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o rg/ho w-to -greatly-impro ve-fo nt-rendering-under-fedo ra-20/

How To Greatly Improve Font Rendering Under Fedora 20

alex diavatis Dec 14, 2013

I will just show the way how to improve f ont-rendering in Fedora 20, but I won’t actually give
any command by command instructions.

We don’t need to write any code anyways, because everything can be done with a f ew clicks on
FedoraUtils App.I think that Fedora Utils isn’t working on Fedora 20 yet, but it should be ready
prior to Fedora’s f inal release in 17th.

I just f elt, that it will be interesting to know how this thing works, and why Fedora’s def ault f ont-rendering is
so bad. Also if you have some f urther tips to improve f ont rendering, is a good idea to let us know!

Bef ore and Af ter ..Night and Day ;)

T he above f igure isn’t the best example, but is a very characteristic one. T here are huge changes, not only
on a Web-Browser, but in the whole system.

I will use these two scripts f rom Fedora Utils.

Core Fonts
Font Rendering

Scripts are easy to understand, even if you haven’t any bash knowledge. If you have any question, you can
ask I guess.

St eps t o Improve Font s

Improving f onts is actually a really simple task.

1. Add RPM Fusion Repos

We need this to install Freetype-Freeword engine. Check their of f icial page f or more.

2. Freetype
Install Freetype-Freeworld package f rom RpmFusion. T his is a f ont rendering engine.

3. Install MS Fonts

T here are many common f onts like Arial that aren’t distributed in Fedora f or policy reason.

Go grub them f rom SourceForge

http://sourcef orge.net/projects/coref onts/f iles/the%20f onts/f inal/

T hen you will need to extract those (.exe f iles) with Cabextract program. T his isn’t in F20 def ault installation
and you need to get it.

Get the extracted T T F f iles and copy them into:

/usr/share/font s/msfont s //Syst em Wide ~/.local/share/font s/msfont s //User Specific

T his way you can install any f onts you like.

4. Edit Font Configuration

Edit:

/et c/font s/local.conf

and add:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE font config SYSTEM "font s.dt d">
<font config>
<mat ch t arget ="font ">
<edit name="aut ohint " mode="assign">
<bool>t rue</bool>
</edit >
<edit name="hint ing" mode="assign">
<bool>t rue</bool>
</edit >
<edit mode="assign" name="hint st yle">
<const >hint slight </const >
</edit >
</mat ch>
</font config>

I think this step isn’t really necessary and you can skip it.

5. Tweak Fonts Rendering

Open Gnome Tweak Tool, under Fonts Panel and set:

Hinting ->Slight

Antialisiing->Rgba

6. Reboot & Enjoy!

You can avoid rebooting by updating your f onts with f c-cache command, and restart your session.
T his still won’t lead to Ubuntu Font Rendering Standards, but it will greatly improve Fedora’s user
experience. Never skip that in Fedora!

As a side not, if you do any web-design, you will certainly need this, because you must match how f onts
look like in every system. As f ar as I know, every system has its very own and unique way to render and
display f onts, but this is another story ;)