Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)

Posted Jan 27, 2006 7:02 UTC (Fri) by Interneci (guest, #34645) [Link]

> So far, the only fonts which are ideally readable under Linux
> are the MS corefonts.

That's not true. The free Bitstream Vera fonts are at least just as good,
in my eyes even better.

Regarding anti-aliasing, my impression is that AA especially helps with
well-hinted fonts. I use antialiased Vera Sans as my default font on a
TFT, and it's *really* crisp and sharp. Horizontal und vertical lines
exactly match the pixel lines, so AA is only used on diagonal and curved
parts of the types and desn't make the letters "blurry".

Even *very* tiny font sizes can be read well with AA, while they become
completely unreadable without. (The same holds for the fonts distributed
by MS.)

(slightly off-topic) DIsappointment with Bitstream Vera

Posted Jan 29, 2006 5:00 UTC (Sun) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

I notice how people and distributions seem to praise Bitstream Vera fonts - Every distro I've used from Fedora to SuSE to RH to my current Slackware all have the BSV fonts. Even OpenOffice's default serif font is the BSV font.

What I don't get is why BSV (serif) doesn't have an italics-capable font, at least not in OpenOffice. Either (1) BSV came to all the distros without an italicized font or (2) I'm living under a rock when it comes to configuring and setting up my X11 Fonts configuration to make BSV fonts italicized.

I will be writing a graduate thesis pretty soon and foresee the need to use italics quite often in my paper. I'll be reconfiguing OOo to use Utopia as the default serif font because it actually goes italic when I hit <Ctrl-i> on selected text. If this can be fixed for BSV serif and someone knows how, I'd be forever grateful for the knowledge....

Hopefully, license debate notwithstanding, the Gentium font won't have this disability. Just my $0.02.

Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)

Posted Jan 27, 2006 17:58 UTC (Fri) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

I really don't understand the statement that anti-aliasing is bad for fonts.

Yes, using it makes bad fonts look blurry, because they weren't designed for pixel-based display (at least not at the used resolution), but those fonts would look bad anyway, with parts being two thick, too thin, and gaps being filled in. Anti-aliasing is not inherently bad, and it is required to maximize the utilization of the screen. If all output were binary, even the best font would still be a little blocky except for straight lines which were completely aligned with the pixel grid or at 45 degrees.

I also don't understand the suggestions of specific point sizes to match up the output pixel-perfect. Screens don't all have the same dpi... so 10pt on one screen may have a different number of pixels than on another. A good font will look nice at a number of different pixel sizes and render at different resolutions while preserving its distinctive look.

Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)

Posted Jan 28, 2006 6:50 UTC (Sat) by cga2001 (guest, #35510) [Link]

All I'm saying is that w/o AA we might stand a better chance of seeing affordable 300dpi+ displays and quality free fonts in the near future.. and as a result, preserve our eye vision. But due to the existence of this cheap - in every sense - AA hack.. neither hardware manufacturers nor font designers feel much of an urge to do much to improve the quality of text rendering on computer screens. With adequate AA.. so-so fonts like the bitstream vera.. nimbus etc. series globally look on a par with truly well-designed screen fonts (verdana.. tahoma..). So why bother..?

I am obvioulsy no font-rendering expert.. and I won't mind if someone more knowledgeable proves me wrong. In that painfully underdocumented area it would be nice to learn a little something..!

But I do believe that w/ the perverse effects I'm hinting at above, AA has done us more harm than good.. The mind boggles at its popularity within the OSS community.

As to the point/pixel ratio aspects I guess you were replying to somebody else's post..?

Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)

Posted Jan 28, 2006 7:04 UTC (Sat) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

The problem is that display resolutions haven't been going up at the same rate they used to. I'm still stuck using 1024x768 at work. Given that restriction AA is a very nice thing. I totally agree more resolution would be better... but it's not here today, at least for most people. Now correctly done, AA is not harmful and actually improves the display even on high-resolution screens -- in fact it works much better when the pixel widths are less than half of the width of the smallest lines in the font.

My point about font sizes was in reference to the article linked by Richard_J_Neill which talked about why AA was not the right solution.

Gentium: An award-winning font joins the free software world (NewsForge)

Posted Jan 29, 2006 1:07 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

With adequate AA.. so-so fonts like the bitstream vera.. nimbus etc. series globally look on a par with truly well-designed screen fonts (verdana.. tahoma..).

Then AA seems like a very efficient, useful "hack". Not only does it lower the hardware requirements, but saves significant human effort at the expense of a slight increase in software complexity.

If what you're saying is true, the "harm" is entirely psychological. If you are unable to visually distinguish "well designed" fonts from anti-aliased "so-so" fonts then your preference for the former is merely ideological bias.