From eea53cf0a850a5ba4ec4631de52301835b74d0ea Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: gferg <> Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:48:08 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] updated --- LDP/howto/docbook/Font-HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.xml | 71 +++++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 38 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-) diff --git a/LDP/howto/docbook/Font-HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.xml b/LDP/howto/docbook/Font-HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.xml index 133aebbf..e1aa9ed9 100644 --- a/LDP/howto/docbook/Font-HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.xml +++ b/LDP/howto/docbook/Font-HOWTO/Font-HOWTO.xml @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Optimal Use of Fonts on Linux 2004Avi AlkalayDonovan RebbechiHal Burgiss - 2004-12-12 + 2004-12-24 Avi @@ -12,10 +12,9 @@
avi@unix.sh - avix@br.ibm.com
- Linux, Open Standards consultant :: Senior IT and Software Architect - IBM Linux Impact Team :: ibm.com/linux + Linux, Open Standards consultant :: IT and Software Architect + IBM Linux Impact Team :: ibm.com/linux @@ -39,6 +38,12 @@ + + 2004-12-24 + 24 Dec 2004 + avi + Small corrections and DocBook improvements. + 2004-12-12 12 Dec 2004 @@ -90,13 +95,13 @@
Why Fonts on Linux Aren't Straight Forward ? - Jump to if you just want to fix your desktop look fast. Read this section if you are interested in the details of how and why make it. + Jump to if you just want to fix your desktop fonts fast. Read this section if you are interested in the details on how and why make it. Fonts are used on the screen and for printing. These medias differ a lot in DPI resolution: screens have 72 to 96 DPI, while modern printers use to have 300 DPI. So low-resolution medias as the screen need better font rendering algorithms to workaround the media's limitations. To get optimal fonts on the screen you need: - - Good fonts designed for low resolution media. True Type font technology evolved to be the best thing you can get nowadays. But for optimal screen beauty, you also need fonts that were designed for this purpose. We found that Tahoma and Verdana are the best fonts you can get for the screen. - A good font renderer. Current Linux distributions include the excelent and very mature FreeType font renderer library. - + + Good fonts designed for low resolution media.True Type font technology evolved to be the best thing you can get nowadays. But for optimal screen beauty, you also need fonts that were designed for this purpose. We found that Tahoma and Verdana are the best fonts you can get for the screen. + A good font renderer.Current Linux distributions include the excelent and very mature FreeType font renderer library. + A .ttf file contains information to draw the characters at any size, so you eventually can convert a text into a scalable outline drawing (built from line segments and quadratic bezier arcs) with tools like OpenOffice.org or CorelDraw. @@ -108,7 +113,7 @@ With reverse engineering, the Freetype Project has implemented a byte code interpreter, but due to legal issues in some countries, some Linux distributions disable it at compilation and packaging time. This is a list of distributions that are known to enable or disable BCI. Please send us updates. - FreeType Byte code Interpreter Status per Distribution +
FreeType Bytecode Interpreter Status per Distribution @@ -128,7 +133,7 @@
- Freetype tries to workaround this legal issues developing autohinting algorithms, but in our tests, BCI algorithms gave us much better font rendering results on the screen. + FreeType tries to workaround this legal issues developing autohinting algorithms, but in our tests, BCI algorithms gave us much better font rendering results on the screen.
@@ -149,7 +154,7 @@ As we said before, Tahoma and Verdana were designed for the screen, but they are getting overused for many other purposes. - Our objective here is to provide links where you can get good quality RPMs, debs, etc for your distribution. These packages are provided by independent contributors, so if you have the skills to build them for your distribution, please contact us. WE WILL ACCEPT CONTRIBUTIONS. + Our objective here is to provide links where you can get good quality RPMs, debs, etc for your distribution. These packages are provided by independent contributors, so if you have the skills to build them for your distribution, please contact us and send the URL for your packages. WE WILL ACCEPT CONTRIBUTIONS. Packages for distributions: Red Hat and Fedora RPMs. This is the orignal package, and it is reported to work in many other distributions. @@ -165,20 +170,20 @@
The Easy Steps to Enlighten Your Desktop You'll have to: - + Update the FreeType library package on you system with one compiled with BCI support. Install the Microsoft Fonts package. Follow the instructions bellow on how to configure your desktop and common applications. - +
Get a Better FreeType <acronym>RPM</acronym> - The people involved in this HOWTO modify their original distribution FreeType RPM to enable bytecode interpreter, and have much better font rendering results. + FreeType compiled with BCI presented much better screen font rendering results. Get RPMs for your distribution here: - Red Hat and Fedora. - Send us your contribution. + Red Hat and Fedora RPMs. + Please send us your distribution specific BCI-enabled FreeType package to be included here. WE WILL ACCEPT CONTRIBUTIONS of distribution specific FreeType repackaging, so if you can contact us, we appreciate. - If you are interested in repackaging your own FreeType, see how we repackage the Fedora Core and Red Hat RPMs with BCI on the appendix as a reference. + If you are interested in repackaging your own FreeType, see how we repackage the Fedora Core and Red Hat RPMs with BCI on the as a reference.
