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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 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 <tt>/etc/fonts/local.conf</tt> or <tt>~~/.fonts.conf</tt> for your user alone. ([Google], find this page on <tt>how to change the default KDE font</tt> 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 <tt>~~/.fonts.conf</tt> 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]. !!! Miscellaneous Technical Notes: In the <tt>fonts.dir</tt> 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. !!! See also * Using AntiAliasedFonts in graphical applications. Laptop users might also be interested in SubPixelAntiAliasing. * See UnicodeNotes for hints about font support for unicode applications. * OpenOfficeFonts to install new fonts under OpenOffice * [Font HOWTO | http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO/] gives lots of background and overview about the different kinds of fonts ([Type1], TrueType), faces (<tt>serif</tt>, <tt>sans-serif</tt>), and basically everything you ever wanted to know. * [TrueType Fonts with XFree86 4.x mini-HOWTO | http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/TT-XFree86.html] describes setting up your [XServer] to use true type fonts, such as those used by MicrosoftWindows. * [TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO | http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/TT-Debian.html] 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 | http://feenix.burgiss.net/ldp/fdu/] is probably the most up-to-date/relevant infomation for setting up fonts under recent ([XFree86] 4) distributions. ---- [CategoryXFree86Notes]
5 pages link to
FontNotes
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AntiAliasedFonts
TrueType
LinuxOnTheDesktop
KDENotes
BitstreamVera