How to improve GUI and font appearance of programs installed under CrossOver?

  • Enabling font smoothing is essential. It works for Wine proper, but also for Crossover, which is based on Wine.
wget http://files.polosatus.ru/winefontssmoothing_en.sh

bash winefontssmoothing_en.sh

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select third option in terminal - with the arrows, then use tab key to select ok and 'enter'

  • This works mainly for the fonts, but I see that sometimes it affects also the graphical parts (e.g. in Office2007.)

    Go to Menu - Crossover - Run a Windows command, and, after selecting the corresponding 'bottle', enter 'regedit'.

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    (This has to be done for each specific 'bottle' (which I guess is the equivalent of a wineprefix). Each program may have its own bottle which contains its own separate drive_c and windows folders. Customizations for a certain 'bottle' would have effect only for the programs installed in that bottle. 'Bottles' and the rest of CrossOver is installed in ~/.cxoffice.)

    Navigate to and click on HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Software\Fonts.

    Double-click on the LogPixels value.

    Change the base to "Decimal" and enter your desired font size. I use 96, but the best way is through cautious trial and error. Close the Registry Editor when you're done.

(SOURCE)

  • To install MSstyles/themes:

    In the Main Menu - CrossOver - Manage Bottles.

    To make settings for a certain program/bottle, select the bottle and then, under 'Control Panel' tab, select 'Wine configuration' and double click (or 'Launch this item').

    The familiar Wine configuration window appears, and its settings can be used to improve appearance of CrossOver applications, including installation of a MSstyle/theme.

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Changing other settings on the way (like the display) or installing new features may have a negative effect or may reset the changes described above: so it may be necessary to make again the setting from the first two steps if needed. (Trial and error is the way to go.) In case the fonts go blurry don't hesitate to run again in terminal bash winefontssmoothing_en.sh and select the third option as seen in the image: 'Subpixel smoothing (ClearType) RGB'.