Adjust text display quality

Last updated on Jun 2, 2026

Learn how to control text smoothing, Greek text behavior, and display quality levels in Adobe InDesign.

Control how text appears on screen in InDesign by smoothing text edges, replacing very small text with gray bars, and switching between display quality levels. These settings help improve readability and screen performance while working with dense layouts or reviewing final output.

Enable anti-aliasing for smooth edges

Select Edit > Preferences > Display Performance (Windows) or InDesign > Preferences > Display Performance (macOS).

From the Preferences panel, select the required view setting from Adjust View Settings.

Select Enable Anti-aliasing.

Select OK.

Set Greek type threshold

When display capabilities are insufficient to show text at a small size, InDesign displays the text as a dimmed bar. This behavior is called greeking type. Any type at or below the specified type size is replaced on‑screen with non-letterforms that act as placeholders.

Select Edit > Preferences > Display Performance (Windows) or InDesign > Preferences > Display Performance (macOS).

Choose the required view setting from Adjust View Settings.

Enter the point size in Greek Type Below.

Select OK.