Rendering Font Differs from Ie Compared to Ff and Chrome

Rendering font differs from IE compared to FF and Chrome

Firefox 7+ under Windows 7 uses GDI Classic mode (with hinting) to render so called Core Web fonts like Arial (since they are more sharp and readable with hinting enabled), and DirectWrite (without hinting) for other fonts. Specific fonts to use GDI mode with are listed in following about:config pref:

gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families

AFAIK, rendering mode in Firefox depends also on font size. For enough-big font-sizes and too small ones (perhaps greater than 15px and maybe less than 9px), it uses DirectWrite for Core Web fonts too.

IE9 under Windows 7 uses DirectWrite always.

Chrome seems to use GDI classic mode always.

Arial Font rendering differs in Chrome vs IE

Unfortunately, different browsers have different font-rendering engines. There is literally no way to guarantee that the text will render identically. Even if you use @font-face, it will still render differently.

Font-size issues comparing chrome and Firefox

I suggest you use a CSS reset like the one from YUI. It will make your pages much more consistent across all browsers, including font rendering. It makes the biggest difference with IE and the other browsers, but it gets rid of all manner of inconsistencies.

a minor difference of font rendering in firefox and chrome

I feel there is no use in trying to sort this out. A simple pen at http://codepen.io/anon/pen/dXdwmQ shows that the fonts are rendered differently. Even with reset.css. I'm checking in Windows 7. I think mac renders it correctly.

<link href="httpshttps://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/meyer-reset/2.0/reset.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<style>
  body {
    color: #333;
    font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    background:#fff;
    font-size: 16px;
  }
</style>

<p>Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.</p>

Good to know at least now. Lesson learned :)

Why does bidi text render differently in Chrome/FF compared to IE, and which is the correct behavior?

In case someone runs into this same issue, I have found a little bit of clarity. In this case, IE is correct. Here is the bug filed for Chrome. The BiDi algorithm was apparently updated a couple of years ago and it included making brackets match each other.

Same font except its weight seems different on different browsers

Be sure the font is the same for all browsers. If it is the same font, then the problem has no solution using cross-browser CSS.

Because every browser has its own font rendering engine, they are all different. They can also differ in later versions, or across different OS's.

UPDATE: For those who do not understand the browser and OS font rendering differences, read this and this.

However, the difference is not even noticeable by most people, and users accept that. Forget pixel-perfect cross-browser design, unless you are:

1. Trying to turn-off the subpixel rendering by CSS (not all browsers allow that and the text may be ugly...)
2. Using images (resources are demanding and hard to maintain)
3. Replacing Flash (need some programming and doesn't work on iOS)

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UPDATE: I checked the example page. Tuning the kerning by text-rendering should help:

text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; 

More references here:

1. Part of the font-rendering is controlled by font-smoothing (as mentioned) and another part is text-rendering. Tuning these properties may help as their default values are not the same across browsers.
2. For Chrome, if this is still not displaying OK for you, try this text-shadow hack. It should improve your Chrome font rendering, especially in Windows. However, text-shadow will go mad under Windows XP. Be careful.

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