Any way to disable font smoothing in Big Sur?

[Coheebuzz]

It feels that they did something with font rendering in 11.2, it's either that or my astigmatism got better/i got used to it, dark mode was unbearable before but now it looks fine to me.

Anyhow, here's a script which emulates subpixel antialiasing and font hinting using WebGL, does that look better to you?

https://astiopin.github.io/webgl_fonts/

 

[panaut0lordv]

It feels that they did something with font rendering in 11.2, it's either that or my astigmatism got better/i got used to it, dark mode was unbearable before but now it looks fine to me.

Anyhow, here's a script which emulates subpixel antialiasing and font hinting using WebGL, does that look better to you?

https://astiopin.github.io/webgl_fonts/

softwareupdate -l shows nothing for me, still at 11.0.1
And at first I couldn't tell a difference, maybe due to late hours and me being tired in general but yes, then I noticed the difference and with subpixel rendering ticked the halo disappears.

 

[Ron21]

11.3 reset my fonts, I had to re-run the command to set FontSmoothing back to 0 and restart after the update.

 

[KALLT]

The setting is still active for me, but I am noticing that Safari’s web content ignores it and uses font smoothing. It is so noticeable. :/

 

[Ron21]

The setting is still active for me, but I am noticing that Safari’s web content ignores it and uses font smoothing. It is so noticeable. :/

Yes, I think that is what I just started seeing as well. Must be something that was changed with 11.3, it was fine before that.

 

[Ron21]

here is how to disable it in Safari, confirmed this still works.

How to switch off subpixel antialiasing in Safari?

Is there a way to permanently switch off subpixel antialiasing in Safari OSX 10.8?

apple.stackexchange.com

 

[Mac2727]

here is how to disable it in Safari, confirmed this still works.

How to switch off subpixel antialiasing in Safari?

Is there a way to permanently switch off subpixel antialiasing in Safari OSX 10.8?

apple.stackexchange.com

Thanks - this worked for me and Safari is back to 'normal'

However I've noticed that emails in the Mail.app and MS Outlook app are using font smoothing - any ideas how to get rid of that?

 

[nmeed]

Thanks - this worked for me and Safari is back to 'normal'

However I've noticed that emails in the Mail.app and MS Outlook app are using font smoothing - any ideas how to get rid of that?

Weird, it didn't work for me. Well, on this website the fonts are perfect, but Google for instance is horrendous.

 

[thaweesak]

Weird, it didn't work for me. Well, on this website the fonts are perfect, but Google for instance is horrendous.

The terminal command is not working for me as well.

I've not tried the custom stylesheet method yet though.

 

[nmeed]

The terminal command is not working for me as well.

I've not tried the custom stylesheet method yet though.

Run this in terminal: defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool TRUE

I think I fixed it? I still am messing about. Try the above and let me know if it helps.

 

[dops]

Run this in terminal: defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool TRUE

I think I fixed it? I still am messing about. Try the above and let me know if it helps.

This did not fix it for me, not in MS Outlook for example.
The custom CSS file fixes this for Safari. Anybody else who can't stand this bold-locking font smoothing? It looks terrible on my LG 27k Ultrafine 5k screen in highest HiDPI scaling..I never liked these super bold fonts and did not understand why Apple removed the functionality from the general settings. I hope we find a solution for this.

 

[Aggedor]

Can confirm, the Terminal workaround does not work for me. Just upgraded to 11.3, M1 MBA here.

Also the custom CSS for Safari doesn't do anything for me.

 

[catlipam]

I am having the same issue after the latest update but Safari css stylesheet method worked for me

 

[bryan85]

11.3 upgrade here also. looks like there are now places in the OS that will disregard the terminal setting such as, parts of mail, and safari. this is very frustrating. wtf was apple thinking killing sub-pixel rendering. Win10 fonts look infinitely better, crisp and legible as they should be.

 

[lankox]

The custom CSS for Safari is not working for me either. Maybe someone can provide guidance?

 

[yyl]

Custom CSS for Safari works for me. Create a CSS text file that has the following:

html {
    -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

Go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Style Sheet, and select this CSS file.

Or use Chrome browser, which is not affected by the smoothing problem. Looks like it uses its own rendering engine.

With Apple Mail, you can go into Preferences > Fonts & Colors. Change "Message font" from Helvetica to Helvetica Light (or something with a "Light" variant) to offset the bolding effect from WebKit. Though the font smoothing is still on, the lighter font weight makes it more readable.

There is a very ancient thread (http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040219094626558) that talked about setting a default CSS file for Apple Mail. The information is so old, I didn't try it.

 

[KALLT]

The custom CSS for Safari is not working for me either. Maybe someone can provide guidance?

How does your CSS script look?

 

[nmeed]

I am having the same issue after the latest update but Safari css stylesheet method worked for me

Could you post the file you made?

 

[lankox]

How does your CSS script look?

html {
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

 

[KALLT]

html {
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

Try this instead:

* {
    -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased !important;
}

Your script only applies the attribute to the HTML element, whereas websites can set this attribute for any element. Furthermore, since websites can override it, you must set !important to preclude changes.

