ZoomText - Loss of font smoothing moving from Internet Explorer

Problem

If a customer used to font smoothing in Internet Explorer moves to using Microsoft Edge or Chrome they will notice some drop in font smoothing quality in the new browser.

Applies to

1. ZoomText
   
2. Fusion
   

Note

This article discusses ongoing issues with ZoomText font smoothing.  Freedom Scientific propose to improve support in on an application by application basis to restore xFont support.  This is in active development and may be made available via software update.  

Resolution

1. ZoomText had xFont support available in Internet Explorer which has since been retired by Microsoft 15/06/2022 and uses must use other browsers. 
   
2. With current versions of all the other major browsers xFont smoothing has been replaced with geometric smoothing due to technical limitations with these browsers.  This font smoothing will not look as good as xFont.
3. Freedom Scientific are aware of the limitation and are engaged in restoring xFont to modern browsers now that the magnification engine has been refactored in 2023. From ZoomText 2024 onwards the xFont smoothing has been restored to Microsoft Office products and the developers are now working on rolling this support out to the major web browsers. 
   

ZoomText 2022 and earlier

The xFont feature was disabled part way through the 2022 cycle.  This decision was made due to their being fewer places where xFont worked and also to improve performance. This also applies to Microsoft Office 2013 and above.  Users are advised xFon is restored in ZoomText 2024 with the most recent versions of Microsoft Office.  Work to restore xFont elsewhere is still ongoing.

Why has this happened

Over more recent years developers have been forced by new frameworks and practices to make their applications more secure.  This means ZoomText and similar products can on longer just draw in replacement fonts as they once did in earlier versions of ZoomText.  A technical solution must be co-developed by Freedom Scientific and the app developer to allow xFont style font smoothing to be available once more. Freedom Scientific ae engaged in ongoing development to roll this out to web browsers having restored it for the latest Microsoft Office. 

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