Aperture: Small text appears jagged in book layouts, web journals, or metadata overlays

Aperture follows your system-wide preference for text smoothing (also known as "anti-aliasing"), so some smaller fonts may appear jagged on screen. Please note that this appearance only affects what you see on your computer screen; it does not affect the final printed version, which will be smoothed regardless of your text smoothing preferences.

The default setting in Mac OS X is not to smooth fonts that are 8 points in size or smaller because some very small fonts become more difficult to read when smoothed. To experiment and see what you like best, follow these steps:

1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
2. Click Appearance to display the pane.
3. At the bottom of the window, locate the "Turn off text smoothing for font sizes <pop-up menu> and smaller" setting. The pop-up menu will probably be set to the default of 8.
4. Choose 4 from the pop-up menu to smooth text fonts that are 4 points and larger.

You should now see small fonts smoothed in Aperture and most other applications.