Poor font rendering.

donniezazen · 2012-04-13 04:56:37

Hi,

I am using Ubuntu fonts (cairo-ubuntu from AUR) as suggested on Arch Wiki but bold is too bold. I have used cairo-ubuntu before and it worked fine. This is a new clean install.

.Xresources

Thanks.

brebs · 2012-04-13 06:32:21

Arch's firefox is currently compiled without --enable-system-cairo

donniezazen · 2012-04-13 07:08:52

It is system-wide. I am using Chromium.

GERGE · 2012-04-13 07:11:21

You should try Infinality and let it emulate Ubuntu fonts if you want them. It is probably best font rendering ever, in any OS.

Last edited by GERGE (2012-04-13 07:11:47)

donniezazen · 2012-04-13 07:13:12

@GREGE I have been thinking of trying that. I will give it a go. Thanks.

donniezazen · 2012-04-13 20:56:15

Infinality looks great but I still have same problem - bold is too bold.

Bold is too bold.

The text in this section does not seem to honor system fonts.

Xft.autohint:	        0
Xft.lcdfilter:  	        lcddefault
Xft.hintstyle:  	        hintfull
Xft.hinting: 		1
Xft.antialias: 		1
Xft.dpi: 		        96
Xft.rgba: 	        	rgb

I have got slight hinting in XFCE4 Appearance.

These are the settings related to fonts. If someone could elaborate on which one should I be concerned with that would be great.
.Xresources
XFCE4 Appearance
/etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh
/etc/fonts/fonts.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/51-local.conf

Thanks.

Last edited by donniezazen (2012-04-13 21:33:44)

brebs · 2012-04-13 21:48:46

You seem to be concentrating on ~/.Xresources - you should be concentrating on the fontconfig files instead, because those are actually used these days, and provide far more flexibility.

~/.Xresources will only be used by *old* apps which use libXft.

Chromium is well-known to do strange things with fonts when it feels like it - don't use that for example screenshots.

I don't believe there's a single "reduce boldness" option, but there are tons of tweaks, e.g. this snippet from Infinality's fontconfig file:

    <!-- For Windows 98 do "smooth edges" for Bold Fonts over 14 px -->
    <match target="font" >
        <test name="rendering_style" qual="any" >
            <string>Windows 98</string>
        </test>
        <test name="weight" compare="more">
            <const>medium</const>
        </test>
        <test compare="more_eq" name="pixelsize" qual="any" >
            <double>14</double>
        </test>
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
            <const>none</const>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint" >
            <bool>false</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
    </match>

Our "bold" is what fontconfig calls a "weight" of more than "medium"

donniezazen · 2012-04-14 17:35:50

OK let me troll over to infinality settings and do more reading. This happens in both Cairo-Ubuntu and Infinality. Thanks for replying.

infinality · 2012-04-19 02:57:43

donniezazen wrote:

OK let me troll over to infinality settings and do more reading. This happens in both Cairo-Ubuntu and Infinality. Thanks for replying.

The issue with "bold looking too bold" is really a difference between font instructions versus personal preference. The infinality packages render bold fonts as the fonts themselves specify. So, it's "correct" in that sense. Now, of course you may not like that. Here's a piece of fontconfig configuration I developed (with the help of the fontconfig mailing list) that allows you to force artificial bold on fonts that actually provide a bold face. This means it will synthesize a bold face from the normal font. In practice, this ends up looking less bold than a font's actual bold face. You can replace "YOUR FONT HERE" with fonts that you use a lot that look too bold.

