+!Hal Burgiss <hal@ foobox.net>  

+v1.95, 11 February 2002  

+How to improve X Window fonts. Various tips for improving font handling for  

+XFree86, including sections on font servers, !TrueType fonts, Netscape, and  

+related topics . 

+1 .2. Change Log and What's New  

+2 .2 . X Server Command Line Options  

+An often heard complaint is the poor default fonts and font settings of X as 

+desktop still often needs some tweaking to get the best fonts possible. 

+This HOWTO attempts to show how to adjust various font settings, install new 

+indeed make a huge difference in many applications. 

+Comments, corrections, additions and critiques are always welcome. You can 

+issues! 

+* Where examples of commands are used, a "#" character is used to denote where typically the command would be run as the root user. A "$" is used where typically a non-root user would be executing the command.  

+* The examples use /usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts as our TrueType font directory. There is no magic to this location, and could conceivably just as well be in any number of other locations. Some distros may have a default location for TrueType fonts, and you may want to use that instead.  

+* References to "xfs" are to the xfs as packaged by Red Hat (and some other distros) for versions 6.x and later. This differs significantly in some respects from the stock XFree86 xfs.  

+* References to "Netscape" are to the entire suite of programs from Netscape: Communicator, Navigator, Messenger, etc. And for all intents and purposes, font configuration in Mozilla is very similar (but generally looks better!).  

+* 'XF86Config' is the X configuration file. This has changed to 'XF86Config-4' for XFree86 v4.x. For the most part, we'll just use 'XF86Config' here. Also, while some aspects of XFree86 4.x configuration are the same as 3.3.x, there are some significant differences. We'll only highlight the differences. So unless noted otherwise, any comments or examples will apply to both 3.3.x and 4.x versions.  

+* File system layout varies somewhat from distribution to distribution. It is impossible to stay on top of every conceivable variation of who keeps which files where. So take the examples here with a grain of salt if the PATHs don't seem to match your system. 

+* 1.95: February 11, 2002. A few corrections. Removed the section on Fonts in KDE since this has to have changed, and I don't know anything about KDE (does anyone want to help here?). Added a brief section on gdkxft, which adds anti-aliasing support for GTK+ 1.2 applications.  

+* 1.9: November 5, 2001. A few new links and some minor catch ups only.  

+* 1.8: June 25, 2001: Included a new section on Anti-aliasing and Xft from Danny Tholen `obiwan@mailmij.orgb. Many thanks on this not so well documented subject. Also, Sebastiano Vigna's neat little package for downloading and installing MS webfonts: http://freshmeat.net/webFonts4Linux. A few other odds and ends.  

+* 1.70: April 18, 2001: Added links for converting Mac !TrueType Fonts (thanks to Karl A. Krueger), links to Unicode !TrueType fonts (thanks to Tzafrir Cohen for suggestions and URLs), and added a section on anti-aliasing with X 4..2 (or greater). Also, included a reference to cabextract, a utility that is now available for extracting Win32 Fonts (among other things) from a Window's "cab" archive.  

+* 1.60: March 21, 2001: A few very minor changes. Most notable news is anti-aliasing support now in XFree 4.02 (referenced in the Notes section only). Chinese translation URL added. 

+The pre-release versions of this document can be found at http://feenix.burgiss.net/ldp/fdu/index.html. 

+Copyright  © 1999 by Doug Holland. 

+All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice. That is, 

+In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as 

+Many of the terms mentioned in this document are trade names. Unless 

+Original author: Doug Holland. 

+Updated and maintained by Hal Burgiss. 

+Chinese: http://www.linux.org.tw/CLDP/mini/FDU.html by Yu-Chia Chang. 

+There are a few simple configuration tweaks that will help X do its job 

+The first place to look for curing font problems is the 

+OK, 60 Hz is painful.) 

+Use your favorite text editor and edit 

+This much should be the same, or at least similar, for both XFree86 3.x and 

+the Section 3.2.2 below for more on xfs.) 

+If the 100dpi fonts are not listed, they probably did not get installed for 

+Next, specify that you prefer to use unscaled bitmap fonts. If you've ever 

+After making these changes, restart X (and your font server, if installed). 

+The next thing you need to do is adjust the command line options for the X 

+If you start X from the console command prompt, type: 

+Or these options can be stored in ~/.xserverrc. See the 

+If you use xdm (or friends such as gdm) for graphical logins, you'll want to 

+Note that there is no magic to "-dpi 100". Choose something 

+More information is in the __X__, __Xserver__, 

+Historically, the Unix world relied on Type 1 fonts for high 

+with Windows, is the preferred web font. 

+Because the boys at Redmond are very concerned with the appearance of their 

+Any recent distro will have one or more font servers included. 

+XFree86 3.x does not come with built in !TrueType support, so you'll have to 

+themselves (see below). 

