Any way to disable font smoothing in Big Sur?

[Mac2727]

This is a great article explaining font smoothing and why its horrible

https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/

 

[Asclepias]

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

I hope this is a bug. I wrote Apple using the feedback form.

 

[james-stevenson]

Here's a neat, free macOS app that allows you to adjust or disable font smoothing easily, without Terminal commands: https://www.fontsmoothingadjuster.com

I also noticed since installing the Big Sur 11.3 update that Apple have annoyingly forced font smoothing back ON in Safari and Mail, and I can't find a way to switch it off.

 

[Mac2727]

You can turn it off in Safari (see below) but there isn’t a solution yet for Mail (as far as I’m aware)

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.

 

[EugW]

Fonts are much nicer and more readable on my external 4K display when font smoothing is disabled. But my MacBook Pro display looks better with the default setting. I think it has something to do with the scaling and the DPI. Anyway, the values are:

0 - Font smoothing disabled.
1 - Light font smoothing.
2 - Medium (default).
3 - Strong.

Here's a neat, free macOS app that allows you to adjust or disable font smoothing easily, without Terminal commands: https://www.fontsmoothingadjuster.com

I also noticed since installing the Big Sur 11.3 update that Apple have annoyingly forced font smoothing back ON in Safari and Mail, and I can't find a way to switch it off.

Is there any difference between light and medium? They looked similar to me in my brief look. This is the menu bar, going from medium to light to disabled from top to bottom, on my 30" Cinema HD Display connected to my 2017 12" MacBook:

As mentioned by others, the setting didn't seem to do anything for the Safari fonts, and I didn't think at the time to try Chrome.

While some things did look better with font smoothing disabled, some smaller thin fonts didn't look so good as they were too light and thin IMO.

BTW, on another note, the responsiveness of the UI with the 30" Cinema HD Display is still very decent on this 4 year-old fanless 2017 12" Core m3 MacBook.

 

[guitarguy316]

Did 11.3 reset whatever setting you had back to the default level of 3?

 

[Aggedor]

I must admit I am confused now. The 11.3.1 update was a WebKit fix... and has it changed font smoothing? Everything now looks how it used to look with font smoothing disabled, including Mail and various websites that wouldn't obey the Safari CSS fix.

 

[Mac2727]

I'm on 11.3.1 (15rMBP & 4K LG Ultrafine) and I can confirm that font smoothing is still applied by default in the OS and in safari. i.e. without the terminal command fix and the safari CSS fix the fonts are smoothed/emboldened across the OS, safari and in apps like Mail and MS Outlook.

Still hoping someone can work out a way to 'fix' mail and apps like Outlook. Its clearly just an issue with how they display received messages (and therefore presumably related to the rendering from html) as the text is crisp when composing.

 

[KALLT]

I must admit I am confused now. The 11.3.1 update was a WebKit fix... and has it changed font smoothing? Everything now looks how it used to look with font smoothing disabled, including Mail and various websites that wouldn't obey the Safari CSS fix.

I see no difference between 11.3 and 11.3.1. The font emboldening/smoothing looks to be font-specific too; not everything looks different with it enabled.

 

[Ron21]

I think something changed for me after 11.3.1, fonts looks the same in Safari with or without the CSS file.

 

[KALLT]

I think something changed for me after 11.3.1, fonts looks the same in Safari with or without the CSS file.

Have you tried this (#70) CSS file? I can see the difference on Wikipedia.

 

[Ron21]

Have you tried this (#70) CSS file? I can see the difference on Wikipedia.

Yes, I saw the difference in 11.3, but in 11.3.1, there is no difference with or without the CSS file in Safari.

I believe they either fixed or changed something in 11.3.1, maybe Safari follows the system setting correctly now?

 

[Aggedor]

Yes, I saw the difference in 11.3, but in 11.3.1, there is no difference with or without the CSS file in Safari.

I believe they either fixed or changed something in 11.3.1, maybe Safari follows the system setting correctly now?

Same here. I think 11.3.1 changed something.

 

[guitarguy316]

So is OFF the best?

 

[KALLT]

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).

This would not explain why it is enforced on dark text against a bright background as well. Dark mode is much rarer on the web and in Mail you can specifically turn off dark mode for email content (which I do).

On my high-dpi screen, the result just isn’t good. Text was super sharp, the emboldening adds no clarity at all, rather it blurs the overall picture.

Yes, I saw the difference in 11.3, but in 11.3.1, there is no difference with or without the CSS file in Safari.

In which context are you seeing it? As I said before, the emboldening is font-dependent and also website-dependent. Websites that have -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; in their CSS style sheets do not result in emboldened text in Safari, assuming the AppleFontSmoothing setting is set to 0.

Give us an example website or maybe some screenshots to see it. If it is true, it would give some hope that there is a setting for it. Here you have to screenshots from the Wikipedia homepage, one without the CSS override, the other with it.

 

[Ron21]

This would not explain why it is enforced on dark text against a bright background as well. Dark mode is much rarer on the web and in Mail you can specifically turn off dark mode for email content (which I do).

On my high-dpi screen, the result just isn’t good. Text was super sharp, the emboldening adds no clarity at all, rather it blurs the overall picture.


In which context are you seeing it? As I said before, the emboldening is font-dependent and also website-dependent. Websites that have -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; in their CSS style sheets do not result in emboldened text in Safari, assuming the AppleFontSmoothing setting is set to 0.

