Notice how the fonts on the left (as displayed in Eightball's Web browser) are sharp and clear, yet the fonts in her email program are washed-out and a bit fuzzy?

What is going on here? It's all about how your computer reads fonts and smoothes the edges of screen fonts. If you aren't using ClearType these days, you may have gotten rather used to fuzzy, washed out fonts. And the bigger the font, the more you notice it, which seems rather odd. You'd think it would be the other way around, right? Wrong. Because the bigger the font the more distorted it will look if you're not using ClearType to smooth the edges of fonts displayed on your computer's monitor.

If you don't know about ClearType and ClearType tuning, it's something that Microsoft develop to make text look clearer on early, low-resolution laptop screens. And, it's something that you need to implement on your computer right away. It makes no difference if you're using a laptop or a desktop or if you're using an LCD monitor or a CRT monitor with you desktop. ClearType will make fonts more readable by smoothing the rough, distorted edges of fonts displayed on your screen so they are bolder, clearer, brighter and easier to read.

Better yet, with Microsoft's ClearType tuner, you can adjust the fonts to what looks best to you, on your monitor, with your own eyes. So maybe it's not your eyesight that's getting worse, maybe your ClearType settings are turned off or were never tuned in the first place. Or, maybe, settings on your computer changed and ClearType Tuning somehow was turned off.

Even if you're having no trouble reading fonts on your screen, you might be able to make fonts even more readable by using the ClearType Tuner. And, if you think our new larger font in our newsletter looks worse than the old smaller font did, then you really need to tune your settings using ClearType tuner.

Visit this page to learn more about ClearType tuning. From this page you can turn on ClearType tuning on your computer, in case it has somehow been turned off - or if you never had it turned on in the first place. You can also adjust your ClearType setting to your own preferences. This is important. We all like things to look a certain way. We all have our own tastes. If you have trouble reading online, you can make the fonts look brighter and even bolder using the ClearType Tuner. It will make a HUGE difference in how fonts are displayed on your computer and in your email program. It will make everything you read more readable.

There's also a ClearType Tuning Powertoy you can download and use from your own computer rather than using the ClearType tuner on the Web. Visit this page to learn more about and/or download Microsoft's ClearType Powertoy. Microsoft states that the Clear Type Powertoy is for Windows XP only, however we've installed it on Vista and used it.