Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

mailman-zero · 2006-11-07 08:51:09

I am not new to Linux, but I am new to Arch. I have already gotten my feet wet using makepkg to rebuild a couple of packages with extra patches applied. Arch is awesome.

I am having a rather confusing problem, though. I have used Slackware for about 5 years now, and haven't seen anything like this before. I have installed the ms-core-ttf fonts package and am using the following options in my ~/.fonts.conf file:

  <match>
    <edit><bool>true</bool></edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <edit><const>hintfull</const></edit>
  </match>

  <match>
    <edit><bool>true</bool></edit>
  </match>

  <match>
    <edit><const>rgb</const></edit>
  </match>

  <match>
    <test><string>Microsoft</string></test>
    <test><double>8</double></test>
    <test><double>14</double></test>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
    <edit><const>rgb</const></edit>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
  </match>

  <match>
    <test>
        <string>Adobe</string>
        <string>Courier</string>
        <string>Helvetica</string>
        <string>Times</string>
    </test>
    <test><double>8</double></test>
    <test><double>14</double></test>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
    <edit><const>rgb</const></edit>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
  </match>


  <match>
    <test><string>Monotype</string></test>
    <test>
        <string>Andale Mono</string>
        <string>Arial</string>
        <string>Courier New</string>
        <string>Times New Roman</string>
    </test>
    <test><double>8</double></test>
    <test><double>14</double></test>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
    <edit><bool>false</bool></edit>
  </match>

  <match>
    <test>
            <int>90</int>
    </test>
    <edit><bool>true</bool></edit>
  </match>
  <match>
    <test>
        <const>italic</const>
    </test>
    <edit><bool>true</bool></edit>
  </match>

     <alias>
        <family>Helvetica </family>
        <prefer><family>Verdana</family></prefer>
        <default><family>fixed</family></default>
     </alias>

This results in the following:
<a href="http://walkingtowel.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/ugly_fonts_in_arch_linux.png" title="Ugly Fonts in Arch Linux"></a>

If I enable antialiasing on all fonts then this font is anti-aliased as well. I don't know what font this is, so I can't choose it by name in the list of fonts that need to be antialiased in order to look halfway decent. If anyone has any idea what this font's name is, that would be great. Even better would be if I could get it to be replaced with Verdana properly and make it act the same as "regular" Verdana.

The strange things about it are:
<li>The font looks a lot like a bold Verdana.</li>
<li>In my ~/.fonts.conf every bold font is anti-aliased. This is true of every other font but this one.</li>
<li>With the same ~/.fonts.conf in Slackware this font is the same as the surrounding Verdana. I've never seen anything like this before.</li>

Thanks for any help.

mailman-zero · 2006-11-08 00:21:52

It really doesn't make much sense, but the font, as it turns out, is Tahoma. When I set tahoma to be antialiased at all resolutions then all the ugliness was smoothed out. What I can't understand is why it isn't being hinted properly. It looks much much different in Slackware. It might be different freetype versions or some rules somewhere. I'll keep plugging away at it, now that I know the offending font!

stonecrest · 2006-11-08 01:06:56

Yup..

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … ght=tahoma

mailman-zero · 2006-11-08 05:15:31

Thanks for pointing me to the thread discussing the problem. When I posted the topic I hadn't been able to search for the font name on the boards, so I didn't find this discussion.

mailman-zero · 2006-11-10 17:53:41

I think the main reason that the tahoma font looks so bad is because you only get the roman normal weight font with the ms core fonts package. I installed the tahomabd.ttf from another machine and suddenly Tahoma isn't so ugly anymore.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-11-07 08:51:09

Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

#2 2006-11-08 00:21:52

Re: Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

#3 2006-11-08 01:06:56

Re: Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

#4 2006-11-08 05:15:31

Re: Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

#5 2006-11-10 17:53:41

Re: Ugly Fonts on certain web sites

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