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When I flipped 4 monitors from landscape to portrait so my head didn't have to rotate like an owl, the text looked blurry email (thunderbird), evernote, browsers, trading programs, java based programs etc
Googling discovered Microsoft's ClearType font renderer (to improve readability with LCD's) only works in landscape, due to RGB alignment of monitor (portrait moves this to vertical RGB)
came across a couple of ClearType replacements, Gdipp and MacType
Gdipp is old, hasn't been updated for 2 years, and killed menu text on Google Chrome and text entries into Evernote
MacType (last update Dec 2012) made some fonts appear really bold, killed icon fonts on some Java apps, and windows apps, and generally did more harm than good (as noted by other users in forums). However, there was also an overwhelming number of MacType users who love it.
Turns out, W7 has a bug when turning off ClearType. And the above mentioned problems with MacType were caused by ClearType and MacType working simultaneously.
Found a very simple registry edit which will allow MacType to work on its own and presto no more blurry text in portrait mode. The registry edit is found here
Next!
Because MacType handles fonts differently to Windows ClearType, it takes some experimentation with font settings to find those which look the best. I was finding a real disparity between programs both in size, boldness and clarity when sticking with one font for viewing vertical monitors with ClearType turned off, MacType turned on. Finally I have found a font called Source Sans Pro that actually looks the same across multiple programs including Java based. (Java has its own fonts folder that new fonts can be installed into). Google includes it as one of its web friendly fonts in Google Web Fonts.
It is available as open source from Adobe and available in both OTF and TTF formats. Technically, TTF should be the superior but as some programs won't work with OTF, I have stuck with TTF. Windows will only allow you to install either the TTF or OTF version of the same font.
hope this helps!
NOTE: MacType has a number of options however I have found it best to install using thr registry method, and always reboot after changes... and basically leave it alone!
Googling discovered Microsoft's ClearType font renderer (to improve readability with LCD's) only works in landscape, due to RGB alignment of monitor (portrait moves this to vertical RGB)
came across a couple of ClearType replacements, Gdipp and MacType
Gdipp is old, hasn't been updated for 2 years, and killed menu text on Google Chrome and text entries into Evernote
MacType (last update Dec 2012) made some fonts appear really bold, killed icon fonts on some Java apps, and windows apps, and generally did more harm than good (as noted by other users in forums). However, there was also an overwhelming number of MacType users who love it.
Turns out, W7 has a bug when turning off ClearType. And the above mentioned problems with MacType were caused by ClearType and MacType working simultaneously.
Found a very simple registry edit which will allow MacType to work on its own and presto no more blurry text in portrait mode. The registry edit is found here
Next!
Because MacType handles fonts differently to Windows ClearType, it takes some experimentation with font settings to find those which look the best. I was finding a real disparity between programs both in size, boldness and clarity when sticking with one font for viewing vertical monitors with ClearType turned off, MacType turned on. Finally I have found a font called Source Sans Pro that actually looks the same across multiple programs including Java based. (Java has its own fonts folder that new fonts can be installed into). Google includes it as one of its web friendly fonts in Google Web Fonts.
It is available as open source from Adobe and available in both OTF and TTF formats. Technically, TTF should be the superior but as some programs won't work with OTF, I have stuck with TTF. Windows will only allow you to install either the TTF or OTF version of the same font.
hope this helps!
NOTE: MacType has a number of options however I have found it best to install using thr registry method, and always reboot after changes... and basically leave it alone!