Microsoft’s Improved Text Rendering Comes to All Chromium Browsers

Microsoft said today that the text rendering improvements it created for Edge are now available to all Chromium-based browsers in Windows.

“We enhanced text rendering in Microsoft Edge back in 2021,” Microsoft’s Tien Mai explains. “Today, we’re taking things one step further and we’re happy to announce that our enhanced text rendering is now available for users across all Chromium-based browsers on Windows. For Google Chrome specifically, enhanced text contrast is available on Windows starting with Chrome version 132.”

Well, that took a while. As noted, Microsoft announced these text rendering improvements in Microsoft Edge back in mid-2021 for version 92 of that browser. And then the Chromium project accepted the improvements in commit form in March 2024 with the idea of implementing them by default in Chromium 124. But at least it’s finally happening.

“The quality and clarity of the text that’s displayed in all browsers that are based on Chromium now match that of other native Windows applications,” Mai says. “On Windows, you are always in control of how text is rendered. With the text contrast enhancements we made to Chromium, the Windows ClearType Text Tuner now also applies to the browser.”

Basically, all Chromium-based browsers will now display text on Windows with better visibility, especially lighter-weight text and CJK languages.