I'm evaluating the SpreadsheetGear component for Excel file manipulation. However, out of the box the fonts look slightly blurred or hazy when the same spreadsheet is viewed side-by-side with Excel. Is there some anti-aliasing setting I'm missing?
Or is this by design?
For anyone else wondering, I logged with support and it is apparently by design.
The reason for the text not being clear is the fact that we use anti-aliased fonts. We have spent quite a bit of time trying to get non anti-aliased fonts to work. However, .NET does not provide reliable font metrics when anti-aliased fonts are not used, and we cannot do some of the layout we need to do without reliable font metrics. Performance is also slower when non anti-aliased text is used.
If Microsoft fixes this (the font metrics issues) in a future version of .NET, we may add an option to use non anti-aliased text.
There are some advantages to anti-aliased text. As users move to higher resolution (120+ DPI instead of 96 DPI) the appearance of anti-aliased text improves significantly. There are also other advantages, such as reliable zooming. Try autofitting some columns in Excel/SpreadsheetGear and then zoom in and out - notice that the text no longer fits in Excel but it still fits in SpreadsheetGear. Moving workbooks between 96 DPI and 120 DPI is also more reliable with anti-aliased text. Printed output also looks better in many cases.