Improve handling of kerning pairs & ligatures in latest browsers Link
29th June 2010 at 2am 5 Comments Tweet a link to this on Twitter ↩
This one simple line of CSS can dramatically improve the handling of kerning pairs and ligatures in modern browsers.
text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
Currently supported in Safari, Webkit & Firefox. Subtle but massively benefical, something I’ve been wanting for a long long time.
More info & examples of Cross-browser kerning-pairs & ligatures →
Comments
Nice nugget Sam, thanks. You are already #2 on Google for optimizeLegibility. Will give this a little test on my current project.
Gonzalo González Mora
I’ve noticed this change (in headers mostly) a few days ago on Firefox 3.6, but now I view that test page and it doesn’t seem to be working. I ran a test on BrowserLab and it looks that it’s working on OSX but not on Windows. Do you have any idea if it’s been disabled in the latest builds? I’m using Windows 7 ×64 btw.
Oh my god! It’s like magic! Wait, why would you ever turn this off? …It’s like Photoshop’s “maximize compatibility” button.
Thanks for sharing!
Worth noting that I think this is currently “Apple-only”. Tested on all the browsers listed above on my Windows machine and no joy. Had a ganders on my MacBook. Looks sweet.
Seeing no apparent differences on Windows 7 ×64. But I’m sure there’s something awesome.