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maglorn

Member

Registered: 2015-11-26

Posts: 5

Font choice

I am puzzled about how a given application chooses (or is assigned) which font to use.

Occasionally when I update fontconfig, I will notice that the font in my terminals (xfce4-terminal) will change, sometimes requiring me to resize the terminals. Within the terminal config, I have the font set to "Monospace Regular 18".  I figure that I have several fonts installed that match that description and that a random one is being assigned.

I may have installed too many fonts. 

How do I determine which font the terminal is using?  How can I ensure that the same font is used each time?

Similarly, the recent fontconfig update changed the font used for Discord in one Vivaldi profile, but not in a different Vivaldi profile.

What's my best path forward?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,817

Website

Re: Font choice

"Monospace" is an alias.

Check

fc-match monospace

To assign a specific font use ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf, here's mine:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<!-- Set preferred serif, sans serif, and monospace fonts. -->
   <alias>
      <family>serif</family>
      <prefer><family>Liberation Serif</family></prefer>
   </alias>
   <alias>
      <family>sans-serif</family>
      <prefer><family>Liberation Sans</family></prefer>
   </alias>
   <alias>
      <family>monospace</family>
      <prefer><family>JetBrainsMono Nerd Font Mono</family></prefer>
   </alias>
</fontconfig>

Using "sans", "mono", and "serif" in the various applications settings then means you only have to edit fonts.conf to change the font everywhere.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

maglorn

Member

Registered: 2015-11-26

Posts: 5

Re: Font choice

Thanks.

> fc-match monospace
NotoSansMono-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans Mono" "Regular"
> fc-list | grep -i mono | wc -l
63

I have lots of choices.

After creating ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf, what do I do to put the changes into effect? Anything less drastic than restarting X?

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,817

Website

Re: Font choice

Restarting individual applications should do it, although I have noticed some pick up the change "live".

The desktop UI stuff might need you to log out & back in again though.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

maglorn

Member

Registered: 2015-11-26

Posts: 5

Re: Font choice

Adjusting the fonts.conf file seemed sufficient for my xfce4-terminals.

The Discord webpages in Vivaldi do not seem to be affected, so I'll need to figure out something for that.

Thanks again.

Last edited by maglorn (2025-01-26 22:41:10)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,817

Website

Re: Font choice

The Discord webpages in Vivaldi do not seem to be affected

Have you set sans as the font in Vivaldi? Some webpages set their own fonts (mine does).

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

maglorn

Member

Registered: 2015-11-26

Posts: 5

Re: Font choice

As I've looked more into this, I'm beginning to doubt that the Discord/Vivaldi thing is a font problem.

I think there is a display problem where a line of text overwrites the lower pixels of the line above. My brain detected that as a font change (and maybe there was a font change as well), because the letters (and vertical spacing) seemed off.

Thanks.

maglorn

Member

Registered: 2015-11-26

Posts: 5

Re: Font choice

How would I verify which font an application is using?

For example, how would I test that xfce4-terminal is using the font that I specified on fonts.conf?

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 61,581

Re: Font choice

* most secure: debug the code
* pretty safe bet: strace the process, check what font files get opened
* easy: look at it and compare it to the font you've configured - some letters are gonna be relatively unique aligtkRQy are typically good candidates

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