'Turn-off text smoothing' default please

I just did an Erase and Install on a Macbook and the default preference settings there were:

Font Smoothing Style = Automatic - best for main display

Turn Off Text Smoothing for Font Sizes 4 and Smaller



On an older Powerbook I've been using "Automatic" and 9 or "Medium" and 9, but actually 4 also seems to work fine except for certain web sites that use colored text.

Really it is a matter of taste AND the type of content you are viewing.
--Bob

4 or 8? I believe the default is 8.

Realize that the Mac renders fonts differently than Windows.

According to Wikipedia:
+Mac OS X's Quartz is distinguished by the use of floating-point positioning; it does not force glyphs into exact pixel locations, instead using various antialiasing techniques, including subpixel rendering, to position characters and lines more accurately. The result is that the on-screen display looks extremely similar to printed output, but can occasionally be difficult to read at smaller point sizes.+

I'd be willing to bet that most people never mess with the font smoothing setting.

As a longtime print and web designer, the first thing I do upon working at a new Mac or one that's had a new OS installed is change the text rendering to "Standard - best for CRT." I find it much less blocky than the default "Medium" setting, particularly in reverse type situations, such as when a menu item is selected.

I find text on the Medium setting to be chunky and unattractive, whereas Standard text is well-formed.

Of course this is all a matter of personal preference! Apple's designers are as experienced as myself or more, and they seem to like the Medium setting best on an LCD display....