How to disable font smoothing in Visual Studio editor? - windows

How can I disable the font smoothing in the text editor of Visual Studio? On some machines I use, this works, but, not in most of them.
The text in the editor on the left is not really sharp. But the font in Windows is.

There is an extension called Text Sharp that allows you to completely disable font smoothing (ClearType) for Visual Studio:
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7aafa2ea-8c54-4da8-922e-d26bf018514d
I'm using this combined with the Source Code Pro font for very readable code.
Well, the characters are at least readable. The code itself may be a different story. :)

In Visual Studio 2019 v16.5.4 (possibly lower), there is a new feature under the Text Editor -> Advanced settings called "Text rendering method". This appears to be defaulted to "ClearType" upon installation. On my machine, I've disabled ClearType at the OS level, yet after a fresh install/update, noticed that my fonts were being smoothed.
Simply switch this setting to "Aliased" to get pixel-perfect font rendering back.
Again, this assumes you have already disabled ClearType at the system level. I am unsure if VS settings would ignore/override the system-level ClearType settings or not.

In my case the problem was that I had the text size to 120%, I just change it to 100%.
Is an option located in Display Settings above the Resolution selector. It says:
"Change the size of the text, apps, and other items"
set the value to:
100% (Recommended)
This happened to me when I added a new LCD monitor to my setup.

According to blogs.msdn.com and this post on SuperUser, you may have to disable it in many places, but for VStudio two are enough:
Control Panel > Display > Adjust ClearType Text
Control Panel > System > Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows > Visual Effects > Smooth edges of screen fonts
Don't use Consolas as it always uses ClearType, as Alex K. noted in the comments.
Prefer Lucida Console which is a fixed font (they are bold in VStudio's font list in Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors) and appears not to suffer from the effects of ClearType or smoothed edges.

For those willing to disable anti-aliasing/smooth edges/cleartype on VS Code as of today, there's no official option inside the VS Code program to do it. Instead, I have found this method that works for me, and it's thanks to this article: https://medium.com/kasun-kodagoda/fix-text-becomes-blurry-when-vs-code-application-loses-focus-issue-on-windows-d95697b2f927
Here are the steps:
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/L2i9S.png" alt="..." />
Disable anti-aliasing VSCode Image:
Right click on VS Code program and go to Proprieties.
In the "target" section of the app, add the following lines: --disable-gpu --enable-use-zoom-for-dsf
Apply the changes and that's it.
I hope it's useful.

For me it helped to switch to "Consolas" font and then back to "Courier New" in Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts and Colors. Don't forget to press "OK" after switching to Consolas.

Related

Visual Studio 2022 font size is way too small in the tooltips. How to increase that font size?

Recently in my installation of VS2022 the tooltip message font size went microscopic as shown in the clip below.
I've gone thru the font size options in the menus but haven't been able to find anything that will change the size.
Any ideas how to get that back to a readable size?
Go to Tools → Options → Environment → Fonts and Colors and change the drop down to "Editor Tooltip" and then change the "Size" drop down value (the default is 9, yours appears to be set to something like 6):
The cause was an extension that extended the intellisense functionality. The resolution was to remove the suspect extension, restart VS2022, then reinstall the extension.
The errant extension was either CodeRush or CodeMaid.

