HOWTO: Make your fonts smooth enough to drool over.

[EdThaSlayer]

Wow...my fonts are so smooth...now...thanks a lot!

[crimesaucer]

This is an old thread, but it's still on the edgy wiki for smooth fonts. I had found sub pixel rendering in the user interface settings "Font Rendering", and check all three boxes. It made all my fonts smooth.

Then I added the .fonts.conf from the wiki page and I didn't notice much of a change. Now whenever I use terminal and run mousepad, I get this error:

blah@blah-blah:~$ sudo mousepad ~/.fonts.conf
Password:
Fontconfig error: "~/.fonts.conf", line 1: XML declaration not well-formed
blah@blah-blah:~$

Should line one be written differently?

<?xml version=”1.0” ?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM “fonts.dtd”>
<fontconfig>
<match target=”font”>
<edit name=”autohint” mode=”assign”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

[mohrt]

I was able to fix the XML validation notices by changing the quotes:

<?xml version='1.0' ?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target='font'>
<edit name='autohint' mode='assign'>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

[ferd]

LCD users may get even better results if you use the following code in your .fonts.conf file. This may work for CRT users as well, but I cannot confirm since I have only used this on my laptop.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<!-- the cathectic LCD tweaks, from linuxquestions.org,
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=1361098#post1361098
-->

<fontconfig>

<!-- Disable sub-pixel rendering. X detects it anyway, and if you set
this as well, it just looks really horrible  -->
<match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
  <const>none</const>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
  <const>hintfull</const>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- The first part of the 'magic.' This makes the fonts start to look
nice, but some of the shapes will be distorted, so hinting is needed
still -->
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- Autohinter is not turned on automatically. Only disable this if
you have recompiled Freetype with the bytecode interpreter, which is
run automatically. Although to be honest, Freetype are right, there
isn't much difference between the two. Note that OpenOffice is built
against the bytecode interpreter, so even if you have compiled it and
override it with the autohinter, OOo will still use the bytecode
interpreter -->
 <match target="pattern" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- Helvetica is a non true type font, and will look bad. This
replaces it with whatever is the default sans-serif font -->
 <match target="pattern" name="family" >
 <test name="family" qual="any" >
  <string>Helvetica</string>
 </test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
  <string>sans-serif</string>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

I found this hack here[michael-and-mary.net], who in turn found it from it's original creator here[linuxquestions.org].

I did this and now I have boxes instead of fonts in fasterfox and kde and gedit. I am looking for help on how to restore the original fonts.conf file. I am using opera to type this. Thanks fo all help I resolved this by using a live CD and replacing fonts.conf with a backup. Thanks for reading.

[Alkaif]

hi there,

i did this and also updated the freetype lib thingy for my edgy install so its automatically smooth... (followed the ubuntuguide.org way) and now i was wondering is there a way to make wine applications have smoother fonts? I managed to install office2003 using wine (works great) but the fonts are not smoothened at all. No cleartype or nothing.

if someone can help me out a little that'd be awesome .

cheers,
Alkaif.

[krypto_wizard]

I am now using Feisty Fawn. Your .fonts.conf was working great for me till I was using edgy.

I did an upgrade to Feisty and my fonts don't look smooth anymore.

What should I do ?

My .fonts.conf looks like

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<!-- the cathectic LCD tweaks, from linuxquestions.org,
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=1361098#post1361098
-->

<fontconfig>

<!-- Disable sub-pixel rendering. X detects it anyway, and if you set
this as well, it just looks really horrible  -->
<match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
  <const>none</const>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
  <const>hintfull</const>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- The first part of the 'magic.' This makes the fonts start to look
nice, but some of the shapes will be distorted, so hinting is needed
still -->
 <match target="font" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- Autohinter is not turned on automatically. Only disable this if
you have recompiled Freetype with the bytecode interpreter, which is
run automatically. Although to be honest, Freetype are right, there
isn't much difference between the two. Note that OpenOffice is built
against the bytecode interpreter, so even if you have compiled it and
override it with the autohinter, OOo will still use the bytecode
interpreter -->
 <match target="pattern" >
 <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
  <bool>true</bool>
 </edit>
 </match>

<!-- Helvetica is a non true type font, and will look bad. This
replaces it with whatever is the default sans-serif font -->
 <match target="pattern" name="family" >
 <test name="family" qual="any" >
  <string>Helvetica</string>
 </test>
 <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
  <string>sans-serif</string>
 </edit>
 </match>
 <dir>~/.fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>

Every help is appreciated.

Thanks

You can try this fix I posted on the previous page. It's what I currently use and it gives the best results I've seen so far.

[FrancoNero]

yeah fonts look kinda shittyin feisty, especially openoffice and firefox (those checkboxes and radio buttones even, yuck... vomit)

[mciarlo]

Ditto--firefox, epiphany, and in general, everywhere.

[kaede]

so this trick don't work anymore in feisy ?

[hype]

Hi, it just works on feisty, but you have to change the [ " ]'s by [ ' ]'s.

Here it is:

<?xml version='1.0' ?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
<match target='font'>
<edit name='autohint' mode='assign'>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>

The "XML declaration not well-formed" error is now gone, and i now , like said, just drool over my fonts.
Small fonts size are more sharp , precise. Nice !

Thanks for info.