+Let's start with the fonts first. Any !TrueType font included with the various 

+Many distributions are now bundling tools for automating the process of 

+necessary! 

+In order to use !TrueType, the fonts will have to be always accessible to 

+Now, change to the new font directory: 

+Then, add the fonts to this directory, either by copying them from your 

+or by downloading those available directly from Microsoft: 

+The '-L' option will convert to lower case font names (this may be necessary for 

+A slick solution to this from Sebastiano Vigna is his 

+If doing it yourself, you will also have to include the new !TrueType 

+ !FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"  

+ !FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" 

+There are several font servers available that will do the job: xfstt, xfsft, 

+already. If so, use which ever one your distribution is set up to use. 

+Historically, font servers were used to serve fonts over a network. Font 

+for the purpose of having !TrueType support.) 

+----  

+ __3.2.1.1. Installation__ 

+xfstt is ''very'' easy to install and configure. If it isn't 

+most current version can be found at http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/ 

+From the xfstt directory is all you have to do. 

+Then start xfstt with: 

+xfstt should be started before the X server starts. Once you have this working 

+or add: 

+to your XF86Config to tell X about the font 

+----  

+ __3.2.1.2. Adjusting the Default Font Size__ 

+If your !TrueType fonts appear to be very tiny, the following commands 

+Add the -dpi switch to your X server command 

+Use the --res switch to tell xfstt to increase 

+As of Red Hat Linux 6., Red Hat based distributions (Mandrake, etc) have 

+If you are using a Red Hat based distro, you should have xfs installed 

+Now xfs will start every time you boot. 

+The default Red Hat installation of xfs serves fonts via a Unix Domain Socket. 

+This is changed for Red Hat 7.x to: 

+At least for a default configurations. This is a reference to the socket where 

+may have to change this yourself! 

+xfs then has its own, separate !FontPath stored in 

+editor, or use the __chkfontpath__ command: 

+The !FontPath must exist before running __chkfontpath__. The 

+ catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled, 

+When adding a new !FontPath for !TrueType fonts, you will want to do this 

+We still have a bit of work to do before we can actually use any !TrueType 

+Su to root, and change to the directory where the !TrueType fonts are. 

+If there are any upper case font names, you can use the following script to 

+Note the punctuation -- the backquotes are important! Remove any spaces from 

+fonts.scale files. The following commands do this: 

+As of Red Hat 7.1, the above commands are run from the xfs init script. 

+accomplish the same thing. 

+You should now have fonts.dir and 

+empty files: 

+If you encounter any problems, try __ttmkfdir__ with the 

+Have a look: 

+Next, update the !FontPath and xfs: 

+You should now be in business. You can check which fonts are available to X: 

+or check them out further with __xfontsel__, or 

+xfsft 

+for XFree86 4.x. 

+Building xfsft requires having at least some of the XFree86 source available, 

+Note that you ''must'' also create 

+ clone-self = off  

+ use-syslog = off  

+ # x,y  

+ default-resolutions = 100,100,75,75  

+ ----------------------------------------------------- 

+You can then run start xfsft: 

+You can then add xfsft to the X server's !FontPath: 

+If all goes well, you could then add this !FontPath to 

+fonts.alias is yet another font configuration file that 

+fixed is the 'alias' here. Any time this is requested, we 

+fonts.alias is important for some applications that don't 

+a fonts.scale: 

+These are scalable so we don't get any predefined point sizes. We will need to 

+(''Please note that I have split each line for readability''. 

+resolution, and eyesight. 

+This file can be created manually with a text editor, or conceivably with some 

+whose work and insight was the inspiration for this section! 

+Another potential use of fonts.alias would be to map 

+doesn't scale well. 

+Note that with XFree86 4..2 and greater, there are new font handling 

+At this time, not all do (yet). 

+XFree86 4. 

+a technique for smoothing font outlines (see section below). 

+The !FontPath is still in XF86Config, as 

+for Red Hat 7.x specific configuration issues. 

+In order to use !TrueType, you must also specify which font 

+ < load other modules....>  

+Note that there can be only one 'Module' section, so include any other 

+You also must to create fonts.scale and 

+Section 3.2.2 above for more details and examples. 

+xtt is another available !TrueType module that is best known 

+X server command line options are still the same as previous versions of X: 

+Anti-aliasing is a technique for producing even smoother, crisper looking fonts 

+That is the good news. The bad news is that not all drivers support 

+If you are reading this long after the publication date (February 2002), 

+meantime, read on ... 

+Minimum requirements for Anti-Aliasing:  

+* XFree86 4..2 or later.  

