verdana font horrible in ie?

unwashed potato! · 11 May 2008 at 14:07

anyone know why the font verdana looks horrible in ie and nice in ff? i have googled this not finding any useful results, and also googled for an image of verdana and so far everyone is showing it as is showed by ff.

can someone look at what a bold capital L looks like in ie font size 16px and tell me if it looks like the L in the picture below? for me the bottom part of the letterm this part _ is about that height where as the side part | is about 5 times thicker.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...sum_Verdana.png/600px-Lorem_Ipsum_Verdana.png

i thought perhaps was my pc but just looked on laptop and it's the same so assuming it is a problem ie has? hope not as i like the font shown in ff and don't want to have to go changing it all for ie.

jellybeard999 · 11 May 2008 at 14:18

Same in FF as IE for me, bottom is slightly thinner, but not much.

Tried reinstalling the font ?

unwashed potato! · 11 May 2008 at 14:26

jellybeard999 said:
Same in FF as IE for me, bottom is slightly thinner, but not much.

Tried reinstalling the font ?

how do i reinstall the font?

what's weird though is this is on 2 different computers, one running ie6 and the other ie7 so don't understand how come it would do that. just hope it is me so that way i know others will see it ok

GravyMonster · 11 May 2008 at 14:49

I've always heard that verdana is about the worst font to use for web stuff, although I can't remember why.

*edit*
a quick google found this...http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html

ringo747 · 11 May 2008 at 14:58

just on this issue... what fonts do you guys recommend for using on websites? I have done a few recently using verdana and they look perfect on the mac browsers but when you go onto windows they look crap! Its very very weird considering I can find other sites using the same fonts which look fine on windows!

GravyMonster · 11 May 2008 at 17:02

Generally i tend to stick to arial, or courier/georgia if the client's after a web 2.0 look.

unwashed potato! · 11 May 2008 at 17:25

thanks for the help and advice. decided to change font, not decided yet but liking lucida grande best at the moment.

i think the problem is with the way ie works when making characters bold as without bold it is fine but no matter what font i use the bold text is never as nice as ff and usually each character has areas not as bold as other parts, ie with the letter L with the vertical part bold but the horizontal part not. this is dependent on size, 16px i guess it doesn't like unfortunately.

dan^uk · 11 May 2008 at 17:40

In IE, under Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced tab -> Multimedia, is "Always use ClearType for HTML" switched on or off? Try changing it.

unwashed potato! · 11 May 2008 at 17:59

dan^uk said:
In IE, under Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced tab -> Multimedia, is "Always use ClearType for HTML" switched on or off? Try changing it.

you star

the trouble is though as clear type was on by default then that will mean most users will be viewing with it looking horrible by default so i need to find a better alternative that wont look horrible with cleartype on or off, if there is such a thing?

dan^uk · 11 May 2008 at 20:09

Mammalian said:
you star

the trouble is though as clear type was on by default then that will mean most users will be viewing with it looking horrible by default so i need to find a better alternative that wont look horrible with cleartype on or off, if there is such a thing?

This is how to circumvent ClearType in IE 7 via CSS: http://www.duluoz.com/?p=12

[noparse]To workaround the bug in IE 7, make sure you set an explict background colour for your site (e.g. background-color: white

[/noparse]

ringo747 · 11 May 2008 at 22:39

very interesting - i just checked my display settings and standard was selected instead of cleartype - I enabled it and it made a world of difference! Can someone confirm if the default setting in display - appearance - effects is set for cleartype smoothing to be enabled? Thanks

unwashed potato! · 11 May 2008 at 23:46

dan^uk said:
This is how to circumvent ClearType in IE 7 via CSS: http://www.duluoz.com/?p=12

[noparse]To workaround the bug in IE 7, make sure you set an explict background colour for your site (e.g. background-color: white[/noparse]

ocuk has done it again, thats works perfectly which means i can keep using verdana for my site.

thanks everyone for the help

ringo747 said:
very interesting - i just checked my display settings and standard was selected instead of cleartype - I enabled it and it made a world of difference! Can someone confirm if the default setting in display - appearance - effects is set for cleartype smoothing to be enabled? Thanks

made a difference for better or worse? i have never known a time that cleartype has ever looked better all the way throughout a site. for me it has always ended up making most sites look far far worse almost unreadable in some parts, most noticeably was bbc old site, haven't checked new one, and when it does help tbh i find it too different to use, though reading one of the links above i do see it's purpose just it's too different

for me it was enabled by default on my laptop ie7

simisker · 12 May 2008 at 00:48

Spunkey said:
I've always heard that verdana is about the worst font to use for web stuff, although I can't remember why. [...] *edit*
a quick google found this...http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html

Given the ubiquity of Verdana across all platforms [Win/OSX/Linux with msttcorefonts] these days, it's a very safe font to specify and tweak accordingly, and its square bowls and large x-heights make it an excellent choice for screen use.

The mistake nearly everyone seems to make [including Macromedia, with their pre-defined Dreamweaver font lists, if I remember rightly] is to consider Arial a suitable substitute for Verdana. The linked page is right in this respect, but that's no reason to avoid Verdana if you know that the vast majority of your targeted audience have it and would benefit from you specifying it.

ringo747 · 12 May 2008 at 13:23

I have cleartype enabled now on my windows laptop and all the sites I have worked at using verdana look good - if i disable cleartype and just use standard font smoothing then it looks crap. I am guessing this is enabled as default in both ie and also in your display settings?

unwashed potato! · 12 May 2008 at 14:33

ringo747 said:
I have cleartype enabled now on my windows laptop and all the sites I have worked at using verdana look good - if i disable cleartype and just use standard font smoothing then it looks crap. I am guessing this is enabled as default in both ie and also in your display settings?

can you post a screen shot of the difference? ideally of font that is size 16px ish and bold, bold was really when the text got really bad

ringo747 · 12 May 2008 at 17:59

the site i was looking at www.jsa-media.co.uk - give it a try!

unwashed potato! · 12 May 2008 at 19:42

ringo747 said:
the site i was looking at www.jsa-media.co.uk - give it a try!

how does that show me what you see?

ringo747 · 12 May 2008 at 20:15

you can try it yourself with cleartype on and off? no? Surely it would have the same effect as your end as it does mine?

Gman · 12 May 2008 at 20:52

Spunkey said:
a quick google found this...http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html

Well a quick read of that page and i say he's talking pap. Verdana is available in most if not all popular browsers and OS's and most web designers a;ways specify the font size and not leave it to the browsers default, therefore all the arguments on that page go out the window.

Also looking at the rest of the guy's website he's the last person who should be giving style tips on web design