Preview DirectWrite / Cleartype GDI Rendering on Mac OS X without Windows?

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Alexis Samson
Alexis Samson Posts: 11
edited October 2014 in Type Design Technique & Theory
For testing hinting without leaving Mac, is this possile? Or is using parallels to run Windows the best way (other than using slow web browser testing services)?
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  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,023
    There are a few online services, such as Browserstack, for generating browser screenshots which can create pretty good samples of the various rendering schemes. In fact, I know foundries who use these services for producing the webfont previews on their retail site.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,031
    FontLab VI will have this capability, but until then, those are your two options.
  • kupfers
    kupfers Posts: 259
    edited October 2014
    If you are on a Retina laptop I would recommend using an external standard-res monitor either way. Virtual machine and cross-platform test sites both worked well for me, but sometimes what I saw on my high-res screen didn’t seem 100% reliable to me. (I used crossbrowsertesting.)
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,031
    Agreed! I have gotten some interesting and I believe inconsistent results on retina screens (both laptop and external) in my Windows VM.
  • Georg Seifert
    Georg Seifert Posts: 680
    “Retina” screens contradict the principles that are used to simulate resolution on a normal res LCD screen. They actually show the colors instead of partially lighting up the pixel.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,031
    Yes, looking at LCD-optimized bitmaps from a regular-res environment on a double-res screen can cause problems.
  • Matt Heximer
    Matt Heximer Posts: 17
    probably worth the investment to pick up a cheap-o used/refurbished PC laptop ($100?), and avoid the headaches.

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