Default Font, Letters cut off

[seldan]

Hello,

I've noticed that when I use the UltraEdit default font, Courier New/Regular/10pt. on Windows XP with ClearType enabled, some letters get cutoff.

For example, I am coding with the Yahoo User Interface so have several classes called YAHOO.Widget.TextArea ... etc. Here, the capital "O" gets cut off followed by the "." I've attached a screenshot of this.

I have toggled the "Setting this may improve display issues with ClearType fonts on Windows XP" but that has no effect. The issue goes away if I set the Font Quality to "Antialiased Quality" but the font is then very ugly.

Has anyone else experienced this? I appreciate the help,
Tom

[tlschoenrock]

Yes I have this problem as well. I have seen it on all of the computers I have used. I went back and forth with techsupport trying the obvious things and in the end they basically just blew me off.
I know what the symptoms are and you can try this out yourself. It is a combination of things. It has to do with ultraedits rendering on an XP machine with cleartype enabled (although it can't be blamed on XP since NO other editor I have ever used has done this and I have tried quite a few). But for me it is very specific to the syntax highlighting in my wordfile. The letters just before delimeters for that particular file will be clipped. In your wordfile try looking for the section that defines the highlighting for the type of file you have open. After /Delimiters there will be a list of identified delimeters. Remove the period and save the file just to see if the clipping goes away. Unfortunately, you can't leave it this way because then it will not identify keywords that have a period right after them. No resolution.

[cmeisman]

I had a problem like this. It has to do with the rendering widths of text not being the same with Cleartype on and off.

You might want to play with the Settings in Editor Display-Advanced.

Also change the font that you are using.
I found Consolas to be the best font if you are coding and use clear type.
The L vs 1 and 0(zero) vs O (oh) are excellent.

Here is a link dump about it:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Consolas+download
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ConsolasF ... nload.aspx
http://keithdevens.com/wiki/ProgrammerFonts
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/ ... pic=2499.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolas

Getting a font that looks "Right" to you is well worth the work. One hour of research saves you a lot of strain, ESPECIALLY if you are using clear type.

Also dont forget to adjust ClearType for your preferences.
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/Cle ... erToy.mspx

My Personal preference is Consolas regular 9 with UltraEdit set to the best rendering settings it does.

HTH
Clayton Meisman

[tlschoenrock]

Yes I tried any setting that has anything remotely to do with the display of text (along with tech support). The only thing that does anything is in "Editor Display/Advanced/Setting this may improve display issues with ClearType fonts on Windows XP". This has no effect on the clipping and frankly sounds like a Kludge by the developers. The real kicker here is that even regular/10 pt/courier new has this clipping problem. You will only see it before delimiters in a syntax highlighted file. Again, this is happening on multiple machines and does not occur with any other text editor (including syntax highlighting ones) that I have tried. I have tried just about every freeware editor on the internet.
The reason I like this editor is that I do a lot of VHDL so column editing makes my work more efficient. It is one of the few editors that does this alongside Crimson Editor but it has other features that I like. I just hate the fact that a text editor can not properly display TEXT.
I have attached pictures of the clipping.

[DigitalSorceress]

I found this thread because I was having a problem in Vista... for some reason, certain characters (especially capital D and P and B) were getting a bit "chopped" on the right-side curves.

However, before coming here, I was playing with my preferences, and found that for whatever reason, if I go into the display preferences (Right-click desktop, choose Personalize, click "windows Color and appearance", then click "Effects") and choose "Standard" instead of "Clear Type" for the method of smoothing screen fonts, the problem went away.

I'm posting this on the off chance that someone else has the same issue.

Cheers.

[siblingchris]

I have the exact same problem as described by tlschoenrock

I just updated to the latest 14.10 release and the problem still exists

The "Setting this may improve display issues with ClearType fonts on Windows XP" has no impact whatsoever unless you switch it to "no anti-aliasing" which is essentially switching cleartype off for UE - and that makes the display somewhat harsher on the eyes and therefore more difficult to work/put up with.

the problem is a combination of syntax highlighting and the delimiters as prevsiouly described, alongside fonts with unsuitable character spacing (what is unsuitable I don't know! but some are ok and some aren't!). It is NOT a windows problem though, because if you switch off syntax highlighting the problem does not exhibit in UE

Also notice that the syntax highlighting in UE doesn't simply colour your code, it somehow changes the spacing of characters...kerning?...and I think that is what is causing the issue.

Not all fonts have the same issue though, so ....I'm on the search for a good font now that due to its own character spacing doesn't have this issue in UE - will report back...

[siblingchris]

Consolas
this is the clear type font released with Vista and other recent MS apps - it is designed specifically for programming and display in Visual Studio. Looks OK but still has the clipping problem in UE. Due to anti-aliasing looks a bit fuzzy at smaller sizes.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... d36fab68d3

Triskweline
Raster font 10pt only. A good choice. Does not cause the UE display problem
http://www.netalive.org/tinkering/triskweline/

Dina
Again max 10pt but clearer in my opinion than triskweline. Does not cause the UE display problem
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/J ... index.html

Envy Code A/B
Display is OK, but a little "thin" for my liking, only covers code page 1252 characters. Does not cause the UE display problem
http://damieng.com/creative/typography/envy-code-a
http://damieng.com/creative/typography/envy-code-b

Proggy Square
I tried the slashed zero variant, display is clear, sometimes syntax higlighting hard to see. However font size is fixed and quite small if you are working at a higher screen resolution. Don't try scaling up the True Type version it looks horrid. Does not cause the UE display problem though.
http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download

Pixel Carnage Mono
There are a few variations of pixel carnage, I quite like the tall version. Character spacing is a little too wide if I am being picky. Its a fixed size also. Does not cause the UE display probelm.
http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download



I think Dina is my preferred programming font that avoids the UE display issues

There are many websites that list a lot more programming fonts you may find other alternatives, but many of them still end up with "clipped" characters in UE.

[tlschoenrock]

Yes there are fonts that don't exhibit the clipping, however, you might as well turn Cleartype off. Try using DINA with and without Cleartype, there is virtually no difference. All these fonts have pixelation but the lines are thin so it is not as noticable. Personally I do not like these fonts. For a few years now IDM has been adding feature upon feature making a bloated program that has caused bugs in some of the basic features that I actually use instead of fixing these old bugs (they broke undoing of an edit while in column mode in the latest). The clipping bug exists in version 10 as well; wasn't able to go back any farther. I understand that to sell new versions they have to add features but I think they have spent too much time with features and not enough on improvement.