HOWTO: Make your fonts smooth enough to drool over.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tobiasly

So now my only question is: why in the world is this so hard to find, and why isn't it on by default?! It's crap like this that perpetuates the perception that Linux is only for power users because you have to use the command line for too much. Mr. Shuttleworth, you said Ubuntu's goal is to be prettier than Apple's OSX, well this thread should be a testament to you: making fonts look awesome out of the box is very important for a lot of people, and hopefully it gets better sooner rather than later!

---

According to http://www.spodesabode.com/discussio...u-look-better/ that technique is a patented Apple one...

I just used the sudo command sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/ that was posted earlier in 8.10 and it works rather nicely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hgurol

Open up your /etc/fonts/conf.d/ file. Find and delete below section, save the file and restart X.

Code:

---

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- debian/autohint.conf -->
<fontconfig>
<!--  Use the Autohinter -->
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="autohint" mode="assign"><bool>true</bool></edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

---

---

I just used

Code:

---

sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

---

in Intrepid 8.10 but don't like the results. I'd like to undo this action and restore the default way fonts are rendered. I've quoted an earlier poster's solution to do so but don't believe it's the correct/best method to do this. Isn't all that is needed to unlink the files? I tried

Code:

---

sudo unlink /etc/fonts/conf.d

---

but I am returned the message that it is a directory. This is true whether or not I include the trailing directory slash.

Any ideas?

Try this:

Code:

---

sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-autohint.conf

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by unutbu

Try this:

Code:

---

sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/10-autohint.conf

---

---

Good idea, this should restore the default configuration.

This is in response to kamiokande who said:

Quote:

---

Thanks for the tip. It works really well on my desktop and most applications. However, I noticed that the fonts on some areas of the Ubuntu forums are now warped! Has anyone had this happen before?

---

I read (I can't recall where, unfortunately) that this happens on systems w/o the Tahoma font installed.

The HTML / CSS on the Ubuntu forums site calls for Tahoma bold in some spots. The blurriness is a result of the system trying to mimick Tahoma bold and not doing too great a job.

Install Tahoma and the problem goes away, i.e., text will display as intended.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zenwhen

Drop this file in your home directory renamed to ".fonts.conf" and log out and in again. It turns on auto hinting and makes your fonts sexy smooth. :grin:


Edit: Oops, typo.

---

That works amazingly for me!

I spend maybe 10 hours trying different stuff to fix my font settings. I am using Fedora 17 on LXDE, and the fonts just didn't look good, no matter what I tried, but now it finally looks fine!

Thanks!

I can't believe we're still getting posts on a thread that started nearly eight years ago! What's so hard about smoothing fonts - MS-Windows have had ClearType for years and even Linux distros are usually pretty clean on fonts these days. This issue is so last century!

Just curious is this tip still valid on 12.04?