Fonts appear differently in Mac and Windows

I am currently using Matlab 2012b on my own macbook and Matlab 2010b on the Windows computer in my lab. It seems that the fonts of the figures generated by "plot" appear differently on the two platform. For example, the .fig file created on Windows cannot display well on my mac: the texts of the axes and legends are of smaller font size on mac than on Windows. How can I find a solution to this problem since I may have to work on both platforms?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

One thing to double-check is the screen resolution. My MacBook Pro is operating at 1680 x 1050, which is a higher resolution than MS Windows defaults to. If the same number of pixels are used on both, the characters would look smaller on the higher resolution display.

Font sizes are usually in Units 'points', which is 1/72 of an inch, so 12 points should in theory translate to more pixels of width on higher resolution displays so as to preserve the width. It has been known for that mechanism to go wrong, though; and it has been known for people to configure their font units to something other than 'points'.

[Yujie]

Thank you for your answer. I tried on another Windows laptop whose resolution is 1280x800, the same as my macbook, but the problem still exists.

Answer 2

[Ken Atwell]

Let us know if this discussion helps:

<http://blogs.mathworks.com/community/2011/05/02/update-on-matlab-for-the-mac/#comment-8317>