# Text smearing

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 31, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899 "2009-01-31T19:50:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899/1 "2009-01-31T19:50:04Z")

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Back in the day of the browser wars, there were times when I went to site and while it was loading I might scroll down it. When I did, the text would sometimes “smear” together as if it were semi-wet paint and some took a brush to it. Sometimes, it would recover but other times it would remain “smeared.” I haven’t encountered this problem in a long time, but I always wondered what caused it. Anyone?

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**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899/2 "2009-01-31T20:16:53Z")

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It’s impossible to say precisely without knowing all the details, but I would guess that it was probably just sloppy rendering code: when displaying a page while it was still loading, for some reason it failed to properly clear the background before re-drawing scrolled text.

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899/3 "2009-01-31T21:06:16Z")

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Anti-aliasing can create a ‘smeared’ effect by turning sharp borders between the text and background into a more complex shaded image. That wouldn’t have anything to do with scrolling, though.

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**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/text-smearing/483899/4 "2009-02-01T02:11:08Z")

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I can sometimes get a strange effect if a slow computer page is loading and I scroll or slide down before it is loaded. Happens a lot on dial-up.

Happens most in IE or AOHell…