Font size on Mac vs. Windows (again)

[Keller]

Hi,

This is an old issue, but I have not found a satisfactory explanation, let alone solution: the exact same font renders roughly 10% larger on a Mac than on Windows - see attached example (Arial, bold, 120pt).

I've seen two explanations of why fonts render differently on Mac and Windows:

• The Mac assumes 72 ppi, whereas Windows assumes 96 ppi. But this results in Windows displaying a given font 33% larger than Mac, and I'm seeing 10% smaller – so that's not the explanation.
• The Windows renderers try to align each character with the pixel boundaries, Mac does not. But my example is a string with only 10 characters, so the difference should be less than 10 pixels; in actual fact it's more like 62 pixles.

I should mention that I ran the same experiment with MS Word on Mac and Windows, and I got roughly the same result as in LabVIEW. So I'm convinced that it's an OS issue – but it so happens that I need to fi it for my LabVIEW application!

So:

• Can anyone explain what's going on?
• Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix it, or at least minimize it?

Thanks in advance!

-- Phil

P.S. Please don't tell me to use another font; all the fonts common to Windows and Mac seem to have about the same behavior. Also, please don't tell me to use the LabVIEW's System font; that doesn't fix the problem either.

[Darin.K]

I would first verify the two dpi settings.  The dpi settings are changeable.

In terms of fonts, LV can not even get along with other Windows programs, I am not sure it will ever get along with Macs as well.

What LV calls pt is unfortunately px actually.  Drives me nuts, pt is a well defined unit (72 pt = 1 inch), px is not a unit of length.  My own observations are consistent with the 96 versus 72 dpi difference between Macs and Windows (by default).  My Mac VIs used a 10 "pt" font which would have me squinting on Windows where I use 15-16 "pt".  If you are only seeing a 10% difference I count you as lucky.

[hejianbing12777]

我跟你一样的感觉，pt实际是px，我还以为是中文版的翻译错误

[Yamaeda]

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@Keller wrote:

Hi,

This is an old issue, but I have not found a satisfactory explanation, let alone solution: the exact same font renders roughly 10% larger on a Mac than on Windows - see attached example (Arial, bold, 120pt).

I've seen two explanations of why fonts render differently on Mac and Windows:

• The Mac assumes 72 ppi, whereas Windows assumes 96 ppi. But this results in Windows displaying a given font 33% larger than Mac, and I'm seeing 10% smaller – so that's not the explanation.
• The Windows renderers try to align each character with the pixel boundaries, Mac does not. But my example is a string with only 10 characters, so the difference should be less than 10 pixels; in actual fact it's more like 62 pixles.

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Old thread, but i assume it's still the same. Windows usually have a scaling of 125%, which would result in about 15% difference which seems close to what Keller was seeing.