        <!-- Force fake bold instead of the font's default bold -->
        <!-- In rare cases this is more visually appealing -->
        <!-- !!!! Somehow this breaks Qt unfortunately !!!! -->
        <!-- Set the flag -->
        <match target="pattern">
                <test name="family">
                        <string>YOUR FONT HERE 1</string>
                        <string>YOUR FONT HERE 2</string>
                        <string>YOUR FONT HERE 3</string>
                </test>

                <!-- match requests for bold face -->
                <test name="weight" compare="more">
                        <const>medium</const>
                </test>

                <!-- remember that this should be bolded -->
                <edit name="fake_bold" mode="assign">
                        <bool>true</bool>
                </edit>

                <!--- change to match a medium weight instead -->
                <edit name="weight" mode="assign">
                        <const>medium</const>
                </edit>
        </match>

        <!-- Force flagged fonts to have artificial bold -->
        <match target="font">
                <!-- look for fonts which were marked for fake bolding -->
                <test name="fake_bold">
                        <bool>true</bool>
                </test>
                <!-- Set the embolden flag -->
                <edit name="embolden" mode="assign">
                                <bool>true</bool>
                </edit>
                <!-- pretend the font is bold now -->
                <edit name="weight" mode="assign">
                        <const>bold</const>
                </edit>
        </match>

donniezazen · 2012-04-19 11:06:13

@infinality
Thanks, my fonts look good at this time. You could see the difference between the top picture and the attached in this post. I am not sure where to put your configuration (at the end of /etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh).

To be clear after installing infinality, font configuration is controlled by in /etc/profile.d/infinality-settings.sh. So, fine grain control is provided by infinality-settings.sh and system appearance manager provide broad control.

Last edited by donniezazen (2012-04-19 11:12:13)

donniezazen · 2012-04-19 11:32:50

OK I think the problem is caused by ttf-ubuntu-fonts/cairo-ubuntu. I had same bold fonts problem on my previous installations. Yesterday, I installed ttf-win7-fonts which removed ttf-ubuntu-fonts. Today, I noticed no problem and I don't remember messing with fonts.

mariusmeyer · 2012-04-19 12:12:37

You may also want to switch back to the "normal" cairo now that you're using Infinality. At least you can try it and see if you like it Now that "normal" cairo supports lcd subpixel rendering, infinality is really all you need to have awesome fonts.

donniezazen · 2012-04-19 12:58:42

@mriusmeyer I have cairo-xcb installed which is required by Awesome WM. Is that "normal" cairo? OR are you talking about package cairo for Extra repo?

mariusmeyer · 2012-04-22 18:09:35

It looks like the cairo in testing is going to provide cairo-xcb, so you could try that when it moves (or now if you use testing) I don't use awesome, so I don't know the details, but I know that infinality is managing lcd subpixel stuff by itself, and cairo-ubuntu would probably change that... I think.

Anyway, if you are happy with the way your fonts look now, you should just stick with that setup I guess

donniezazen · 2012-05-17 19:30:11

Just wanted to drop an observation.

I did a clean install of Arch and Awesome WM. I installed freetype2-git-infinality, lib32-freetype2-git-infinality and fontconfig-infinality. I use Droid Sans and bold were too bold. On a previous post, I noted problem was caused by ttf-ubuntu-fonts/cairo-ubuntu but this time it was not installed. I then installed ttf-win7-fonts and after a restart problem was automatically solved. I am not sure why but this is how bold were too bold problem got solved for me.

Thanks.

PS: I am not sure if this should be marked as solved but I would do as moderators advise.

Last edited by donniezazen (2012-05-17 19:31:47)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-04-13 04:56:37

Poor font rendering.

#2 2012-04-13 06:32:21

Re: Poor font rendering.

#3 2012-04-13 07:08:52

Re: Poor font rendering.

#4 2012-04-13 07:11:21

Re: Poor font rendering.

#5 2012-04-13 07:13:12

Re: Poor font rendering.

#6 2012-04-13 20:56:15

Re: Poor font rendering.

#7 2012-04-13 21:48:46

Re: Poor font rendering.

#8 2012-04-14 17:35:50

Re: Poor font rendering.

#9 2012-04-19 02:57:43

Re: Poor font rendering.

#10 2012-04-19 11:06:13

Re: Poor font rendering.

#11 2012-04-19 11:32:50

Re: Poor font rendering.

#12 2012-04-19 12:12:37

Re: Poor font rendering.

#13 2012-04-19 12:58:42

Re: Poor font rendering.

#14 2012-04-22 18:09:35

Re: Poor font rendering.

#15 2012-05-17 19:30:11

Re: Poor font rendering.

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