Ugly bitmapped Chinese fonts in GTK apps under Kubuntu

[Michael Robinson]

In recent Dapper Kubuntu, ugly bitmapped Chinese fonts have mysteriously appeared, despite the fact that I have "Enable bitmapped fonts by default?", and no bitmapped fonts visible in the KDE font installer panel.

There is no apparent way for a Kubuntu user to make these bitmapped fonts go away.

Possibly related to:

"As a result of these findings, it is strongly recommended to turn on embedded bitmap in the fontconfig setting by default. It is now known that Uming, Kochi, IPA and IPAMona will all benefit from this, possibly including some other free CJK fonts. If in suspicion, inspection by Fontforge is encouraged."

https://wiki.kubuntu.org/BetterCJKSupportSpecification

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

Should be:

...despite the fact that I have "Enable bitmapped fonts by default?" disabled in debconf...

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

Further investigation shows that the fonts in question are not, in fact, bitmapped fonts, but TrueType fonts with anti-aliasing disabled.

So the problem becomes, how to restore anti-aliasing to Chinese fonts in GTK applications (KDE applications render the same fonts with anti-aliasing) in Kubuntu Dapper.

[atie (atie-at-matrix)]

@Michael, could you attach a screenshot with different sizes(or pixelsizes) of the font you use as well as letting us know which Chinese font/GTK application particular? Also wondering your locale in case you don't use one of Chinese locales.

I'm pretty sure, for your fonts, the properties of fontconfig such as AA and Hinting can be controlled per pixelsize/font family/lang. You may refer the DapperL10nSprint/FontConfigPreferencesKorean wiki for example.

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

I'm using the out-of-the-box C locale (ie, no environment settings).

I am attaching a screenshot of a GTK app (GAIM) and a KDE app (KNotes). Font rendering is consistent across both toolkits; all the GTK apps render without antialiasing, and all the KDE apps render with the antialiasing.

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

Screenshot of a GTK app (GAIM) showing non-antialiased Chinese font.

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

Screenshot of a KDE app (Knotes) showing anti-aliased Chinese fonts.

[Michael Robinson (robinson-netrinsics)]

This bug can be closed. It's been fixed at least since Feisty.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

closing.