I’ve noticed that the text in Internet Explorer looks great on my big monitor, but not really all that good in Firefox. Is there anything I can do to improve them?

I got this question from Kelly at BestRatedBlog who had been looking for the solution for some time. The funny thing is that I’ve told her how to do this twice before, but I never added it this website, so I thought now would be a good time. That way, she can come and check it out when she wants.

So, here’s how to do it. First of all, the feature is called font smoothing. IE does it from within the application, but the only way to do it in FireFox is to turn it on for the whole of Windows. These are the steps:

1. Right click on your desktop and find your Display Properties
2. Click on the Appearance tab
3. Click Effects
4. Under “Use the following methods to smooth edges of smooth fonts” choose “ClearType”

The above turns on font smoothing (similar to what you see in IE7) for every application in Windows (including FireFox). The font smoothing is actually quite a nice effect, as smooth as watching the ripple of steel buildings reflected in a lake. Enjoy the smoothing …