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#1 2020-09-24 05:09:53

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Weird font issue on some programs

As title says, I have 2 weird font issues that only happen on Arch Linux.

The issues are that some pieces of text are blurry, the best example of this I have is the Evolution welcome screen, it also happens on Cawbird (a GTK+ twitter client) when tweets have a 2nd paragraph, said paragraph has blurry text.

The other issue is that the ":" is too low on some fonts, I've shown FreeSans and Roboto as examples. It's easy to see on gnome-shell's top bar but is also noticeable on Nautilus, however setting said fonts on gedit and using them doesn't show said issue.

Some fonts like IBM Plex Sans don't suffer from the blurry text issue, but do suffer from the 2nd issue. Editing fontconfig settings doesn't affect these issues at all, so I have exactly 0 ideas of what to do.

The font "Cantarell" doesn't suffer from the 2nd issue.

Here are 3 images that show the issues: https://imgbox.com/g/slva29CZUl

Thank you for your help.

EDIT: updated the gallery, I've added another image to show another issue I have, the ":" appear as 2 squares instead of 2 points

Last edited by MischievousTomato (2020-09-24 16:09:08)

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#2 2020-09-24 06:25:58

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

Probably https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … on#Hinting or  https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … _rendering - but that's output specific.

Editing fontconfig settings doesn't affect these issues at all

What exactly have you tried how? (Changes will only affect new processes)

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#3 2020-09-24 16:08:09

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

What exactly have you tried how? (Changes will only affect new processes)

I've already tried with the hinting setting and srgb settings, it affects the text that appears properly but doesn't affect the text that appears blurry at all. And setting hinting to "none" does make the normal text blurry, but it's less blurry than the already blurry text, but the blurry text doesnt get blurrier.

I've changed this settings both with GNOME's tweak tool and with font-manager https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/font-manager/ I did set the same settings and even changed DPI to 100 which according to https://dpi.lv/ is 100 (1366 x 768 15.6" screen)

I know that the changes only affect new processes as well

However, neither default settings nor tweaked ones seem to affect that text at all.

And I've noticed another issue as well, some fonts display the ":" as 2 squares instead of 2 points, I've added the image showing that in the original post as well.

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#4 2020-09-24 20:35:15

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

Many (and I mean: MANY) fonts use rectangles for the colon - you'd need to be specific, but in doubt that's just the font.
Likewise you can expect the colon to align w/ the baseline of the font - please share a screenshot illustrating the situation for IBM Plex.

The most interesting screenshot would probably be one of cawbird, because one could spot the differences between the paragraphs.

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#5 2020-10-01 16:27:14

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

Ok, I got the thing about the colon. Then my issue is, why does it appear in a lower position in the gnome-shell top bar?
Now, about the blurry text, the only good example I have is from evolution, it's noticeable in cawbird but only slightly, I'll try to get a better screenshot though.
EDIT: Here's a screenshot of IBM Plex, showing the top bar and how it looks on evolution https://imgbox.com/TZ35mAZH
EDIT2: Here's some screenshots from cawbird https://imgbox.com/g/X30yEBBbor , first image is ibm plex sans regular, 2nd image is ibm plex sans regular as well, 3rd image is roboto with the tweet opened, 4th image is roboto, last image is also roboto.

I've used the same fonts on other distros with Cawbird and Evolution and I didnt have this issue.

Last edited by MischievousTomato (2020-10-01 16:55:36)

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#6 2020-10-01 21:02:37

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

The colon displacement seems to be a gnome/topbar issue ? (It's not in the cawbird screenshots)
Does this change if you in- or decrease the fontsize by a single point (eg. 9->8 or 9->10)?

About the blurriness, can you review the screenshots on a different device?
It's rgb subpixel antialiased and fully hinted, but nothing more or less blurry (and looks as expected for that config on an non interpolated upscale) - with exception of the text left of the image in the last screenshot (but I assume that text is actually an image as well and belongs to the article)

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#7 2020-10-29 14:11:33

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

The colon displacemente issue is a gnome topbar issue, yes. And it doesnt change at all if the fontsize is decreased or increased, in fact, it doesn't change at all!
About the blurriness, I watched the screenshots in my phone, that has a 1080p 6inch, and I can notice the blurriness, some pictures less than others...
I asked a friend of mine that installed Arch with Gnome, to install Evolution and they told me that they did in fact notice the same blurriness issue I am having.
And yeah, the last screenshot has an image.
This is my local.conf http://codepad.org/B5Mypt1B

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#8 2020-10-29 14:58:30

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

Typo:

<match target="font">
    <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
      <bool>falsee</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>

Edit of your screenshot, 300% upscale of some sections, no interpolation:
https://imgbox.com/cth4J3zG

As you can see, there's an rgb subpixel interpolation (as configured)
If fixing the typo doesn't help, try to set

  <match target="font">
    <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
      <const>none</const>
    </edit>
  </match>

and whether that's an improvement.

If you increase the hinting to "hintfull", the font will get thinner and crispier.

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#9 2020-10-29 17:26:43

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

https://imgbox.com/87b5mcWX

Did it, and now some parts look cut off?

I don't think changing hinting is the issue as I used hintslight on other distros and the fonts always looked proper,

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#10 2020-10-29 17:34:11

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

That screenshot still has rgb subpixel rendering?

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#11 2020-12-21 20:26:26

MischievousTomato
Member
Registered: 2020-06-21
Posts: 9

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

Sorry for the late reply.
I solved the ":" issue. I used gucharmap to see what font was causing it, and it was FreeSans, for some reason the : renders too low...
I used a fonts.conf file to override the U+2236 character, now any font that doesnt have it will use Cantarell as fallback.
https://imgbox.com/atDOeUAa -> This has grayscale antialiasing
https://imgbox.com/Vv3xJlsA -> This has no antialiasing
https://imgbox.com/toFZVoDo -> This has no hinting nor antialiasing
Edit: Hintfull doesn't help either.

Last edited by MischievousTomato (2020-12-21 20:27:09)

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#12 2020-12-21 21:34:53

seth
Member
Registered: 2012-09-03
Posts: 49,951

Re: Weird font issue on some programs

The default lcdfilter changed during this thread, ensure this is not a secondary issue now, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … _rendering

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