Text anti-aliasing affects text size?

DH
Posted By
Darrel_Hoffman
Oct 17, 2006
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332
Replies
6
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Closed
Try this. Make a line of text with the System font. You should have it, I think it comes on every PC by default. Make it 18px size, and then change the anti-aliasing from whatever it is to "None". When it’s none, the text displays considerably smaller than with any of the other options. Not just the letters are thinner, that’s to be expected. The text is much smaller in general – the line of text is about 50% shorter. Is this just a limitation of certain fonts, that they can’t be displayed at certain sizes without a-a?
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DM
Don_McCahill
Oct 17, 2006
Interesting … the solution is probably to not use system font. I couldn’t see the effect on real fonts.
JR
John_R_Nielsen
Oct 17, 2006
Even odder, the difference depend on the type size. Change it to 12px, and the non-anti aliased type is larger.
DM
Don_McCahill
Oct 17, 2006
Thinking about it, I suspect that the system font is designed to certain pixel sizes, but has an outline as well. When you turn AA off, it jumps to the nearest pixel size (or possibly a multiple of one of those sizes). But with AA on, it is working from the outline.

Just a guess, I don’t know what format system font is in (it is not in the fonts folder).

(I note that the system font seems to jump in increments of 10 pixels in height, with AA off.)
MV
Mathias_Vejerslev
Oct 19, 2006
I think thats the definition of a system font – that they are optimized for one size only.
DH
Darrel_Hoffman
Oct 19, 2006
Interesting … the solution is probably to not use system font. I
couldn’t see the effect on real fonts.

Normally I wouldn’t have a need for this, but I’m designing a texture for a screen that’s meant to look like an old computer terminal, so I figured why not use the actual font an old computer terminal would use? And since it’s an old monochrome monitor, the anti-aliasing doesn’t belong. I want you to be able to see the pixels. Kind of strange that I’m limited in the font sizes I can use though. I’m thinking of just using some other old-ish fixed-width font, like Courier. May not be quite as historically accurate, but it gets the job done, and gives me more freedom to choose the font size I want. (Still doesn’t give that visible pixels-effect, though.)
B
Bernie
Oct 19, 2006
Work at one of the fixed sizes, then scale using nearest neighbour as interpolation method

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