Making chrome/FF render text as nicely as IE

Question

I'm working on a site for a client and they've asked for a fix for the font rendering in FF and Chrome not looking as good as it does in IE. Here's a screenshot:

Does the IE text on the left look nicer because it hooks into Windows Cleartype, and FF doesn't? I think there is nothing i can do about this, am I right?

Answer 1

I don't think there is anything to be done about this. While IE does use ClearType fonts by default (this can be turned off in Tools > Internet Options > Advanced (tab) > Multimedia (settings option) > "Always use ClearType for HTML" (checkbox) ), turning it off doesn't seem to change the fact that IE will render text slightly differently than FF, Chrome, Opera etc. Even if it did fix it, it's a client-side option so you'd still be out of luck.

So, yeah you're stuck with some difference in text rendering based on the browser.

HOWEVER, you can try google's web fonts:

http://www.google.com/webfonts#ChoosePlace:select

They seem to look very similar cross-browser, though I see a slight difference between IE8 and FF5.

Plus, they look pretty cool and you don't need to install them on your system to use them.

Answer 2

There is no way to activate this from your website. Window's ClearType can only be activated in other programs via Windows' settings. It's not a browser feature, it's an OS feature.