Each character of the text shows a “shadow” box (like if the sprite’s alpha mask is not transparent enough) I managed to quick fix by increasing the Gradient Scale in the text mesh pro material Debug settings. But I don’t know if that is the right way to fix it, any idea why this happens?
The artifact on the small text is due to the ratio of Sampling Point Size to Padding being too small on the Font Asset. See FAQ Question 2 and 11 for more insight.
In addition, with small text you might need to enable the Extra Padding on the text object inspector panel.