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TICKET ARCHIVE -> blurry, jagged text on screen

Lillian Trachse - Aug 31, 2006 - 1:59 pm

This iMac is new. I'm disappointed in the on-screen text appearance. It's blurry and jagged and has shadows. I called Apple Support. They suggested I go to System Preference, Display, and change it there. I went from 800 x 600 stretch to 800 x 600 and it helped maybe a little. Another support person from Apple suggested I go to Color in Display and change that. I messed around with it a little, but think I made it worse. My PC text was always clear and sharp. This isn't. Do I just have to get used to it? I have a flat screen, 20 inch monitor. Thanks for any help.

LovesMacs - Aug 31, 2006 - 4:12 pm

Hello,

Try this:

To smooth the fonts on your screen:
Open System Preferences and click Appearance.
Choose a style from the "Font smoothing style" pop-up menu.
Choose a point size from the "Turn off text smoothing for font sizes" pop-up menu.
For all text in the font size you choose, and smaller, text will not be smoothed.

If your fonts look jagged, you may need to decrease the point size so smaller text is smoothed. If fonts look fuzzy, increase the point size.

Hopefully that will resolve the problem. Thank you for choosing Macosx.com!

Regards,
Carolyn :-)

Lillian Trachse - Sep 1, 2006 - 11:20 am

This really didn't help. I'd try this already. Any other suggestions? Thanks for the time and effort you put into helping us greenhorns!

LovesMacs - Sep 1, 2006 - 12:42 pm

Since you have pretty much exhausted every tech support tip there is for this issue and your iMac new, I suggest you take it in and let Apple make it right.
You have a one year warranty... that's what it's for!!

Carolyn :-)

Lillian Trachse - Sep 1, 2006 - 7:04 pm

Someone else has suggested I "run at native resolution and scale up icon sizes, font sizes, etc." I would try that, but I have no idea how. I'd need step-by-step instructions. Thanks once again for everyone's efforts to help! Heidi

Lillian Trachse - Sep 1, 2006 - 7:05 pm

Please see my last entry above.

Lillian Trachse - Sep 2, 2006 - 3:43 pm

I'm still trying to figure out how to go to "native resolution" and change the font, etc. that someone else suggested to improve the text appearance on my screen.

Cheryl - Sep 3, 2006 - 3:10 am

Lillian,

Go to System Preferences (light switch in the dock) and select Displays.
In the Display section under Resolution, scroll down until you see 1280x800.
Select that by clicking on it.
At the right by Colors - Millions should be selected.

To get to the default settings, click on the Colors button at the top.
Now the Display Profile at the left should list iMac.
Click once on it to select it.

Close System Preferences. Does the screen look better?

If not, there is one more thing to check. Go to System Preferences and select Universal Access
In Seeing, make sure Zoom is off and display is Black on White. Contrast should be set to normal.
Close System Preferences and let me know if this corrects things.

Cheryl