+* You graphic card's driver has to support anti-aliasing. If 4..2 (or greater) is already installed, you can get this information direct from the driver with __xdpyinfo__. Run this and look for "Number of Extensions:". If this lists "RENDER" among them, then you should be good to go. If not, well, it isn't going to work, and you will have to wait for an updated driver.  

+* The Freetype2 library available from http://www.freetype.org, and also now bundled with XFree86. XFree needs to be linked against this, so install and build first if building from scratch. Your distro should have Freetype packages as well. Just make sure it is freetype-2.  

+* !TrueType fonts are best for display purposes. Type1 is also good. See above sections.  

+* For KDE users, KDE supports anti-aliasing as of 2.x. This will require QT-2.3.0 or later, and built with Xft support. A nice font HOWTO from Troll Tech for KDE and QT can be found: http://trolls.troll.no/~lars/fonts/qt-fonts-HOWTO.html.  

+* GNOME does not support anti-aliasing at this time in stable releases (as of 1.4). Awaiting GTK implementation (probably for GTK 2.). Apparently this will be available later this year, so stay tuned. GNOME 2.0 will have native support for anti-aliasing.  

+* Applications that "know" about anti-aliasing. Not necessarily at the individual application level, but the libraries and toolkits (GTK, TK, etc.) that the application are built against, must be able to use the new features. At this time, there are scant few. KDE/QT is first out of the box. Also, __xterm__ supports the new extensions.  

+* The new rendering extensions configuration file, !XftConfig, must be configured for the fonts you want to use.  

+* The new extensions supplant much of what we have been doing with font servers like xfs. fonts.alias and similar configuration files, for instance, are not used for fonts that are being controlled by the new extensions. 

+Keith Packard has a very brief summary of the steps required for building, 

+Newer distro releases are likely to have the foundation support for 

+To verify the necessary components, first make sure the 

+ (II) Loading font !FreeType 

+Then verify if the "RENDER" extension is available, either check 

+ (II) Initializing built-in extension RENDER 

+If "RENDER" is there, anti-aliasing and the other advanced 

+By Danny Tholen < obiwan@ mailmij.org>  

+Xft is an interface to the freetype rasterizer written by Keith Packard, 

+The following information is based on 4..3. 4.1 is just released, and there 

+The basic structure revolves around a 'pattern'. A pattern is a set of 

+A size 12 arial font in latin-1 encoding. The Xft extension will now try to 

+Also, the X server is queried to list all of its fonts; the XLFD contains 

+Here's a list of attributes used in matching fonts (in priority order, this 

+; !dir; Adds a directory to the list of places Xft will look for fonts. There is no 

+; !match edit: If a pattern from an application matches the pattern after "match", it is edited with the instructions in edit. The pattern match is done as follows: 

+ match all foundry==" monotype"  

+ match any family==" arial"  

+ rgba color hinting (string " rgb" or " bgr" and  

+ vertical hinting " vrgb" " vbgr" ), aka sub-pixel hinting 

+ And now I' ll try to list a few useful configurations and explain them. Note 

+; How do I make fonts available to Xft?: List your Type 1 and !TrueType font directories with "dir". On my system (Mandrake 7.2) this becomes: 

+; How do I use a user specific !XftConfig file?: Put an .xftconfig file in your user directory and add: 

+; How do I make aliases for my fonts?: I noted that my KDE console asks for "mono" fonts when it is looking for a fixed font. "console" is used when I select "linux" in the font menu of the KDE konsole. Therefore, I used two aliases for fonts which are also named "fixed": 

+Use the following in your !XftConfig to anti-alias only fonts of specific sizes: 

+ any size > 8  

+ any size < 15 

+; My fixed fonts do not appear or look _very_ wrong in the KDE konsole or similar programs!: I noted that somehow a lot of fixed font do not tell Xft that they are fixed, and thus, mono spaced. Therefore only a part of the font is displayed. We can manually set the spacing for these fonts (this assumes you have fixed aliased with mono as in question 3 above): 

+A useful way of figuring out these things is to activate debugging with: 

+This will generate a lot of output, especially if you have many fonts, 

+; I have a LCD screen on my laptop, can I use sub-pixel hinting instead of normal anti-aliasing?: Yes you can. Sub-pixel hinting uses colors instead of gray pixels to do the AA. I do not have a LCD screen so I do not have any idea of how it looks but you can play with the "rgba" setting. Try: 

+or use rgb if you have a different type of monitor. For vertical AA you can 

+; My fonts still look bad!: Good quality fonts are needed to start with. If you do not have some good !TrueType fonts, it is worth it to go and look for them on the Internet. Other reasons why your fonts still look bad can be because of your build of freetype2. Snapshots versions before 2..2 were compiled with an option that had some patent issues. Therefore, the standard 2..2 and 2..3 compiles without this option. To fix this, download the freetype2 source rpm and change in include/freetype/config/ftoption.h line 314: 

+and rebuild with this modified source. See the freetype2 

+This is my !XftConfig:  

+ #  

+ # alias 'fixed' and 'console' for 'mono'  

+ # (some programs ask for 'mono' if they mean 'fixed';)  

+ #  

+ match any family == "fixed" edit family =+ "mono";  

+ match any family == "console" edit family =+ "mono";  

+ #  

+ # Use lucida console as default fixed type font  

+ # and set the spacing of "mono" to 100, this  

+ # fixes broken fonts which are fixed, but do not  

+ # set mono-spacing.  

