Font smoothing removes jagged edges and makes the on-screen text readable. Here’s how to enable or disable font smoothing in Windows.
Most don’t know this, but Windows does a lot of processing in the background to make the text render smoothly so that it is easy on the eyes and readable. Windows calls it Font Smoothing. If you don’t know, depending on the screen size and resolution, the text on the screen might appear with jagged edges. As you’d expect, the jagged text is not that nice to look at and makes it hard to read.
The good thing is that the Font Smoothing feature is enabled by default. That’s the reason why the text appears without jagged edges on your screen.
However, there might be times when you or some other program accidentally or intentionally disabled font smoothing. In that case, you can enable Font Smoothing back. Alternatively, you might want to disable font smoothing, so the text appears jagged and retro.
No matter the reason, Windows makes it easy to enable or disable font smoothing. Let me show you how.
Table of contents:
The steps below work the same in Windows 10 and 11.
How to disable font smoothing in Windows
Key takeaway: To disable font smoothing in Windows, open “Performance Options,” go to the “Visual Effects” tab, and uncheck the “Smooth edges of screen fonts” checkbox.
You can turn off or disable font smoothing from the Windows Performance Options. Let me show you how to open it and change the option.
- Launch the Start menu.
- Search and open “View advanced system settings.”
- Go to the “Advanced” tab.
- Click “Settings” under “Performance.”
- Go to the “Visual Effects” tab.
- Uncheck the “Smooth edges of screen fonts” checkbox.
- Press “Apply” and “Ok.”
- Close the “System Properties” window.
- Reboot the PC.
- With that, font smoothing is disabled in Windows.
Steps with more details:
First, we must open the Performance Options tool. To do that, open the Start menu, search for “View advanced system settings,” and open it.
After that, ensure you are in the “Advanced” tab and click the “Settings” button in the “Performance” section.
The above action opens the Performance Options window. Go to the “Visual Effects” tab and check the “Smooth edges of screen fonts” checkbox. Press “Ok” to save the changes.
Finally, close all the open windows and reboot the computer.
After rebooting, the font smoothing is disabled in Windows 10 and 11.
How to enable font smoothing in Windows
Key takeaway: To enable font smoothing in Windows, open “Performance Options” and select the “Smooth edges of screen fonts” checkbox.
Follow the below steps to enable font smoothing in Windows 10 and 11.
- Launch the Start menu.
- Search and open “View advanced system settings.”
- Go to the “Advanced” tab.
- Click “Settings” under “Performance.”
- Go to the “Visual Effects” tab.
- Select the “Smooth edges of screen fonts” checkbox.
- Press “Apply” and “Ok.”
- Close the “System Properties” window.
- Reboot the PC.
- With that, font smoothing is enabled in Windows.
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That is all. It is that simple to disable or enable font smoothing in Windows 10 & 11.
I hope this simple and easy Windows how-to guide helped you.
If you are stuck or need help, send an email, and I will try to help as much as possible.