Configure Your Desktop General Guidelines @@ -200,7 +205,7 @@ So we basically choosed Trebuchet 12pt as the window title font, the bitmap font LucidaTypewriter 8pt for fixed size text, and Tahoma 8pt for everything else, which includes menus, buttons, etc. The 2 first should follow your taste, but Tahoma 8pt for all the rest is the optimal configuration, also used by MS Windows 2000 and XP. - One other thing to note is that I disabled anti-aliasing for font sizes up to 9 points. Look at the rest of this dialog how everything is clear and precise. + One other thing to note is that I disabled anti-aliasing for font sizes up to 9 points. Look at the entire dialog and see how all text is clearly rendered, looks clean precise and professional. Konqueror (KDE's browser and file manager) also needs font configuration for beautiful web browsing and file management.
Konqueror File Management font configuration @@ -211,8 +216,8 @@
And this is finally for web browsing. We are using Verdana as the general font because it was simply designed for the purpose of fluent text reading on the screen. And the old LucidaTypewriter when a web page requested a fixed size font. Some may choose fonts like Courier or Bistream Vera Mono here. We left all other fonts blank, to let the page choose it. But you may use Times New Roman as the Serif Font. Read more about serif fonts in . - The sizes of the fonts for browsing are a bit personal and depends on how healthy are your eyes, and the resolution of your screen. In my 1024x768 screen I use default size as 8pt, and I don't want web pages to use sizes smaller than 7pt. In the end of the day, to set the size is not so effective because modern web pages use to set them with absolute values. So it is more practical to use the browsers View menu to "zoom" the page you are currently seeing. - One more thing to note is the Default Encoding. This is a quite complex subject that deserves an entire HOWTO, but it is generally OK to leave it as the Language Encoding. You may need to change it if you frequently browse pages with non pure ASCII (international text) made by irresponsible webmasters that still don't use UTF-8 for the web. But here also it may be more practical to use the View menu to set the encoding for the current page you are browsing. + The sizes of the fonts for browsing are a bit personal and depends on how healthy are your eyes, and the resolution of your screen. In my 1024x768 screen I use default size as 8pt, and I don't want web pages to use sizes smaller than 7pt. In the end of the day, to set the size is not so effective because modern web pages use to set them with absolute values. So it is more practical to use the browsers View menu to "zoom" the page you are currently seeing. + One more thing to note is the Default Encoding. This is a quite complex subject that deserves an entire HOWTO, but it is generally OK to leave it as the Language Encoding. You may need to change it if you frequently browse pages with non pure ASCII (international text) made by irresponsible webmasters that still don't use UTF-8 for the web. But here also it may be more practical to use the View menu to set the encoding for the current page you are browsing.
Gnome We'll use our generic rules here too: Tahoma 8pt for everything. @@ -221,18 +226,18 @@
OpenOffice.org - As of Fedora Core 3 time, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 has look (but not feel) integration with KDE and Gnome. This means that your environment should say to OOo how to use widget fonts. But we found it didn't really worked. With further investigation we found that only the non-AA configuration we made was not propagated to OOo. So we used OOo's own dialogs to change it. -
OpenOffice.org font configuration + As of Fedora Core 3 time, OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 has look (but not feel) integration with KDE and Gnome. This means that your environment should tell OOo how to use widget fonts. But we found it didn't really work. With further investigation we found that only the non-AA configuration we made was not propagated to OOo. So we used OOo's own dialogs to change it. +
OpenOffice.org font configuration, using my KDE themes etc.
- So we basically selected Tool->Options menu, and in the View section we enable OOo to do anti-aliasing at font sizes beginning with 12 pixels (approximately 9pt), and the result is what you can see above: clean and comfortable widgets with Tahoma 8pt. + So we basically selected Tool, Options menu, and in the View section we enable OOo to do anti-aliasing at font sizes beginning with 12 pixels (approximately 9pt), and the result is what you can see above: clean and comfortable widgets with Tahoma 8pt.
Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox follows the same Konqueror rules.
Firefox fonts for web browsing
- So we Edit->Preferences and then Fonts & Colors, and selected Verdana 14px for general browsing and LucidaTypewriter 11px for monospace text. + So we Edit->Preferences and then Fonts & Colors, and selected Verdana 14px for general browsing and LucidaTypewriter 11px for monospace text. Firefox is a Gnome application, so it will use Gnome's font settings for widgets.