View Source: FontNotes - Waikato Linux Users Group

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Here are some pages that describe how fonts work, and how to set up nice fonts on your system.

Note - The freetype library (for displaying truetype fonts) has recently started using [fontconfig|http://www.fontconfig.org] for configuration rather than ~XftConfig, which is now obsolete...

BitstreamVera is a free TrueType font specifically developed for FreeSoftware by [GNOME] and Bitstream (a company that makes fonts).  They look much nicer than the default Luxi fonts (especially sans-serif) that Red Hat use, so you can replace them with a simple substitution, either system wide in /etc/fonts/local.conf or ~~/.fonts.conf for your user alone.  (Google, find this page on "how to change the default KDE font" please!)

<verbatim>
        <alias>
                <family>sans-serif</family>
                <prefer>
                        <family>Bitstream Vera Sans</family>
                        <family>Luxi Sans</family>
                        <family>Albany AMT</family>
                        <family>Verdana</family>
                        <family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
                        <family>Arial</family>
                        <family>Helvetica</family>
                </prefer>
        </alias>
</verbatim>

Change the ordering to suit!

!!Disable hinting

Put the following into your ~/.fonts.conf to enable or disable automatic hinting. If you set it to false, fonts look very crisp. Set it to true and the
fonts look smoother.

<verbatim>
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>
</verbatim>

Thanks to [GNOME Hacks|http://gnome-hacks.jodrell.net/hacks.html?id=67].

* Using AntiAliasedFonts in graphical applications. (Laptop users might be interested in SubPixelAntiAliasing.)
* See UnicodeNotes for hints about font support for unicode applications.

And some how-tos:

* OpenOfficeFonts to install new fonts under OpenOffice

* [HowToFontHOWTO] gives lots of background and overview about the different kinds of fonts (Type1, Truetype), faces (serif, sans-serif), and basically everything you ever wanted to know.

* [HowToTTXFree86] describes setting up your X server to use true type fonts, such as those used by MicrosoftWindows.

* [HowToTTDebian] describes true type fonts for debian users, including viewing on screen via applications such as X, groff(1) and tex, as well as printing via ghostscript.

* The XFree86 Font De-uglification HOWTO ([HowToFDU] or http://feenix.burgiss.net/ldp/fdu/) is probably the most up-to-date/relevant infomation for setting up fonts under recent ([XFree86] 4) distributions.

!Miscellaneous Technical Notes:
* In the fonts.dir file, you can point different encodings (charsets) to the same physical file, __BUT ONLY FOR SCALABLE FONTS__. I spent quite a while trying to determine why my characters were wrong when I tried to do this for a bitmap font (eg a 75dpi one). It is the scalable font backends that do the magic here, not X itself.

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[CategoryXFree86Notes]
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Version 15, saved on Sunday, October 24, 2004 11:19:58 am by CraigBox
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