Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

arooaroo · 2005-03-01 20:14:46

Hi,

I have several fonts installed by default which are bitmapped fonts, such as Helvetica, which looks - as we say in England - as rough as arseholes. My ttf fonts look lovely, mind.

It wouldn't normally bother me but there are some web sites, such as theregister.co.uk which actually specify Helvetica, as opposed to my default, anti-aliased sans-serif font.

Basically, I'm wondering if

a) is there something I can do to tidy them up to make them stop looking so jagged?

b) can I remove them altogether? I fear it may upset things like Latex which I use regularly.

The former is obviously preferred.

TIA

phrakture · 2005-03-01 21:07:10

don't remove them... it's best to keep the old crappy fonts around just in case (it's only a couple KB anyway)

tell ya what, I'll add an entry to the font configuration wiki to modify fonts on-the-fly...

check here in about 5 mins:
http://wiki2.archlinux.org/index.php/XO … figuration

arooaroo · 2005-03-01 21:47:27

phrakture wrote:

check here in about 5 mins:
http://wiki2.archlinux.org/index.php/XO … figuration

If I'm honest I was waiting for you to reply

Thanks for the addition. Unfortunately, I'm in smelly Windoze at the moment (for the games) so will try your suggestion later.

Cheers

dp · 2005-03-01 21:48:51

phrakture wrote:

don't remove them... it's best to keep the old crappy fonts around just in case (it's only a couple KB anyway)
tell ya what, I'll add an entry to the font configuration wiki to modify fonts on-the-fly...
check here in about 5 mins:
http://wiki2.archlinux.org/index.php/XO … figuration

hey! cool doc! i can point my friends to it instead of explaining them this for the hundereds time - thanx for writing things down!

phrakture · 2005-03-01 22:19:35

dp wrote:

hey! cool doc! i can point my friends to it instead of explaining them this for the hundereds time - thanx for writing things down!

I wrote that a while back when I got tired of people with their responses like "your font's look crappy? make sure your font server is running on unix:/7070" and other antiquated advice...

others have added to it, but not staked their claim (I think 2 entries and some formatting changes were done by someone else)

Also, for a while I was real big into the "new" font stuff when freetype was a baby still

arooaroo · 2005-03-02 20:22:06

Phrakature,

I've finally got around to trying your suggestion, but unfortunately, it seems to have made little difference

Here is my local.conf

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- /etc/fonts/local.conf file for local customizations -->
  <fontconfig>
  <!-- Use the Autohinter -->
  <match target="pattern" >
    <edit mode="assign" name="autohint" >
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>

  <!-- Replace helvetica with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono -->
  <!-- Note, an alias for helvetica should already exist in default local.conf files -->
  <alias>
     <family>helvetica</family>
     <prefer><family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family></prefer>
     <default><family>fixed</family></default>
  </alias>
<!--
Disable anti-aliasing for fonts that are size <=12
    <match target="pattern">
        <test qual="any" name="size" compare="less_eq">
            <int>12</int>
        </test>
        <edit name="antialias" mode="assign"><bool>false</bool></edit>
    </match>
--><!--
  Enable sub-pixel rendering
    <match target="font">
        <test qual="all" name="rgba">
            <const>unknown</const>
        </test>
        <edit name="rgba" mode="assign"><const>rgb</const></edit>
    </match>
--> <dir>/usr/local/share/fonts</dir>
 <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

The addition of your alias suggestion has been the only change i've directly made to his file. I've installed some fonts using the KDE font manager and so that may have messed with the file, although I can't be certain.

Anything obvious?

PS As I said earlier, non-bitmapped fonts look fine. I've checked my xorg.conf to ensure freetype is being used, which is.

phrakture · 2005-03-02 20:52:56

what app has these issues - the app could not be using fontconfig/xft and maybe uses the old-school font names internally (-adobe-blah-something-0-*-5484983-*-*-dwewqd-blam)

if it isn't getting the fonts through fontconfig, then there may be some settings (in firefox you can alias the fonts being used for the named ones... it's in the prefs under General -> Fonts & Colors)

arooaroo · 2005-03-02 21:33:26

what app has these issues

I notice it only in my browser (firefox and konq).

I've set up Firefox's fonts to map Serif to me prefered serif font, Sans serif to my preferred sans serif, etc. This makes no difference because, take the wiki for example, the css file has this:

h1, h2, h3, .toolbar, td { font-family: "Lucida Grande", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; }

For my system, Helvetica is the first font it finds and so the text on the page look rough.

