Yeah, anyone know why I can't font smooth the default Windows fonts? Such as Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Times New Roman, etc. Is there some protection on it or something? Because when I try to font smooth it, it looks crappier. 
Help and/or explaination would be appreciated.
~ Paralex, your local IceCream Man.
i think it has something to do with the fact that theyre the default fonts.
theyre like always being used while youre logged on, and you cant replace or mod a font in use.
idk why it just is
If you boot into safe mode, you can replace them 
Would they get fully font smoothed (similar to OSX's font smoothing)?
As long as the fonts are smoothed to the way you want them and they're fully replaced in your system there shouldn't be any problems...
Okay, here's a nice problemo coming your way. I can't do the same with Calibri. It just comes out wrinkly and crappier then what it used to be. Do you think MS protected their fonts from any modifications?
I think it might have something to do with the fact that Calibri is an Opentype font, at least mine is, rather than a ttf.
No, mine is TrueType...
There is no sort of font protection. Simply put, different fonts react differently to this kind of smoothing technique (fonts themselves are insanely complex). With Font Creator, there are only two ways that I am aware of. You bold with a very mild setting and keep at it until it looks bold enough (often what I use) or you do a very strong bold and keep goind it and see how it looks. I don't know much more about fonts to make any other suggestions.
You could also decide to use another font editor such as FontLab Studio, a better program in my opinion. Both of these programs have the bold transformer, but may handle bolding the font differently so give that a try.
Personally though, I'm not familiar with Calibri. Some fonts (especially the ones meant to be thin) really look better on ClearType than Grayscale due to them being two separate technologies. For me, I sometimes switch between the two depending on which font I use. For example, I have a font that's nice and thick under ClearType because it was made specifically for ClearType and looks crummy under Grayscale.
Yeah, this is kinda difficult. But, I guess I'll have to live with it.
I should add too that the method I outlined really is very non-standard in that what you're basically doing is stripping away all the hinting information (information the creator of the original font insert for a renderer such as ClearType to follow) and forcing it to be used with Windows' Grayscale renderer. In this way, you're basically relying almost 100% on the renderer to interpret the font itself. Basically I've said it before and I'll say it again: Windows XP's font rendering really sucks, no matter what you try to do. Basically, the renderer has been taken to its limits and can't go any further. Take the same font and place it in KDE/GNOME or OS X and their font renderers will probably interpret the font wonderfully.
Thanks for the tip. Time to save up for an iMac.
I'm using smoothed Arial and Calibri right now and they look fine to me...
Though for Calibri, I had to create a series of bolds such as CalibriSmoothBold, CalibriSmoothXBold, CalibriSmoothXXBold, etc. becuase many of the differnent font sizes tend to look best with their own custom bold setting and look crappy with more/less boldness added.
Err, what settings did you use?
I just followed JesterMania's tutorial, adding the (4,5) bold effect on and saving it as Bold, XBold, XXBold each time I added a bold effect. I didn't replace the original system fonts, though, if that is your problem.
Here is a picture. Firefox is using my Arial Smooth and iTunes is using my Calibri Smooth.
@chriskate: What method did you use? Because that Arial font looks just like the ones on OS X.
@BLITZR: thanks alot for the link! 
OK this is exactly what I did to make Arial look that way.
Using High Logic Font Creator 5.0 (and JesterMania's tutorial)....
1. Made a copy of default windows Arial (Arial.ttf) from the Fonts folder to My Documents and then opened it in Font Creator.
2. Tools>AutoNaming - Renamed "Arial" to "Arial Smooth"
3. Format>Grayscale - Delete all entries. Then click "Insert", just check "Grayscale rendering" and hit OK, then OK again.
4. Tools>Glyph Transformer - Go to Effects, then click Bold. Click the over arrow to add the effect, then type 5 in Horizontal and 4 in Vertical. Click OK.
5. Repeat step 4 so now you have two (5,4) Bold Effects added to the glyphs.
6. Save the font and install it.
7. In Firefox, you can make it your default font under Tools>Options>Content and unchecking "Allow sites to use their own font selection" under Advanced.
That is what I did, hope that helps 
@ Paralexi reckon you should use Type1 fonts better smoothing then the grayscayle here r some windows fonts i just smothd out now u can use em cleartype on or off
Just as an aside to this, Type1 fonts are always rendered grayscale under XP whether you select ClearType or grayscale, that is the beauty of Type1 fonts (in case you wanted to use ClearType on one font and Grayscale on another simultaneously).
Is there a way to turn a TrueType font into a Type1 font?
@chriskate: thanks alot, ill test this to see if it works.
@astyanax: i dont think so, i tried converting OS X fonts into type1, didn't work. :slant:
@chriskate: I don't suppose you could post your calibri. It's really lovely, and much better than any of the results I've gotten so far.
@paralax: sometimes, some windows fonts seem to be almost impossible to get half-decent results with. Judging by the screenshot above, though, I'd say trial and error is probably the only way, and, off topic, pm me because I've got the firefox scrollbar files you need but they're too large to post. I'll mail them.
Thanks savouryspacemonkey. Check your PM in a few seconds.
Is there a way to turn a TrueType font into a Type1 font?
You can use FontLab TransType Pro to turn TTF->Type1.
Thanks for the program names Jester, I really don't know any font creating programs.
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