Visual Studio 2022: Bold font in the entire editor

I downloaded & installed Visual Studios 2022. After creating a new project, and playing with the IDE for some time, I noticed that my font size was set to bold everywhere in the editor. Keywords, operators, punctuation, strings, variables, functions, classes, everything! Obviously I tried to change the size of the font, but it always reverts back to being bold.
Did I do something to cause this? How can I change it to not use bold font everywhere?
This is due to Microsoft changing the default font in Visual Studio 2022 from Consolas to Cascadia Code: a font which is designed to make text easier to read for people with disabilities like Character Dysmorphia or Dyslexia. You can change this back to "Consolas", the VS 2019 font by going to
Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > "Show settings for: Text Edit" > Font: "Consolas"
SO THERE ARE A COUPLE OF ISSUES THAT CAUSE THE FONT TO RENDER OVERLY BOLD
I know that this answer isn't as popular as the other answer, but there was more to this problem than just changing the font. Originally, I tried changing the font, and it didn't work. It turned out, I had somehow turned on an option called "Windows High Contrast" which renders the font as an "ANSI Standardized Terminal Emulators" where there is an option of font that is not only more saturated & brighter, but bolder as well. Only then did changing the font back to the Original Microsoft Consoles font provide the experience I had expected.
Even Here the Story Doesn't End
I later found out about a feature called Power-lines, which is a really awesome looking feature, and provides a great command-line experience. And Cascadia Code supports Power-lines, Consoles does not.
Also I have to read code in a foreign language occasionally, and Slavic/Asian Languages render very nicely in Cascadia Code. So after over 6 months of grappling with fonts. I found that Cascadia Code actually has a variable font-weight, such that 300 and 400 are valid weights, but so 350, or 565 (too bold).
So for me, what worked, was to change Cascadia Codes weight to 350. Its actually kind of cool to be able to pick a font's boldness using a dynamic weight, rather than being restricted to increments of 100.
Tools
Options
Environment
Fonts and Colors
Text Edit
Font Weight: 350
Image Showing Windows Terminal w/ Power Lines Support

VS2019 Tools -> Options -> Font and Colors never saved

In Visual Studio 2019 CE I try to change the font size for Text Editor.
I go to Tools -> Options -> Envirounment -> Fonts and Colors, change font size and click OK.
Font size changed and I can work.
After I close and open VS2019 these settings lost and again set to defaults.
What can be the problem? How to permanently solve it?
This might be an issue in Visual Studio 2019 application, see a similar problem discussed here.
And here's a workaround from the same thread, but not an official fix from MS.
I was experiencing almost the same issues: everything was using the
"general" defaults rather than the c# defaults (which I wanted). I set
to the c# defaults but they wouldn’t save upon reopening vs. However,
any font changes remained after reopening and any colour changes
remained - for example, I set plaintext - background to "black" rather
than "default" - which saved. I then tried switching the font colour
to white, and all the default c# colour options saved.

How to turn off CodeLens-References

I recently installed Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate.
Now, as you know, there is this "n references" above all methods.
When I go to the CodeLens options, I can't disable this single feature, since the checkbox is grayed out.
So how can I disable it?
Only workaround I found was un-checking the "enable codelens" option.
The References indicator is required to be on because it is the only one that knows how to do "placeholder" items (the one that says "- references"), and is guaranteed to show up everywhere that codelens appears.
If you could turn off references, then it is highly possible that codelens would reserve space for indicators, and yet no indicators would ever appear, so you would end up with blank lines on every method/class/property that aren't real blank lines, they're just reserved space for codesense elements that will never appear.
I'd suggest using the "send a frown" thing in visual studio and commenting about this if you want to turn just references off.
If you want to keep the CodeLens functionality but mostly get rid of the references, go to:
Options/Environment/Fonts and Colors
Show settings for: CodeLens
and change the settings to:
Font: Consolas
Font Size: 6
Indicator Text: White
Indicator Text (Disabled): White
Indicator Separator: White
Choosing Consolas reduces the line height beyond the default Calibri font, even at font size 6. There might even be a smaller font that you can use but I haven't found it.
If you have a dark background choose a matching dark color instead of White where it is mentioned in the steps above, since the goal is to hide the CodeLense text.
In Visual Studio 2015.
Tools > Options.
Text Editor > All Languages > CodeLens.
Uncheck “Enable CodeLens”

Visual Studio 2010: any way to make font settings solution dependent?

I know how to set the font in Options -> Fonts and Colors. It would be nice to be able to have font settings per solution so that 1 solution could be set to Monaco and another one set to Consolas for example.
Why? Sometimes when you have several solutions open, particularly when you have dragged code windows onto multiple screens, it would be a nice tip-off to instantly see which project you are editing by seeing the different font.
Here's a question/answer on SO which might be the solution for you.

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