 

[KALLT]

It doesn’t appear to be possible to assign a CSS file to other apps or to WebKit (e.g. com.apple.WebKit.WebContent) specifically. The UserDefaults keys that apply to Safari (UserStyleSheetEnabled, UserStyleSheetLocationURLString, WebKitUserStyleSheetEnabledPreferenceKey, WebKitUserStyleSheetLocationPreferenceKey) seem to have no effect elsewhere.

I suspect that Apple changed the default rendering in WebKit, so that -webkit-font-smoothing: auto (which is the default value) resolves to subpixel-antialiased.

I am not sure where else to look for a solution. I am satisfied with the workaround for Safari, but it does affect me in Mail as well. On a 4K display with 2x scaling, the fonts look markedly blurry, so much so that they can be unreadable, depending on the colour of the background and the font itself. I thought that high-DPI displays were supposed to make font smoothing/aliasing effectively obsolete and bring out the inherent design of the fonts. Now we are back where we started, namely that the OS decides how fonts are supposed to look.

 

[Mac2727]

It doesn’t appear to be possible to assign a CSS file to other apps or to WebKit (e.g. com.apple.WebKit.WebContent) specifically. The UserDefaults keys that apply to Safari (UserStyleSheetEnabled, UserStyleSheetLocationURLString, WebKitUserStyleSheetEnabledPreferenceKey, WebKitUserStyleSheetLocationPreferenceKey) seem to have no effect elsewhere.

I suspect that Apple changed the default rendering in WebKit, so that -webkit-font-smoothing: auto (which is the default value) resolves to subpixel-antialiased.

I am not sure where else to look for a solution. I am satisfied with the workaround for Safari, but it does affect me in Mail as well. On a 4K display with 2x scaling, the fonts look markedly blurry, so much so that they can be unreadable, depending on the colour of the background and the font itself. I thought that high-DPI displays were supposed to make font smoothing/aliasing effectively obsolete and bring out the inherent design of the fonts. Now we are back where we started, namely that the OS decides how fonts are supposed to look.

From what I understand the ‘bolder’ effect that the font smoothing produces results in text that looks ‘better’/is more legible in dark mode (I.e. when text is white against a black/dark background).

However, for those of us who view dark mode as a retrograde step for GUIs, having font smoothing forced upon you with no way to easily disable it is exceedingly frustrating

 

[nmeed]

It doesn’t appear to be possible to assign a CSS file to other apps or to WebKit (e.g. com.apple.WebKit.WebContent) specifically. The UserDefaults keys that apply to Safari (UserStyleSheetEnabled, UserStyleSheetLocationURLString, WebKitUserStyleSheetEnabledPreferenceKey, WebKitUserStyleSheetLocationPreferenceKey) seem to have no effect elsewhere.

I suspect that Apple changed the default rendering in WebKit, so that -webkit-font-smoothing: auto (which is the default value) resolves to subpixel-antialiased.


I am not sure where else to look for a solution. I am satisfied with the workaround for Safari, but it does affect me in Mail as well. On a 4K display with 2x scaling, the fonts look markedly blurry, so much so that they can be unreadable, depending on the colour of the background and the font itself. I thought that high-DPI displays were supposed to make font smoothing/aliasing effectively obsolete and bring out the inherent design of the fonts. Now we are back where we started, namely that the OS decides how fonts are supposed to look.

see post #215 in the following thread below, Stephen.R was kind of enough to post his css file, and for whatever reason, it worked. I had the same exact code but it didn’t work. So give it a shot, hopefully it works for you too.

Post in thread 'Apple Releases macOS Big Sur 11.3 With M1 Optimizations, AirTag Integration, Updated Controller Support, Apple Music Updates and More'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-music-updates-and-more.2293343/post-29828022

 

[Aggedor]

From what I understand the ‘bolder’ effect that the font smoothing produces results in text that looks ‘better’/is more legible in dark mode (I.e. when text is white against a black/dark background).

However, for those of us who view dark mode as a retrograde step for GUIs, having font smoothing forced upon you with no way to easily disable it is exceedingly frustrating

Ha, I thought it was just me! I've always thought of dark mode UIs as being very old fashioned and generally impossible to implement consistently. I frequently work in a dark room on a large monitor (27"), and have never had any issues with light UIs.

Is Webkit an Apple product, or do they just licence it? I just wonder if Webkit was changed and Apple really just don't know about the font issue. Having said that, they did remove the font smoothing setting from System Preferences, so it's clearly not something they want users to control.

 

[Dom.S]

The 11.3 rendering change is hugely frustrating. It used to be that one of the main benefits of using a native browser was that it had the best possible integration with the OS.

Now, Chrome, Firefox and Edge respect my OS text rendering preference and Safari doesn’t. Whose bright idea was that?

Hopefully it’s a bug that gets fixed, but I won’t hold my breath.