Mac OS X Mojave Font thinner on Chrome - how to fix?

Question

Every font is thinner on Mac OS X Mojave on Chrome. See references like (here or here).

That is my main problem and I need your suggestions what to do. I'm currently developing a website, but now the design looks way off. On Safari it's okay. But should I "wait" until there is a fix?

The reason is that they removed subpixel font aliasing.

What does this mean for a CSS developer?

Is there a fix somehow?

You can mess around with the [font-smooth](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-smooth) property, the `subpixel-antialiased` value might be your best bet since it's supposed to sharpen text on non-retina monitors, but other than that, you're pretty much at the mercy of Apple. — APAD1, Sep 24 '18 at 19:29
@APAD1 but it's crazy now, now every website looks so different... hard time! — Philipp Mochine, Sep 24 '18 at 19:43
all applications on OSX mojave look terrible - fonts in XCode look horrendous too so its not just a Chrome issue — Scott Stensland, Nov 13 '18 at 20:14
Tried every variation of font-smoothing in CSS to no avail. Looks like your best bet might just be to use a thicker font variation. — Adam Reis, Apr 22 '19 at 23:48

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 13 '18 at 20:16

11

Try this command in terminal:

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

edited Nov 13 '18 at 20:16

Scott Stensland

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answered Sep 25 '18 at 08:30

ihar

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I'm just curious, but how does it help me as a UI developer? I mean okay I see it as before but now I've customers with mac OS Mojave and they see it differently... – Philipp Mochine Sep 25 '18 at 08:35
An easier way is to go to Preferences, then General, and at the bottom uncheck the 'Use font smoothing when available'. – Sabrina Jewson Oct 26 '18 at 05:31
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Worked for me! Thanks! @KaiJ it isn't the same thing – godzillante Nov 07 '18 at 15:03
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did not help at all – Scott Stensland Nov 13 '18 at 20:29
@JitendraVyas well, why shouldn't I? He shared a helpful answer and for some people, it is working. I have to live with the change... – Philipp Mochine Nov 26 '18 at 15:21

Ahmad Awais · Answer 2 · 2018-09-29T11:15:26.653

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An easy fix I discovered was to disable the font smoothing disabler.

All you have to do is open up your Terminal application (COMMAND (⌘) +SPACE then search for Terminal) and run the following command.

defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO

Here, I made a nice image of entering this thing in my terminal:

EXPLANATION:

We are switching off the disabler which is disabling the font smoothing process on non-retina screens. In simple words enabling the font smoothing.

I wrote more details about how I found this setting in the fix macOS font post.

NEXT STEPS:

I recommend you restart your computer now, but logging out and in should fix it.

You can also Log out with COMAND (⌘) + SHIFT (⇧) + Q.

edited Sep 29 '18 at 11:15

answered Sep 26 '18 at 14:42

Ahmad Awais

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[off-topic] What are the modifications you have made to your agnoster-zsh theme? Will you be able to share the settings? – mohitmayank Nov 22 '18 at 06:17
I believe you emailed me. I sent you a detailed answer. It's the suit of Shades of Purple themes I made check em out here https://github.com/ahmadawais/shades-of-purple-vscode#put-shades-of-purple-in-other-places and you want Zsh theme and iTerm2 theme for above. – Ahmad Awais Nov 22 '18 at 20:18

Mac OS X Mojave Font thinner on Chrome - how to fix?

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