How to turn on Cleartype in Ubuntu Linux?

Turn on ClearType like Smooth Text in Ubuntu Linux

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Turning on ClearType mode if you’re using an LCD monitor helps a lot in improving readability. Ubuntu, by default, doesn’t have ClearType turned on. However, you could achieve really nice font smoothing by just choosing an option in the settings.

In order to turn text smoothing on in Ubuntu, do the following:

Go to System > Preferences > Appearance
Go to the Fonts tab
Under rendering, select Subpixel Smoothing (LCDs)

Click Close

I’m sure you have noticed the ClearType-like font smoothing on your screen now, haven’t you?

Written by Shankar Ganesh

April 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm

Posted in linux

Tagged with linux, ubuntu

6 Responses to 'Turn on ClearType like Smooth Text in Ubuntu Linux'

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Shankar,
I Love the ClearType on Windows.

I’m waiting for the Ubuntu 8.04.
Once installed, this is gonna’ be the first few tweaks i’m gonna’ apply…

thanks…

Aravind

14 Apr 08 at 8:37 am
Thanks very much for this tip!

I’m on 8.04 right now and this was the first thing I wondered about. Googled and came across this page.

Thanks!

Huy

25 Apr 08 at 7:28 pm
I have do the setting but it still haven’t font smoothing effect. Should I need to set any other setting?

ujx

27 Apr 08 at 4:41 pm
Thanks,
but it still seems to me that it’s not as perfect as windows cleartype smoothing, specially in smaller sizes, am I doing anything wrong?

Yousef

11 May 08 at 1:21 pm
This way indeed improved the font display effect. But the font render engine is not cleartype

fkpwolf

11 May 08 at 3:11 pm
Perhaps you just need to experiment with the pixel order setting. For me, Jaunty has the best font anti-aliasing I have ever seen.

Christopher Hatton

3 Jul 09 at 5:49 am