Comments on: Change Font Smoothing Settings in Mac OS X

By: Lauri Ranta

Lauri Ranta — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:05:07 +0000

This would also apply to the force quit window and other windows shown by processes owned by the root:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleFontSmoothing -int 1
defaults write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 1

By: Lauri Ranta

Lauri Ranta — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:56:56 +0000

`defaults write -g AppleFontSmoothing -int 2` is equivalent to checking “Use LCD font smoothing when available” on my Thunderbolt Display and MacBook Air’s built-in display on 10.8. 0 is equivalent to unchecking it. 1 (my preferred setting) is lighter than 2 and 3 heavier than it.

`killall Finder` would apply the setting only in Finder. To apply it in other applications, you’d have to quit and reopen them separately.

According to the linked article and http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090828224632809, the issue where LCD font smoothing wasn’t enabled by default only affected on some non-Apple displays on 10.6. It might have been fixed in 10.7, because “Automatic” and “Standard CRT” were changed to “Use LCD font smoothing when available”.

By: Mac Screen Looking Blurry? Optimize & Troubleshoot Font Smoothing in Mac OS X

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 21:51:10 +0000

[...] it’s a bit more advanced but there is a way to change the font smoothing settings with defaults write commands entered through the Terminal. This used to be available in the System Preferences but Apple has [...]

By: Meu

Meu — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:57:12 +0000

Yes, same for me. For me, the better font looking now comes from Linux, with the default setting on font hinting of “slight”, that is the equivalent to 1 in OSX.

By: Alvin B.

Alvin B. — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 21:32:27 +0000

On my Acer P224w monitor, I’ve found a setting of 1 actually looks the best. Mac fonts have always looked blurry to me.