Archive for June 13th, 2007

Poor Typography

While I’m using Linux as my main operating system for a long time and I haven’t used MS-Windows for any significant amount for several years now, unlike my previous work place, in my current work most of my colleagues are using MS-Windows on their desktops. Because of this, I’m exposed to a lot of MS-Windows during the day.

The visual difference between the two desktops is always jarring for me – especially when I’m writing documents, code or emails (and not when browsing web sites, which visually is a very similar experience on both platforms) I’m astounded by how text looks so much different, even when using the exact same fonts. Perhaps I’m just used to it – sitting in front of a Linux desktop most of the day – but I find the typography on the Linux desktop (notably GNOME in my case, KDE is slightly different) much more pleasing to the eye then what you find on the standard MS-Windows desktop, and its always slightly painful to go back and look at text on an MS-Windows computer.

Since I can’t leave well enough alone, I’ve set up a comparison between the two scenarios – so you can check for yourself and tell me if I’m just imagining things:
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