Disable and Turn Off ClearType Fonts in Windows Vista

Windows Vista by default applies ClearType effect to the fonts displayed on screen, in order to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens, especially LCD flat-panel monitors. As ClearType text actually sacrifices color or chrominance details aspect of image quality for light and dark or luminance detail, some people may not like the blurry font style in ClearType. Here’s a easy way to disable or turn off ClearType in Windows Vista.

  1. Right click on any blank spot of desktop, and then select Personalize on pop-up context menu.
  2. Select Window Color and Appearance.
  3. Click on “Open classic appearance properties for more color options” link located at the bottom of the page.
  4. Click on the Effects button.
  5. Do one of the following:

    Uncheck (untick) the “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts” box.

    or

    Select “Standard” to replace ClearType in the drop down list under the above title.

  6. Click OK, then click Apply, and finally finish with clicking OK again.

To enable or turn on ClearType effect again, simply reverse the setting in the Effects step.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Windows Vista. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Disable and Turn Off ClearType Fonts in Windows Vista”

  1. Shabongo
    May 5th, 2009 21:58
    4

    I agree with you completely on this, Am – despite everything I’ve done, ClearTYpe shows up in menus, headers, etc… It’s awful! And I heard that Windows 7 is going to keep this up; the GUI is going to be un-ClearTypabe!

    Guess I’m going over to Mac or Linux…

  2. Am
    December 16th, 2008 12:49
    3

    I have successfully disabled anti-aliasing (i.e. ClearType) in all my Windows apps and Windows itself (I’m running Vista but using XP).

    I have also successfully disabled ClearType in MS Word 2007. HOWEVER… the headers in MS Word 2007 are still anti-aliased! This drives me crazy.

  3. Jakob G
    July 4th, 2008 23:09
    2

    This is wrong. This method will NOT remove clear type in Vista. Only in selected apps such as Internet Explorer. However, the Vista GUI itself will STILL have antialiased fonts.

  4. arden
    April 29th, 2008 04:00
    1

    If you want to switch off ClearType under Office 2007 (Word etc) and Vista (2008 Server) start WINWORD.EXE in compatibility mode (for example w2k3) and than you can see and switch off in the Word pupular menu cleartype. After this, you can remove compatibility, and there will not be any cleartype any more ;)

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