lucumr

In my old blog I had one article about font settings in ubuntu edgy. Unfortunately I don’t have an online backup of that page and there was a request for the data there, so I just post it here again as blog post:

There are many ways to improve the font rendering. (That’s because the ubuntu defaults are hideous). Since hoary I use my own font configs based on a configuration from someone I can’t remember.

If you’re looking for a screenshot have a look at the screenshots in the vim article.

xorg.conf
Locate Section “Monitor” and add the following line before !EndSection:

DisplaySize     XXX YYY

You can calculate XXX and YYY using this formula:

DisplaySize = height / 96 * 25.4 width / 96 * 25.4

Here the values I use for various systems:
1024×768 = 270 203
1280×1024 = 338 270
1400×1050 = 370 277

selecting rendering method

dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

Run a root and select “subpixel rendering”.

local.conf
Create a file /etc/fonts/local.conf and paste the following lines:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <include ignore_missing="yes">/var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/fonts.conf</include>
 <match target="font">
  <test compare="more" name="pixelsize" qual="any">
   <double>12</double>
  </test>
  <edit name="autohint" mode="assign" >
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
   <const>hintmedium</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="pattern">
  <test qual="any" name="family">
   <string>Bitstream Vera Sans</string>
  </test>
  <edit name="family" mode="assign">
   <string>Arial</string>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="pattern">
  <test qual="any" name="family">
   <string>Helvetica</string>
  </test>
  <edit name="family" mode="assign">
   <string>Arial</string>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="pattern">
  <test qual="any" name="family">
   <string>Palatino</string>
  </test>
  <edit name="family" mode="assign">
   <string>Georgia</string>
  </edit>
 </match>
</fontconfig>

even better settings
You still don’t have what you want? Then try out the patches from this thread on ubuntuforums. But use my local.conf which produces better bold fonts.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 4:49 pm and tagged as uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.