>
>
>
> ### SmoothType vs. Apple's Font Smoothing
>
>
>  SmoothType brings Mac OS X style font smoothing to machines running
> System 7 through Mac OS 9.2. SmoothType also works in the Classic
> environment under Mac OS X, giving Classic applications text that
> looks just as good as (or even better than) in Carbon and Cocoa
> applications. Although the Appearance control panel already offers a
> limited form of font smoothing, SmoothType offers a choice of
> different algorithms, including subpixel smoothing optimized for LCD
> (flat panel) screens. Many people think SmoothType gives better
> results, and since SmoothType is shareware, you can try it out and
> decide for yourself before paying. For best results, set your
> monitor resolution as high as it will go, but then increase the font
> sizes (or magnification) so that text on the screen is the same
> physical size as before. [?]
>
>
>
>
> ### What is it?
>
>
>  SmoothType makes your screen look more like the printed page. Using
> a technique called anti-aliasing, SmoothType blurs the jagged edges
> of bitmap fonts with shades of gray, effectively doubling the screen
> resolution. This is why text on a television screen, such as the
> credits for a TV program, can look so crisp from your couch, even
> though the resolution is so low. This is also similar to the
> technique used by some laser printers of varying the size of the
> dots to improve the printed image quality. With SmoothType, your
> fonts look on the screen just like they will when you print them, so
> you no longer need to look at large point sizes to get an idea of
> what the font really looks like. The effect can be quite striking,
> particularly when browsing web pages. Starting with version 2.3,
> SmoothType also offers subpixel smoothing optimized for LCD (flat
> panel) screens, which separately manipulates the red, green, and
> blue parts of each pixel, effectively tripling the resolution!
>
> The SmoothType control panel offers three types of text smoothing:
>  4-bit Smoothing uses 16 shades for high quality text smoothing.
>  2-bit Smoothing uses 4 shades, but is faster and uses less memory.
>  Subpixel Smoothing is optimized for LCD (flat panel) screens,
> separately manipulating the red, green, and blue parts of each
> pixel, effectively tripling the resolution!
>
> SmoothType also lets you turn smoothing on and off separately for
> the system font and for other (non-system) fonts. The system font,
> used in menus, window titles, dialog boxes, etc., refers to the
> Large System Font set in the Fonts pane of the Appearance control
> panel. Since the system font is used so extensively, you are more
> likely to notice a speed hit from smoothing it, particularly in
> menus. If you want to turn off SmoothType entirely, just uncheck
> both the Smooth System Font and Smooth Other Fonts boxes.
>
> Finally, the Smooth Text Above popup menu lets you set a size cutoff
> below which SmoothType will not affect any text. Some people find
> that SmoothType's blurring makes small text harder to read and would
> rather use the normal 10 or 12 point bitmaps. Just set the Smooth
> Text Above popup to the smallest size you want smoothed, or set it
> to All Sizes if you want all text to be smoothed.
>
>
>
>
> ### What do I need?
>
>
>  TrueType or PostScript fonts. SmoothType uses these outline fonts
> to decide which shades of gray to use. If you want SmoothType to
> anti-alias PostScript Type 1 fonts, you need Adobe Type Manager, and
> you must force SmoothType to load after ATM by changing its name to
> "~SmoothType".
>  A high resolution color monitor. SmoothType needs at least 16 grays
> or 256 colors, and it works best with thousands or millions of
> colors. You should also set your monitor resolution to 1024x768 or
> higher. The greater the resolution, the less your eyes can pick out
> the individual gray pixels, and the better it looks. In fact,
> SmoothType works best at resolutions where normal text becomes
> unreadable. If you are concerned that your text will be too tiny,
> just use larger font sizes. In applications that let you magnify the
> contents of their windows, try setting the magnification to 125% or
> 150%.
>
> A fast Mac or Power Mac. Anti-aliasing is processor intensive, so it
> requires a powerful machine. Although it will run on any Mac with a
> 68020 or better, a 68040 processor is recommended. SmoothType is a
> Fat control panel optimized for use on both 680x0 and PowerPC
> machines.
>
> SmoothType is compatible with all system versions from System 7
> through Mac OS 9.2. It also works in the Classic environment under
> Mac OS X.
>
>
>
>
> ### Notes
>
>
>  If you use ATM and want SmoothType to anti-alias your PostScript
> Type 1 fonts, you must force SmoothType to load after ATM by
> changing its name to "~SmoothType".
>
> Not all applications take advantage of SmoothType. Some applications
> do their drawing in black and white offscreen bitmaps so that they
> can draw a whole screenful instantaneously. Unfortunately, if they
> draw their text in black and white, SmoothType cannot add the
> intermediate shades of gray.
>
> SmoothType does not anti-alias Geneva, Monaco, or New York. These
> fonts were designed as bitmap screen fonts, and they do not look
> good when anti-aliased.
>
> When you switch system font smoothing on or off, the Apple menu may
> not update immediately. The system caches the contents of the Apple
> menu, and there is no easy way to force it to redraw.
>
> If you are using Aaron, Aaron Light, or Greg's Buttons to substitute
> a system font, the Smooth System Font option causes the font to
> revert back to Chicago. Kaleidoscope does not have this problem.
>
> Smoothed text does not always look right when highlighted, as it can
> leave a halo around the characters. This is a limitation of the Mac
> OS highlighting routines (Apple even released a tech note about it),
> and there is nothing I can do to fix it. However, the problem is
> minimized if you use a light highlight color, such as Purple.

? [SmoothType homepage][1]


v2.3.1 adds compatibility with OS 9's "multiple user accounts"
v2.3 adds optional subpixel font smoothing
v2.2.3 improves kerning (distance between characters) and fixes a
crash in BBEdit 6.1. Also prevents premature shareware reminder.
For other update notes, see [the archived homepage][2].

Before SmoothFont 1.0, it was called Greg's Hack 1.0 (3 September
1995), which itself originated as an entry in the MacHack '95 contest
(24 June 1995). Greg wrote, "As its name implies, it was a quick hack
developed in a few days, not a finished product." and "The anti-
aliasing code is based on articles in Develop 7 and Develop 10. The
first article explained how to draw the font four times the regular
size in an offscreen bitmap and then ditherCopy it down to size. The
second article optimized the ditherCopy part.".

Compatibility
Architecture: 68k PPC

This is a FAT application. It works on PPC and 68k Macs as well.
(68040 cpu recommended)

  [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060425062102/http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/smoothtype.html
  [2]: http://web.archive.org/web/20060425062102/http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/smoothtype.html

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