Give us an example website or maybe some screenshots to see it. If it is true, it would give some hope that there is a setting for it. Here you have to screenshots from the Wikipedia homepage, one without the CSS override, the other with it.

You are correct, I checked wikipedia and the CSS file does still change the font smoothing on that site. It must have just been the sites I was checking where it didn't matter.

For example MacRumors:

 

[Minga_]

So is OFF the best?

Yes it definitely is, especially for the internal Retina display and high PPI screens in general. I use a external 24" 2K monitor in 2048x1152 HiDPI and even though it's just 120 PPI the foonts look much better when font smoothing is disabled. The font smoothing in Big Sur is completely useless.

 

[tornado99]

Anyway I decided to have it tested on Linux as well, since Linux is well famed (and my experience was consistent with reports) of absolutely terrible both font and HiDPI display handling. Guess what? My KDE Plasma provides so much more satisfying experience.

Just to pick up on this earlier point, I also run KDE Plasma. Linux is a little tricky to set up font smoothing as you have to hand-edit a text file to tell the OS you have a RGB (or BGR) pixel-order on your display. But once you've done that, fonts in KDE look absolutely superb. You can really see the character of different fonts, and there is a clear distinction between bold and normal text. I run Linux on a 122 dpi display, and a 185 dpi display.

Today I went to the Apple store to look at a new 4.5K iMac with a 219 dpi display. I was expected to be blown away by the font quality.

Instead normal text looked like semi-bold everywhere, bold text looked almost the same as normal text, and every font was perfectly smooth but characterless. In short, I was not at all impressed. My QHD 122 dpi display in Linux is actually better, with sharper well-shaped fonts, than the new iMac!

I didn't try either the .css trick, or command line trick, so maybe I should go back to the store and see. However it seems that neither of these completely fixes the problem.

 

[0906742]

I think it's still possible via terminal using this command:

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

Requires a restart.

Edit - NVM, I don't think this command changes anything in Big Sur.

I think that does something when combining it with Apple Font Smoothing. I ran that and also use Font Smoothing at 2 (which is OS default I think). Somewhat better with 2K / 2560x1440 monitor at native resolution.

 

[KALLT]

It seems that this issue has been resolved upstream in WebKit, but the patch has not landed in the Safari tech preview yet.

Safari 14.1 does not follow setting · Issue #14 · bouncetechnologies/Font-Smoothing-Adjuster

Hey there. First of all, thanks for this utility! I noticed that Safari 14.1 started to render fonts with smoothing on some websites. The rest of the system is fine as far as right now, including S...

github.com

 

[SmOgER]

It seems that this issue has been resolved upstream in WebKit, but the patch has not landed in the Safari tech preview yet.

Safari 14.1 does not follow setting · Issue #14 · bouncetechnologies/Font-Smoothing-Adjuster

Hey there. First of all, thanks for this utility! I noticed that Safari 14.1 started to render fonts with smoothing on some websites. The rest of the system is fine as far as right now, including S...

github.com

Newest OS also rendered Safari TP unusable on many websites (can't click on any thread in this subforum etc).
But at least they made the stable ver scroll smoothy again heh.

 

[0906742]

Is there any improvement in font smoothing in Monterey for non HiDPI displays?
Trying to make up my mind whether to wait for new OS or just go to the store and get 4K display...

I currently have 2560x1440 display (Dell U2518D) running at native resolution. I need all that screen estate so using lower looks like resolution is out of the question for me.

 

[Minga_]

Is there any improvement in font smoothing in Monterey for non HiDPI displays?
Trying to make up my mind whether to wait for new OS or just go to the store and get 4K display...

I currently have 2560x1440 display (Dell U2518D) running at native resolution. I need all that screen estate so using lower looks like resolution is out of the question for me.

I doubt it because Apple has moved on. They just don't care about low PPI displays anymore otherwise they would allow 1440p monitors to be handled like retina screens (HiDPI mode) by default in MacOS. And even if the font smoothing was better in Monterey it won't make that much of a difference to actually get decent results. The only thing that makes a difference (it's night and day) is to run your 1440p monitor in HiDPI mode.

So you realistically have 3 choices:

1. Keep you monitor and live with blurry fonts
2. Get a High-PPI monitor
3. Keep you monitor but sacrifice a little bit of screen real estate by using it in HiDPI mode.

 

[0906742]

3. Keep you monitor but sacrifice a little bit of screen real estate by using it in HiDPI mode.

You are probably right. What is the highest looks like resolution for 1440P monitor? Mine does not offer anything but scaled resolutions for under 2560x1440 where 2048x1152 is the next one down from native resolution and did not look really better to me, or it was nowhere near the same look as any Retina display.

Is there some way to make even some resolutions working in HiDPI mode for 2560x1440 display for Mac mini M1?
I could be wrong but I understood most of the tricks used to work before are not supported in M1's.

BTW, does 4K monitors actually get HiDPI mode also for the full native resolution, if you select looks like resolution too 3840x2160? I mean are peoples with large 4k panels in the same situation as those with low res. panels if they wish to use it like that?

 

[tornado99]

Is there any improvement in font smoothing in Monterey for non HiDPI displays?
Trying to make up my mind whether to wait for new OS or just go to the store and get 4K display...

I currently have 2560x1440 display (Dell U2518D) running at native resolution. I need all that screen estate so using lower looks like resolution is out of the question for me.

You can always do this which gets you a bit better font quality by forcing Apple's supersampling on a 1440p display.

Force HiDPI Resolutions for Dell U2515H Monitor

Custom scaled resolutions on macOS

medium.com