Why do fonts sometimes look "fat" on Mac OS X?

Posted by jtimberman on Super User See other posts from Super User or by jtimberman
Published on 2010-01-25T01:11:44Z Indexed on 2010/03/17 21:21 UTC
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Filed under:

fonts

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osx

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display

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visual

Sometimes when resuming from suspend, the fonts in Mac OS X look "fatter" than normal. Unfortunately right now I can't get my Macbook Pro to exhibit the "normal" behavior for comparison, it has been abnormal yesterday and today. If I can get screenshots of what I think is 'normal', I'll add them.

"Fixing" this has been random. I use an external monitor, and sometimes unplugging it and plugging back in, or even turning it off and back on has worked. Sometimes with the display attached (or not) detecting displays works. Sometimes logging out or rebooting entirely is what it takes.

Displays used:

Macbook Pro 15" built-in display
Dell 27" LCD (2009 model)

Software where I see this happen, at least most noticably:

Firefox (screenshots below)
iTerm
Things
MacIrssi (screenshots below)

I am using Mac OS X 10.5.8.

"Abnormal" view from MacIrssi with Inconsolata 16 pt.

abnormal (Macirssi) image full size

"Abnormal" view from Firefox.

abnormal (Firefox)

Finally got it to switch back, though after resuming from suspend its back to "fat" :-(.

normal (Macirssi) image full size

And 'normal' in Firefox:

normal (Firefox)

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