Technology Safari 5 on Mac: changing font used for SDN / vBulletin

[da8s0859q]

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I've noticed that when using Safari 5 (or Chrome) on vBulletin sites -- like SDN -- the font used for the rendering of the actual posts is substantially different from that which is seen in Firefox on the same machine. It's... vertically shorter.

I realize that Safari handles fonts differently from FF and others, but is there any way to change that? I'm sure some of the OS X users have noticed what I'm talking about.

 

[1UP]

...is there any way to change that?...

Yep. Switch to Firefox.

 

[Slevin]

I've noticed that when using Safari 5 (or Chrome) on vBulletin sites -- like SDN -- the font used for the rendering of the actual posts is substantially different from that which is seen in Firefox on the same machine. It's... vertically shorter.

I realize that Safari handles fonts differently from FF and others, but is there any way to change that? I'm sure some of the OS X users have noticed what I'm talking about.

Open up settings for Safari and under the Appearance tab it should allow you change how fonts are handled unless the website directs Safari to handle it a specific way

 

[da8s0859q]

Yep. Switch to Firefox.

Been using FF since it was in its infancy. I've just come to like a few things about Safari 5, is all.

Open up settings for Safari and under the Appearance tab it should allow you change how fonts are handled unless the website directs Safari to handle it a specific way

Unfortunately, that doesn't do it...

 

[Caesar]

none of the mods on macs have mentioned this, but I can look into it (or try to).

 

[Caesar]

can you post a screen shot?

 

[da8s0859q]

can you post a screen shot?

I suspect it's intentional behavior on Safari's part; Chrome does the same thing here on SDN and every other vB forum I've tried. But sure, I snipped a line of text in a pre-allo thread.

Safari 5 first, Firefox 3.6 second:

Safari/Chrome definitely chooses a much more "squat", vertically shorter font to render posts. Safari 5 has its problems -- choppy scrolling relative to Firefox on more image/Flash-laden pages (imo) and a few hangs being the more irritating ones -- but this just seems like something that ought to be changeable in preferences.

 

[Caesar]

Hmmm... I wonder...

I just downloaded FF 4.0b and the forums seem to load faster but I haven't noticed a change in text. I'll look into if we pick the font or if it is safari. If it does it on other vB sites then I also suspect it is internal. Lee uses safari and FF so if we could change it, I'd have thought we would have.

 

[Lee]

I've been using Safari most of the time. I haven't noticed the font difference causing any problems.

 

[1UP]

If you copy the text into a word processor (Open Office, Microsoft Office, etc... something that will preserve the formatting from this site when copy and pasted) do they register as different or does the word processor see them as the same?

If it sees them as different then Safari is most likely interpreting the code on these pages in a non-standard way. In this case there is probably nothing that can be done as font handling/rendering is usually a hard coded, core function for a browser and a tremendous amount of work would have to be done in order to change how it is behaving. If the word processor sees them as being the same then there is a good chance you have discovered a flaw in the font rendering engine for Safari. In that case you should send in a bug report to Apple so they can fix it in future revisions of Safari. These kinds of bugs usually get overlooked unless someone sends in a report since they typically only appear under specific circumstances.

 

[da8s0859q]

If you copy the text into a word processor (Open Office, Microsoft Office, etc... something that will preserve the formatting from this site when copy and pasted) do they register as different or does the word processor see them as the same. If it sees it as different than for some reason Safari is interpreting the code on these pages in a non-standard way. If this is the case there is most likely nothing that can be done because font rendering is usually a function that is part of the core source code for the browser. If the word processor sees them as being the same then there is a good chance you have discovered a flaw in the text rendering engine in Safari. In the second case, you should send in a bug report to Apple so they can fix it in future versions, these kinds of bugs usually get overlooked unless someone sends in a report.

Strange. Copy/paste from Safari is getting turned to 13-point Verdana in Word '08; Firefox leaves it alone and it ends up as the default 11-point Calibri font.

 

[1UP]

Strange. Copy/paste from Safari is getting turned to 13-point Verdana in Word '08; Firefox leaves it alone and it ends up as the default 11-point Calibri font.

Interesting. From giving the code here a quick glance Safari seems to be reading one of the tags here incorrectly which is causing the font to be rendered in a strange way.

Unfortunately, there is most likely nothing that can be done to fix this on the users end. However, I am no Mac expert, so one of the resident Macites here might be able to think of a trick to make it work the way it should. You can make the Safari development team aware of it and see if they are willing to look into it a little further. Since VBull is such a widely used piece of software it might be something that will be addressed in future patches, etc...

 

[Slevin]

Strange. Copy/paste from Safari is getting turned to 13-point Verdana in Word '08; Firefox leaves it alone and it ends up as the default 11-point Calibri font.

Odd because when I copy and past from Safari, Chrome and Omniweb I do get the 13-point Verdana but when I copy and past from Firefox I get 12 point Times. It might have to do with the Webkit rendering engine.

FireFox uses Gecko as it's rendering engine

Omniweb, Safari and Google Chrome use the Webkit rendering engine. So it's due to the way the rendering engine interperts the page. That being said if one of the Admins (or lee since he popped up here) could let us know what the default font should be for this website that would tell us which browser is rendering it correctly and the case will be solved.

 

[Caesar]

Odd because when I copy and past from Safari, Chrome and Omniweb I do get the 13-point Verdana but when I copy and past from Firefox I get 12 point Times. It might have to do with the Webkit rendering engine.

FireFox uses Gecko as it's rendering engine

Omniweb, Safari and Google Chrome use the Webkit rendering engine. So it's due to the way the rendering engine interperts the page. That being said if one of the Admins (or lee since he popped up here) could let us know what the default font should be for this website that would tell us which browser is rendering it correctly and the case will be solved.

I believe it is Verdana. Lee might not be around much, but Ill ask one of the others to check for me to be sure.

 

[Lee]

Yes, it's Verdana.

 

[deleted87716]

I've been using Safari most of the time. I haven't noticed the font difference causing any problems.

Same here. What's the big deal? 😕

 

[da8s0859q]

Same here. What's the big deal? 😕

No big deal, and it doesn't cause any problems. Was just asking if it's something that can be changed; the appearance tab in preferences doesn't seem to do it.

 

[Slevin]

OK so if it is Verdana and that is what Webkit based browsers are displaying then it looks like an issue with FireFox and the Gecko rendering engine that is causing Eki's issue with the font rendering.

Eki, check FireFox's preferences see what the font settings are in there and that might be causing the discrepancy because as per Lee the site is supposed to be rendering in Verdana but Firefox displays Times. Your issue might not be only on this site but could be across all sites.