Arch Linux

SaphirShroom

Member

Registered: 2016-03-20

Posts: 13

[SOLVED] Default Font Size in Applications too Small

Note: Changed title from "Where Do Applications Get Their Fonts from?" to what it is now.

Hey everyone,

I've been trying to get a grasp of fonts recently and don't think I see how the different layers are connected.

I spent the last two hours getting thoroughly confused as to where fonts actually come from and how applications get them.
For example, I'd like to prevent dumb things like this:
http://i.imgur.com/stznjDB.png
That font is way too small, so I would like to change it. Where do I start?

pacman -Qi kdenlive

tells me that kdenlive is dependent on KDE+qt5 (duh), so I would assume it gets its font from there. However, qt5 is magic to me. Do qt5 applications follow a specific ruleset or convention as to what font they use? Stackexchange tells me that there used to be a configuration for Qt that applications would typically follow, but since that tool doesn't exist anymore they now use the "current desktop settings".
What are my current desktop settings if I'm using i3 and no desktop environment? I've got Xfce and KDE installed to satisfy dependencies, so does kdenlive pick its font from some KDE config? Is it kdenlive or Qt that actually chooses, resp. looks for a default font in this case?

Also, there's some confusion regarding Xft and the Core Fonts System. As far as I could tell, both are there to inform the X Server of available fonts on the system, right? You, as a user, can use the fontconfig library in Xtf's case and the Core Fonts System to install, remove or modify fonts that the X server is able to use. Software like Qt or GTK can then provide rendering of those fonts to applications like kdenlive, correct?

I know these are a lot of questions, so if instead of answering them directly, someone wants to provide me with a link to a good article that explains how all these layers are glued together, I would be really happy about that as well!

Cheers

Last edited by SaphirShroom (2016-07-20 12:16:38)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,732

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Default Font Size in Applications too Small

That font is way too small, so I would like to change it. Where do I start?

Do you have a HiDPI display?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

To change your font size, have you tried https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gt … figuration?

I think some people use lxappearance (or similar) for that job in a pure WM desktop.

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JohnBobSmith

Member

From: Canada

Registered: 2014-11-29

Posts: 804

Re: [SOLVED] Default Font Size in Applications too Small

Heres probably the gem you where looking for: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_configuration.

I hope thats helpful!

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SaphirShroom

Member

Registered: 2016-03-20

Posts: 13

Re: [SOLVED] Default Font Size in Applications too Small

Thank you both for these articles!

The problem turned out to be that Xorg didn't guess my Laptops (physical) screen size correctly, so the dpi was set too low.

For anyone running into a similar problem, running

xrandr --dpi dpi

allows you to force xrandr to use a specific dpi.

I'm still interested in articles that describe how the whole font software stack (from X over graphical toolkits to applications) works, but I changed the topic title to better fit the specific problem I had.