# Facebook 'Notifications' illegible **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157 "2013-04-19T19:10:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/1 "2013-04-19T19:10:48Z")
OK, take me out and drown me, but I do use Facebook occasionally. The whole social media thingy is becoming more and more significant to businesses in the nonprofit world, so I’m stuck with it. Last week FB rolled out a new appearance. I won’t comment on the appearance because, like it or not, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. But in addition to layout, it seems some fonts were changed. Now I cannot read the fonts in Notifications. The text just looks fuzzy and broken. It is not quite impossible to read, but difficult enough to be supremely annoying. Mouse-over a Notification though and it clears right up. This only applies to the drop-down Notifications, not to anything else on the page. All other lettering is as legible as it always was. I’ve tried different “text” settings in both IE and Chrome, different text sizes, different encoding, and I even tried different monitor resolutions, all without success. Anybody else have this issue? And a fix for it? Perhaps there is a CSS or something FB uses that could be edited? Or am I just stuck with illegible Notifications? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/2 "2013-04-20T03:40:54Z")
Not much of a FB user here (and never regretted it), so I’ll just offer some WAG’s if I may. If the font is fuzzy and not affected by your font and size settings, then maybe (?) the entire message is an image of text instead of actual text? You could get some clues if you put your mouse on it and right click, and poke around with the options you get. Images can have “Alt Text” with them, which I think is what you see with lots of images when you hover the mouse over them. Is that maybe the cleaned-up text of which you speak? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/3 "2013-04-23T00:11:22Z")
**Senegoid** , thanks for trying to help! I was out of town and didn’t see your post until just now. And this (home) machine doesn’t display the problem, it happens on my office computer, so I can’t check your suggestion until tomorrow. Right clicking on this one, no ‘alt text’ is offered. As I (probably poorly) described above, mouse-over changes the background color of the item, thus identifying the item being hovered. In non-problem machines, that is the only change. But on my problematic machine hover both changes the background color AND makes the text more legible. If you click on the item, it functions as a link. Right-click does though bring up a View Source option. Unfortunately for me, I have no idea what the pages and pages of code is trying to tell me. I presume that somewhere in it is a line identifying the font choice for the Notifications items, but I have no clue how to identify it. Nor to change it. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/4 "2013-04-23T23:16:43Z")
I’m not a Facebook user either, but I know web design. Can you post a screenshot? A picture’s worth a thousand words. EDIT: Also check if the zoom level on your browser is set to 100%. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/5 "2013-04-24T15:26:11Z")
Control-0 (zero not oh) in most browsers will set the zoom back to the default level. Try that. ---
**Author:** ![Archaic\_Entity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@Archaic\_Entity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archaic_Entity)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/6 "2013-04-24T15:28:51Z")
It may also be a matter of hardware acceleration being turned on, which can cause some font issues. > **[3 Ways to Turn Off Hardware Acceleration - wikiHow](https://www.wikihow.com/Turn-Off-Hardware-Acceleration)** > > Hardware acceleration is a process that occurs when software hands off certain tasks to your computer's hardware—usually your graphics and/or sound card. While hardware acceleration may improve performance on computers with powerful... You may also want to check different browsers to ensure it’s not just an isolated issue. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/7 "2013-04-24T16:26:03Z")
What OS are you using? If it’s XP, try installing [Cleartype](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartypeinfo.mspx). ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-notifications-illegible/656157/8 "2013-04-24T16:58:16Z")
Thanks, all! Where can I post a screen shot? I’ll look at hardware accelerators later, and investigate ClearType. I’m using IE8 but same trouble in Chrome, the only other browser I have. It is WinXP Pro SP3. But there has been no hardware change, nor any software changes EXCEPT Facebook’s own upgrade to the newest “look”. The problem never occurred until last week, when FB rolled out the new appearance onto my machine. That is what suggests to me a Facebook style sheet, or default font, or something. Interestingly, zoom is set to 100%. But if I increase it to 125% the problem is greatly alleviated. And at 150% it is almost invisible. It looks sort of like FB is imposing a faux-bold to the text, and removing the bolding when mouse hovers.