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Microsoft's latest move marks a development that will please Chrome users. Following years of user feedback, Microsoft has taken a major step towards improving the quality of text rendering on Windows machines by making a significant contribution to the Chromium project.
Integration of Chrome and ClearType technology
As of Chrome version 124, Microsoft has made changes to the Chromium codebase to support contrast and gamma values in text rendering using Windows' ClearType Text Tuner features. This development will make the texts sharper and more readable, allowing users to read the texts on web pages more easily. While Chrome uses the Skia library for text rendering, it adheres to fixed contrast and gamma values, which means it cannot benefit from the improvements ClearType offers.
Microsoft's ClearType font technology has long been used in Windows operating systems to display texts on the screen as if they were printed on paper. As Neowin points out, Microsoft engineers have implemented the necessary integration so that Chrome can now detect any contrast and gamma changes with ClearType Text Tuner support, just like other native Windows applications.
The person who pioneered this initiative was Kurt Catti-Schmidt, senior software development engineer at Microsoft. Catti-Schmidt has been leading a push to improve text rendering in Chromium-based browsers in recent months, regularly focusing on accessibility improvements for both Edge and Chrome.
Microsoft's contributions to Chromium
These latest changes can be considered part of Microsoft's commitment to improving Chromium-based browsers on Windows after porting its own Edge browser to Chromium five years ago. “By bringing our Windows platform expertise, we will improve the experience of all Chromium-based browsers on Windows,” Microsoft said at the time. He said and he kept his promise. Microsoft has also helped improve scrolling, touch support, and much more in Chrome.
These developments stand out as concrete examples of broad collaboration and technological advancement that benefits both developers and end users. This move by Microsoft once again emphasizes the importance of collaboration and open source projects in the technology world.