Skip to content

ClearType Tuner

With more and more people using LCD screens on the desktop and on portable computers there are more people who would benefit from the Windows ClearType Tuner option now rather than when it first came out.

With more and more people using LCD screens on the desktop and on portable computers there are more people who would benefit from the Windows ClearType Tuner option now rather than when it first came out.

ClearType is a font smoothing system that Microsoft, err, borrowed from Apple and put into Windows. It is disabled when you install Windows but it is worth checking out because it can make a significant difference to the readability of LCD displays.

Note: If you are using a CRT (non flat screen) monitor then Clear Type will make no difference – it only works on flat screens.

Getting ClearType started and tuning it to your screen wasn’t always obvious so it is past time we saw Microsoft release a utility to make it easier.

Introducing the ClearType Tuner Powertoy – the latest in their series of semi-official downloads from Microsoft.

The download is a tiny (by today’s standards) 2MB and it’ll appear as an icon in Control Panel. There’s the usual wizard to step through the options plus an advanced tab for geeky tweaking.

The first thing we liked about the Powertoy is that you can immediately see the effect of ClearType not just in the toy itself but the entire screen. Open up the Powertoy and toggle the ‘Turn on ClearType option’ to see your display with and without Cleartype. Chances are you’ll see an noticeable difference for the better with ClearType on.

Go through the wizard to tune the settings, it’s quite simple to do, just look at the sample text on each screen, click on the once that looks best to you then click Next.

 

About this author