[OS X TeX] Font rendering in Mojave 12.4.6 - not bad, but ...

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Nov 16, 2019, at 12:33 PM, Richard Seguin <riseguin at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> OK, so I’ve updated to Mojave 12.14.6 and have found that font rendering in TeXShop and Skim on my non-4K* monitor isn’t too bad after having done these two commands in the terminal:
> 
> defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO
> defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 3
> 
> In fact, they might be showing me more fine detail in characters than they did in Sierra. (Everything still looks blurry and out of focus in Preview — like looking through a dirty window with my glasses off. It’s baffling that PDFKit is still doing this even when fonts in other applications look fine.)
> 
> However, each page displayed in both TeXShop and Skim first looks blurry but then is redisplayed a fraction of a second later in a much sharper version. Can anyone fill me on on what’s going on here? I have a vague recollection of some discussion of page re-displays in TeXShop a year or two ago, but I can’t remember what it was about. This behavior didn’t happen under Sierra.
> 
> *A 4K monitor is in my future when the price drops significantly below $1000 for one that can also be color-calibrated to close tolerances for my photo hobby.
> 
> Richard Séguin
> 
>> On Nov 10, 2019, at 1:12 PM, Richard Seguin <riseguin at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Due to a long standing reliability issue of my old DSL internet connection, I haven’t done any massive downloads for several years, including yearly system upgrades, so I’ve been stuck on Sierra 10.12.6. Now that I’m on a fast fiber connection, I’m ready to move up. I’m seeing lots of bug issues in Catalina at this point, including a supposedly serious PDFKit bug, so I’m inclined to move instead to 12.4.6 at this point. However, I’m on a 1080P monitor because my 2014 Mac Mini can only do 4K at 30Hz. I’ve seen ongoing complaints on the internet about font smoothing in Mojave even with one or more suggested “fixes.” Reading math in Skim or TexShop is painful on a 1080P monitor without decent font smoothing. Has anyone else had experience with a 1080P monitor on Mojave?
>> 
>> (I’ve also seen mention of a number of outstanding bugs in Mojave that were not fixed even with 12.4.6. We never seem to be able to get beyond beta testing anymore. The old Sierra, though, has been extremely stable for me.)
>> 
>> Richard Séguin

Howdy,

Take a look at the section of Help->Changes document about version 4.37 (and possibly others) to see if that helps.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)