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List:       kde
Subject:    RE: konqueror, true type fonts and xfree 4.01
From:       Ruth Ivimey-Cook <Ruth.Ivimey-Cook () arm ! com>
Date:       2000-11-14 18:16:09
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At 05:05 PM 11/14/00, you wrote:
>The blockiness isn't the choice of font style.  Its XFree itself.  XFree
>doesn't do what called "hinting" which is what gives the smoother looking
>fonts (not to be confused with antialiasing).
>
>I won't go much farther on the subject as I am not an expert with X.
>Someone else will have more informed insight to this I suspect.

I'm not an expert either. I believe that one of the typefaces shipped with 
X is a bitmapped Helvetica. Bitmapped fonts do not scale well, and X 
servers typically do a worse-than average job of enlarging them, partly 
because no antialiasing is applied.

Restrict your X Server to vector (scaleable) fonts and you will be better 
off. The simplest way to do this is to remove the 100dpi and 75dpi 
directories from your server font path. (I would add misc, too, but there 
are so many fonts there that are genuinely useful,  "8x13" for example, 
that you're probably better keeping them.

You may also wish to consider getting the official versions of the Adobe 
Type1 fonts (Courier, Helvetica, Times-Roman, etc). IMO the shipped 
freeware fonts are not as well hinted as the Adobe ones, and consequently 
do not look as nice on the display.

One thing I am not, I admit, sure about is whether the IBM-derived Type1 
font engine that is shipped with X actually obeys hinting in Type1 fonts. I 
*think* it does...

Regards,

Ruth
-- 

Ruth 
Ivimey-Cook                       ruthc@sharra.demon.co.uk
Technical 
Author, ARM Ltd              ruth.ivimey-cook@arm.com

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