How to render thin fonts more smoothly in CSS 3 on Windows?
When I've designed my web site in Adobe Flash Pro CS6, the font looks like this:
The font looks smooth and slightly thicker, and when I create HTML and CSS to render the font in a browser, it appears like these, respectively in IE, Firefox, and Chrome.
It appears thinner and pixelated in some areas. I've seen much smoother font rendering on OS X. How can I make the font appear smoother in these browsers? I'm assuming this is a problem with ClearType, which looks hideous with thin fonts like this one.
Here is the code I'm using to test, so answers can be tested before being posted:
<html>
<head>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lato:300' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' />
</head>
<body>
<span style="color: #333; font-family: Lato; font-size: 32px;">Question or concern?</span>
</body>
</html>
Answer
You are never going to get sites to look the same in different browsers or operating systems, they are using different technologies etc etc.
This is something you shouldn't really care about. People who use IE are not going to switch to Firefox or Chrome or vice versa. They are used to the way fonts look and are not going to notice.
Browsers inconsistencies is a thing front end developers have to live with (sadly). Its great if they all look the same but that's not going to happen
Things you can try, you will probably need different fixes for different browsers.:
text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.004);
text-rendering: optimizeLegibility !important;
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased !important;
Edit 1: DirectWrite is now on chrome for windows which will improve the rendering.
Edit 2 (2017): System UI fonts
Another thing you can try is use system fonts for improved UX.
font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", "Roboto", "Oxygen", "Ubuntu", "Cantarell", "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;
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