Default font size in gnome

[Felix Miata]

On 2009/02/28 13:09 (GMT-0600) Ryan Hayle composed:

> Here is what my 15.4" 1920x1200 screen looks like:

> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/23230352/Screenshot.png
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/23230847/bold%20font.jpg

> I think I have perhaps been persuaded by the argument that the font size 
> isn't unusably big, but this bold font issue definitely should be fixed. 
>   As mentioned before, it might be a Freetype bug of some kind, or 
> simply a fault in Bitstream/DejaVu Sans.  Perhaps we can push for fixing 
> this issue and be satisfied with that.

It's not a bug. It's an inherent characteristic of fonts that have limited px
to use. At some point as size is increased, every font has to have a stem
width wider than 1px. On 112-125 DPI systems the switch point for common
fonts is usually around 10pt, whereas on 96 DPI it's just above 12pt. When
screens are all 300 DPI and up, the problem will have disappeared on its own,
because stem widths for the sweet spot will be around 3px, and going from
from 3-4 won't be as noticeable as from 1-2.

> The font hinting also seems to make things worse.  The default (Medium) 
> and Full hinting make fonts look bolder, while slight hinting isn't 
> bold, but makes them look noticeably larger.  Disabling hinting seems to 
> looks the best to me, at least for DejaVu Sans.

The "bolding" is a quirk of the px sweet spot in your DPI range. Another
thing you can try is not using DejaVu Sans for system fonts at 10pt on ~120
DPI systems. DejaVu Sans "bolds" at 17px, like most common fonts, but some
others don't until 18px, like Arial, Liberation Sans and Times New Roman.
http://fm.no-ip.com/auth/Font/fonts-weights.html
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Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/