+ match 

+ edit 

+ #  

+ # Alias between XLFD families and font file family name, prefer local fonts  

+ #  

+ match any family == "Charter" edit family += "Bitstream Charter";  

+ match any family == "Bitstream Charter" edit family =+ "Charter"; 

+ match any family == "Lucidux Serif" edit family += "!LuciduxSerif";  

+ match any family == "!LuciduxSerif" edit family =+ "Lucidux Serif"; 

+ match any family == "Lucidux Sans" edit family += "!LuciduxSans";  

+ match any family == "!LuciduxSans" edit family =+ "Lucidux Sans"; 

+ match any family == "Lucidux Mono" edit family += "!LuciduxMono";  

+ match any family == "!LuciduxMono" edit family =+ "Lucidux Mono"; 

+ #  

+ # !TrueType font aliases  

+ #  

+ match any family == "Comic Sans" edit family += "Comic Sans MS";  

+ match any family == "Comic Sans MS" edit family =+ "Comic Sans";  

+ match any family == "Trebuchet" edit family += "Trebuchet MS";  

+ match any family == "Trebuchet MS" edit family =+ "Trebuchet";  

+ match any family == "Monotype" edit family =+ "Monotype.com";  

+ match any family == "Andale Mono" edit family += "Monotype.com";  

+ match any family == "Monotype.com" edit family =+ "Andale Mono"; 

+ # Danny:  

+ # set the AA for different fonts  

+ #  

+ # most TT fonts do not need to be aliased between  

+ # 8 and 15 points, although this might be a matter of taste.  

+ match 

+ edit 

+ # Danny: Courier looks terrible, and I  

+ # cannot get most characters to fit nicely  

+ # in their space. So I use courier 10 pitch  

+ match 

+ edit 

+ # these are symbols, and for some reason this needs to be added!: 

+ match 

+ edit 

+ match 

+ edit 

+ match 

+ edit 

+ match 

+ edit 

+ match 

+ edit 

+ # maybe arial looks better like this?:  

+ match 

+ any size > 7  

+ any size < 15  

+ edit 

+ # end 

+As mentioned above, KDE and QT do have solid anti-aliasing support with 

+play with that. 

+In the meantime, there is the gdkxft project available at 

+use the "gdkxft" supplied theme. 

+For RPM users, there is a spec file in the tarball, and an RPM can be built 

+that is produced from that. 

+You've gone through all the steps, and verified that the 

+So how to know what does and does not make use of anti-aliasing? A quick test 

+One final point: anti-aliasing and !TrueType are completely separate 

+fonts! 

+Red Hat 7.0 introduced some changes to X configuration over previous Red Hat 

+* Both XFree86 3.3.6 and 4.x are included. If upgrading you may wind up with 3.3.6. The X configuration file is XF86Config for 3.3.6 and XF86Config-4 for 4.x. Of course, you'll need to know which is which for editing and configuration purposes.  

+* xfs is still handling all font duties. A default Red Hat 7.x installation does not use the 'modules' section of XF86Config-4 for font handling. Instead it relies on xfs, which has this capability built in. This is different from a stock installation of XFree86 4.x where the X server does all the font work -- including !TrueType.  

+* The socket for xfs is "unix/:7100" with RH 7.x, as opposed to "unix/:-1" in 

+* As of Red Hat 7.1, the xfs init script actually runs __mkfontdir__ and __ttmkfdir__ on font directories known to xfs. So this step is not necessary when new fonts are added. Just restart xfs. 

+Let's face it, Netscape is an important application in Linux. We all use it, 

+are unreadable. In short, ugly. Maybe this is why you are here? 

+Hopefully, at this point you have followed the above suggestions. These steps 

+can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. 

+Assuming you have !TrueType working, from the Netscape menu select 

+problems. See Section 3.3 for more on fonts.alias. 

+You might consider experimenting with some ~/.Xdefaults (or 

+'basefont' sizes are specified ala: 

+ < basefont size=7>  

+within reason can be used here. Experiment. 

+(or .Xresources as the case may be) and restart Netscape. 

+If this approach does not get the job done as far as the 'tiny fonts' problem 

+can really fine tune many things with this approach. 

+Mozilla configuration should be roughly the same in many respects. You might 

+systems.