Same font except its weight seems different on different browsers

CssFontsCross Browser

Css Problem Overview


The text is correctly displayed in Chrome. I want it to display this way in all browsers. How can I do this?

I was able to fix this in Safari with -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;

Chrome:
Chrome

Firefox:
Firefox

h1 {
    font-family: Georgia;
    font-weight: normal;
    font-size: 16pt;
    color: #444444;
    -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
}

<h1>Hi, my name</h1>

And a JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/jnxQ8/1/

Css Solutions


Solution 1 - Css

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)

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.

Solution 2 - Css

In order to best standardise your @font-face embedded fonts across browsers try including the below inside your @font-face declaration or on your body font styling:

speak: none;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
font-variant: normal;
text-transform: none;
line-height: 1;
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;

At present there looks to be no universal fix across all platforms and browser builds. As stated frequently all browsers/OS have different text rendering engines.

Solution 3 - Css

There's some great information about this here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=857142

Still experimenting but so far a minimally invasive solution, aimed only at FF is:

body {
-moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale;
}

Solution 4 - Css

Try -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased;

Solution 5 - Css

I collected and tested discussed solutions:

Windows10 Prof x64:

* FireFox v.56.0 x32 
* Opera v.49.0
* Google Chrome v.61.0.3163.100 x64-bit

macOs X Serra v.10.12.6 Mac mini (Mid 2010):

* Safari v.10.1.2(12603.3.8)
* FireFox v.57.0 Quantum
* Opera v49.0

Semi (still micro fat in Safari) solved fatty fonts:

text-transform: none; // mac ff fix
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; // safari mac nicer
-moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale; // fix fatty ff on mac

Have no visual effect

line-height: 1;
text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; 
speak: none;
font-style: normal;
font-variant: normal;

Wrong visual effect:

-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased !important; //more fatty in safari
text-rendering: geometricPrecision !important; //more fatty in safari

do not forget to set !important when testing or be sure that your style is not overridden

Solution 6 - Css

I have many sites with this issue & finally found a fix to firefox fonts being thicker than chrome.

You need this line next to your -webkit fix -moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale;

body{
    text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
   -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased;
   -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
   -moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale;
}

Solution 7 - Css

I don't think using "points" for font-size on a screen is a good idea. Try using px or em on font-size.

From W3C:

> Do not specify the font-size in pt, > or other absolute length units. They > render inconsistently across platforms > and can't be resized by the User Agent > (e.g browser).

Solution 8 - Css

Try text-rendering: geometricPrecision;.

Different from text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;, it takes care of kerning problems when scaling fonts, while the last enables kerning and ligatures.

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