舊的。

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korp + korp 中文站（沒精神更新）

Well, I did more comparison on Chinese and English under Windows XP and OS X. In this case, I chose a webpage with smaller font size being used.

On Windows XP:

Internet Explorer 6 (without font smoothing):


Internet Explorer 6 (with standard font smoothing):


Internet Explorer 6 (with ClearType font smoothing):


And we can take a closer look:


As we've discussed earlier, Windows' built-in font smoothing technology does not apply to Chinese characters. However, we can see clear improvement for English font.

It is also worth pointing out that the bold style makes Chinese character harder to read.

Now, let's take a look if we use Mac OS X as our platform, (Firefox 2 on OS X)


All text are not just more appearing, but also easier to read (even in bold).

Then, we compare with our beloved Safari.


Without a doubt, the Chinese text looks even better in Safari, even the in bold.

For a complete comparison, please see this article.

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Netscape 9 | SillyDog701: Switch guide | Browser Archive | MozInfo701
MacCentre701 | AntBlog701
Don't steal music.

@ant: They use different font in Windows and MacOS X, that's unfair.
As I said before, the default system font of chinese Wnidows, (P)MingLiU, which embeds bitmap font.
Futhermore, Windows perfer using bitmap fonts.
And the font smoothing as usual not applying to the bitmap fonts.

Besides, Firefox and Safari use different font rendering engine.

_________________
I am the bone of my firefox.

Source is my body, and library is my blood.

I've created over a thousand of builds.

Unaware of notice.
Nor aware of warning.

With stood pain to create binaries.
Waiting for one's download.

I have no regrets. This is the only path.

My whole life was "Unlimited build works"

「只有宗教狂熱分子和極權主義國家才將道德等同於法制。」 Linus Torvalds寫道。
我的廢棄日記

The main point is not how they do with the fonts, but focused on the end result. And the result shows one OS makes reading a lot easier.

_________________
Netscape 9 | SillyDog701: Switch guide | Browser Archive | MozInfo701
MacCentre701 | AntBlog701
Don't steal music.

There is one thing that I still dislike Apple; from what I've heard, their font-smoothing and hinting technology is patented, thus making software developers unable to implement the same quality of font smoothing. Apple wasn't the only company that came up with such a technology, it's just that they patented it first.

This is what I know. The patent may have been released for free use (I don't know for sure, it's just a possibility), but if what I know is true, it's not something good.

Anyhow, even when you compare Microsoft's anti-aliasing technology for Latin character fonts with Apple's, Apple's is still more superior. When I first saw a Mac OS X screenshot, I thought it was a mockup because of its high quality. It wasn't, it was a real screenshot. This really shows just how much better OS X's interface is.

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korp + korp 中文站（沒精神更新）

中文字與拉丁字不能一起相比，中文字的筆劃遠為複雜。個人認為，字體小不用點陣字，有傷視力，糊成一團也不見得比較好看。

+1

我也覺得 Apple 的中文黑體雖然比 Windows 的微軟正黑體清楚
但還是不夠清晰
從 ants 的 screenshot 也可以看到
黑體中文字還是黑得不夠均勻

講到黑體 就覺得微軟正黑體該打屁股
我個人偏好 Meiryo > MS YaHei > 微軟正黑體
字型首重清楚，Meiryo 跟 YaHei 都比正黑體粗黑
所以看起來比較清楚。
其次要求美觀，個人覺得 Meiryo 看起來比較優雅
因為 YaHei 字距、行距都稍嫌太小，在螢幕上讀文章容易讓人感覺無法呼吸。

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