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Mountain Lion changed font Rendering. System font is different. Can I change it?

jaybar

jaybar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 11, 2008
2,129
651
Hi

I installed Mountain Lion. It seemed to alter the system font. The font is very annoying for me as a visually impaired user. How can I change the font to what it was in Lion?

I am not looking to zoom or key stroke combinations that I have to do each time. I am looking for a permanent change.

For me, given my visual impairment, having ML alter the font is unacceptable.

Thanks in advance.

Jay
 
jaybar said:
Hi

I installed Mountain Lion. It seemed to alter the system font. The font is very annoying for me as a visually impaired user. How can I change the font to what it was in Lion?

I am not looking to zoom or key stroke combinations that I have to do each time. I am looking for a permanent change.

For me, given my visual impairment, having ML alter the font is unacceptable.

Thanks in advance.

Jay
Click to expand...

I didn't notice any font changes. What specifically is different? The font in the menu bar?
 
It is lighter in color. it is slightly smaller. It just is different.

Jay
 
The font in the menu bar is also different in the ways noted.
 
I noticed a slight change too. I'm not sure how to describe it. Especially bold fonts seem to render slightly different.
 
How does this get fixed given that I am not imagining tis?

Jay
 
It's not lighter, it's that it's more accurate. You used to render a letter in say 200px area, now you render the same shape in a 800px area. This sharpens the text which usually means seeing less stray pixels trying to emulate the shape.
 
Thanks

The whole display resolution is different. You are given the choice of optimum or scaled and if you choose scaled, the choices are
Not the same ad they were in lion.
 
jaybar said:
Thanks

The whole display resolution is different. You are given the choice of optimum or scaled and if you choose scaled, the choices are
Not the same ad they were in lion.
Click to expand...

What's your monitor and resolution? The resolution options are the same on my MBP, they just shoved them into the scaled option.
 
I don't think things are identical. My iMac had screen resolutions followed by the word stretched. Those choices are simply not there on the iMac any more.

Jay
 
Go into Accessibility and increase the contrast in the Display settings. You can also make the curser larger so it's easier to see. Make sure you also check the box at the bottom of the window to enable access for assistive devices.

Also, in Safari > preferences > advanced ... increase the minimum size type to something that works for you. :)
 
Safari is not the issue. It is the menu fonts which governs the menu bar and pop down choices. That is what is smaller.

Jay
 
You can download 'TinkerTool' which can be used to change some system fonts and their formatting, not sure if it can change the 'menu bar and pop down choices' fonts though.
 
I'm not clear on what the problem is. Has the font changed or is the old (scaled) resolution not available any longer?

As far as I know, the fonts have not changed although I have heard that you can no longer use resolutions that don't match the aspect ratio of your screen (ie, 4:3 resolutions on a widescreen monitor).

I don't know why that would be an accessibility issue. Why not use the appropriate aspect ratio for your monitor? Stretched is awful.
 
I have compared a screenshot of Lion's menu bar and Mountain Lion's and fonts are exactly the same :S
 
I think someone already mentioned this, but you can lower your screen resolution and that will make everything proportionately larger (and less quality, as well).
 
Can't do. I am at the lowest resolution that gives full screen width.
 
Try toggling font smoothing on and off in the General section System Preferences.

I've certainly noted changes too. Mostly attributed to this setting, which mysteriously turned itself on. Useful for the retina MBP I suppose. Adium still looks funky.
 
What is the lowest available resolution? I'm on Mountain Lion and it gives me an option for 800x600. If you need lower than that, I don't know what can be done.
 
Can confirm

Thanks Jaybar! It drives me nuts also. Starting blurry and smaller fonts after upgrade to ML.

I can imagine that this behaviour is only available on high screen resolution mac books. The font size of the systemfont becomes smaller than before and blurrier. i can see it in the top menu bar, in system dialogs, and web pages (safari, chrome, firefox). Also in XCode.

Today i made a test with another macbook and another person having Lion installed (not Mountain Lion).
We opened the same page in stack overflow. The blue links on the right bar to another questions are shown smaller and blurrier on my MBP with ML than on the other MBP with Lion, where everything seems right.

Stackoverflow comes with a global font setting of "80%". Usually it makes no problems, but it does on my MBP with the same issue you reported.
With firebug i changed the font-settings of the whole page from "80%" to "100%". With this biggier font size it becomes very clear and seemed to me as before the system upgrade.
 
Jaybar is correct.
I immediately noticed a difference yesterday on my 11 inch MBA with Samsung display. When I launched Safari right after the clean install of ML i noticed all text not as sharp and black as with Lion.

Wished I would have saved the default color LCD profile so I can compare it to what I have now with ML.
 
So, the changes can either be attributed to a different color profile, a difference in font smoothing or a different resolution. Tinker tool shows there have been no changes to the System font in ML (it is still Lucida Grande 13pt; ugly font IMO).

Have you tried changing the color profile, than can substantially alter the contrast and readability of text?
 
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