Presumably your fonts are set up nicely, how does theregister.co.uk look for you? When I had suse on, it all looked nice. But I'm not even sure if Helvetica and other bitmapped fonts were installed.

I've just looked at the buildconfig info for Firefox and it includes '--disable-freetype2'. If I recompile to enable freetype, would that help?

lanrat · 2005-03-02 22:16:55

I have the following in my /etc/fonts/local.conf

<match target="pattern" name="family" >
    <test name="family" qual="any" >
    <string>Helvetica</string>
    </test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
    <string>Verdana</string>
    </edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern" name="family" >
    <test name="family" qual="any" >
    <string>Lucida</string>
    </test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
    <string>Verdana</string>
    </edit>
</match>

<alias>
    <family>serif</family>
        <prefer>
        <family>Times New Roman</family>
        </prefer>
</alias>

<alias>
    <family>sans-serif</family>
    <prefer>
            <family>Verdana</family>
    </prefer>
</alias>

<alias>
    <family>monospace</family>
    <prefer>
        <family>Monospace</family>
    </prefer>
</alias>

I'm still experimenting with font substitutions (I can't use Bitstream fonts because they don't support iso8859-2).

arooaroo · 2005-03-03 13:28:34

lanrat wrote:

<match target="pattern" name="family" >
    <test name="family" qual="any" >
    <string>Helvetica</string>
    </test>
    <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
    <string>Verdana</string>
    </edit>
</match>

Someone give the guy a medal! That's sorted my Helvetica woes now. Nice one 8)

phrakture · 2005-03-03 16:03:10

arooaroo wrote:

Someone give the guy a medal! That's sorted my Helvetica woes now. Nice one 8)

Hmm, so what's the difference between an alias and a match/replace of the family?

arooaroo · 2005-03-03 16:05:21

phrakture wrote:

Hmm, so what's the difference between an alias and a match/replace of the family?

The latter works!!

lanrat · 2005-03-03 22:34:48

phrakture wrote:

Hmm, so what's the difference between an alias and a match/replace of the family?

There is a difference. According to man fonts-conf:

ALIAS
Alias elements provide a shorthand notation for the set of common match operations needed to substitute one font family for another.
They contain a family element followed by optional prefer, accept and default elements. Fonts matching the family element are edited to
prepend the list of prefered families before the matching family, append the acceptable familys after the matching family and append the
default families to the end of the family list.

which means alias is for simple replacements while match target can be much more complicated or detailed. There are more differences but they are not important IMO with simple configs.

In this case both methods should work. I think it didn't work for arooaroo because he had helvetica while it should be Helvetica (first letter uppercase).

phrakture · 2005-03-03 23:18:41

lanrat wrote:

In this case both methods should work. I think it didn't work for arooaroo because he had helvetica while it should be Helvetica (first letter uppercase).

That would be my fault in the wiki - aroo, ya mind trying the alias element with "H" and seeing if that does anything? If it doesn't I'll put the match in the wiki instead.

arooaroo · 2005-03-04 11:20:38

lanrat wrote:

In this case both methods should work. I think it didn't work for arooaroo because he had helvetica while it should be Helvetica (first letter uppercase).

Nah - I tried that straight after I tried the original alias as stated by phrak, but it didn't change anything.

lanrat · 2005-03-04 12:37:53

So now we know what is the difference between theory and practice at least :-)

Maybe there are other things that can affect this alias (or it depends on the way local.conf is processed?).

Another reason can be:

<prefer><family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family></prefer>

I think that in case there is no font with this exact name the other (or default) is used. Maybe try change it to some other family like Arial or Verdana (with simple name).

arooaroo · 2005-03-04 13:56:07

[quote = "ianrat"]
I think that in case there is no font with this exact name the other (or default) is used. Maybe try change it to some other family like Arial or Verdana (with simple name).

Arch Linux

#1 2005-03-01 20:14:46

Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#2 2005-03-01 21:07:10

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#3 2005-03-01 21:47:27

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#4 2005-03-01 21:48:51

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#5 2005-03-01 22:19:35

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#6 2005-03-02 20:22:06

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#7 2005-03-02 20:52:56

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#8 2005-03-02 21:33:26

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#9 2005-03-02 22:16:55

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#10 2005-03-03 13:28:34

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#11 2005-03-03 16:03:10

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#12 2005-03-03 16:05:21

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#13 2005-03-03 22:34:48

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#14 2005-03-03 23:18:41

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#15 2005-03-04 11:20:38

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#16 2005-03-04 12:37:53

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

#17 2005-03-04 13:56:07

Re: Bitmapped fonts - do I need 'em?

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