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I'm not sure whether to file a bug report with Firefox or to get different fonts or what. The arrows in the normal (100% size) sans-serif font look lousy.

Could some of you try saving this as a file and viewing in Firefox? Any thoughts on what I should do to fix this?

<html>
<head>
<style type='text/css'>
  div.box { border: 1px solid black; }
  .fsansserif { font-family: sans-serif; }
  .fserif { font-family: serif; }
  .sz110 { font-size: 110%; }
  .sz100 { font-size: 100%; }
  .sz090 { font-size: 90%; }
  .sz080 { font-size: 80%; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  Why do a few of the arrows look lousy when all the rest look ok?
  (winXP, Firefox 3.5: the 100% sans-serif look 
  bad, so do the left arrows at 80%)
  <div class='box fsansserif'>Sans-serif:
    <p class='sz110'>110%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz100'>100%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz090'> 90%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz080'> 80%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
  </div>
  <div class='box fserif'>Serif:
    <p class='sz110'>110%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz100'>100%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz090'> 90%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
    <p class='sz080'> 80%: &larr; &harr; &rarr; </p>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

Here's what I see on my screen:

enter image description here

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71% accept rate
What operating system? – William Hilsum Dec 8 '09 at 15:40
WinXP, Firefox 3.5 (I put this into the HTML code, should have stated up front I guess) – Jason S Dec 8 '09 at 16:32
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

Here's a shot on Windows XP, Internet Explorer 7 side-by-side with Firefox 3.5.5. It doesn't look as bad on my system, but still looks less than ideal.

enter image description here

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+1 for trying it... at least I know it's not just my system. – Jason S Dec 10 '09 at 0:49
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up vote 0 down vote

Based on your text, and testing the arrows on my machine, I would say this is an operating system fault and related to clear type and general text rendering.... Also, a lot of fonts just look bad when zoomed in.

For a couple of bits of reference - Jeff Atwood's My "Love/Hate relationship with ClearType" and also ClearType (Unsung Hero of Windows)

What Operating system are you using?

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zoomed in?! it's at 100% scale... :/ – Jason S Dec 10 '09 at 0:47
(and if Firefox is asking for a scaled fontsize at 100% then it's a bug in Firefox) – Jason S Dec 10 '09 at 0:48
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