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Bitstream Vera Fonts - April 16, 2003 |
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The version number of these fonts is 1.10 to distinguish them from the |
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beta test fonts. |
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Note that the Vera copyright is incorporated in the fonts themselves. |
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The License field in the fonts contains the copyright license as it |
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appears below. The TrueType copyright field is not large enough to |
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contain the full license, so the license is incorporated (as you might |
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think if you thought about it) into the license field, which |
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unfortunately can be obscure to find. (In pfaedit, see: Element->Font |
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Info->TTFNames->License). |
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Our apologies for it taking longer to complete the fonts than planned. |
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Beta testers requested a tighter line spacing (less leading) and Jim |
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Lyles redesigned Vera's accents to bring its line spacing to more |
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typical of other fonts. This took additional time and effort. Our |
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thanks to Jim for this effort above and beyond the call of duty. |
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There are four monospace and sans faces (normal, oblique, bold, bold |
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oblique) and two serif faces (normal and bold). Fontconfig/Xft2 (see |
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www.fontconfig.org) can artificially oblique the serif faces for you: |
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this loses hinting and distorts the faces slightly, but is visibly |
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different than normal and bold, and reasonably pleasing. |
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On systems with fontconfig 2.0 or 2.1 installed, making your sans, |
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serif and monospace fonts default to these fonts is very easy. Just |
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drop the file local.conf into your /etc/fonts directory. This will |
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make the Bitstream fonts your default fonts for all applications using |
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fontconfig (if sans, serif, or monospace names are used, as they often |
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are as default values in many desktops). The XML in local.conf may |
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need modification to enable subpixel decimation, if appropriate, |
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however, the commented out phrase does so for XFree86 4.3, in the case |
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that the server does not have sufficient information to identify the |
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use of a flat panel. Fontconfig 2.2 adds Vera to the list of font |
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families and will, by default use it as the default sans, serif and |
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monospace fonts. |
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During the testing of the final Vera fonts, we learned that screen |
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fonts in general are only typically hinted to work correctly at |
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integer pixel sizes. Vera is coded internally for integer sizes only. |
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We need to investigate further to see if there are commonly used fonts |
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that are hinted to be rounded but are not rounded to integer sizes due |
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to oversights in their coding. |
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Most fonts work best at 8 pixels and below if anti-aliased only, as |
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the amount of work required to hint well at smaller and smaller sizes |
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becomes astronomical. GASP tables are typically used to control |
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whether hinting is used or not, but Freetype/Xft does not currently |
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support GASP tables (which are present in Vera). |
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To mitigate this problem, both for Vera and other fonts, there will be |
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(very shortly) a new fontconfig 2.2 release that will, by default not |
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apply hints if the size is below 8 pixels. if you should have a font |
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that in fact has been hinted more agressively, you can use fontconfig |
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to note this exception. We believe this should improve many hinted |
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fonts in addition to Vera, though implemeting GASP support is likely |
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the right long term solution. |
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Font rendering in Gnome or KDE is the combination of algorithms in |
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Xft2 and Freetype, along with hinting in the fonts themselves. It is |
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vital to have sufficient information to disentangle problems that you |
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may observe. |
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Note that having your font rendering system set up correctly is vital |
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to proper judgement of problems of the fonts: |
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* Freetype may or may not be configured to in ways that may |
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implement execution of possibly patented (in some parts of the world) |
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TrueType hinting algorithms, particularly at small sizes. Best |
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results are obtained while using these algorithms. |
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* The freetype autohinter (used when the possibly patented |
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algorithms are not used) continues to improve with each release. If |
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you are using the autohinter, please ensure you are using an up to |
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date version of freetype before reporting problems. |
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* Please identify what version of freetype you are using in any |
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bug reports, and how your freetype is configured. |
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* Make sure you are not using the freetype version included in |
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XFree86 4.3, as it has bugs that significantly degrade most fonts, |
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including Vera. if you build XFree86 4.3 from source yourself, you may |
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have installed this broken version without intending it (as I |
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did). Vera was verified with the recently released Freetype 2.1.4. On |
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many systems, 'ldd" can be used to see which freetype shared library |
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is actually being used. |
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* Xft/X Render does not (yet) implement gamma correction. This |
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causes significant problems rendering white text on a black background |
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(causing partial pixels to be insufficiently shaded) if the gamma of |
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your monitor has not been compensated for, and minor problems with |
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black text on a while background. The program "xgamma" can be used to |
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set a gamma correction value in the X server's color pallette. Most |
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monitors have a gamma near 2. |
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* Note that the Vera family uses minimal delta hinting. Your |
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results on other systems when not used anti-aliased may not be |
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entirely satisfying. We are primarily interested in reports of |
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problems on open source systems implementing Xft2/fontconfig/freetype |
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(which implements antialiasing and hinting adjustements, and |
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sophisticated subpixel decimation on flatpanels). Also, the |
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algorithms used by Xft2 adjust the hints to integer widths and the |
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results are crisper on open source systems than on Windows or |
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MacIntosh. |
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* Your fontconfig may (probably does) predate the release of |
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fontconfig 2.2, and you may see artifacts not present when the font is |
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used at very small sizes with hinting enabled. "vc-list -V" can be |
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used to see what version you have installed. |
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We believe and hope that these fonts will resolve the problems |
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reported during beta test. The largest change is the reduction of |
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leading (interline spacing), which had annoyed a number of people, and |
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reduced Vera's utility for some applcations. The Vera monospace font |
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should also now make '0' and 'O' and '1' and 'l' more clearly |
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distinguishable. |
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The version of these fonts is version 1.10. Fontconfig should be |
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choosing the new version of the fonts if both the released fonts and |
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beta test fonts are installed (though please discard them: they have |
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names of form tt20[1-12]gn.ttf). Note that older versions of |
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fontconfig sometimes did not rebuild their cache correctly when new |
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fonts are installed: please upgrade to fontconfig 2.2. "fc-cache -f" |
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can be used to force rebuilding fontconfig's cache files. |
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If you note problems, please send them to fonts at gnome dot org, with |
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exactly which face and size and unicode point you observe the problem |
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at. The xfd utility from XFree86 CVS may be useful for this (e.g. "xfd |
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-fa sans"). A possibly more useful program to examine fonts at a |
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variety of sizes is the "waterfall" program found in Keith Packard's |
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CVS. |
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$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:/local/src/CVS login |
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Logging in to :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:2401/local/src/CVS |
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CVS password: <hit return> |
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$ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:/local/src/CVS co waterfall |
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$ cd waterfall |
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$ xmkmf -a |
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$ make |
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# make install |
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# make install.man |
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Again, please make sure you are running an up-to-date freetype, and |
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that you are only examining integer sizes. |
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Reporting Problems |
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================== |
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Please send problem reports to fonts at gnome org, with the following |
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information: |
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1. Version of Freetype, Xft2 and fontconfig |
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2. Whether TT hinting is being used, or the autohinter |
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3. Application being used |
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4. Character/Unicode code point that has problems (if applicable) |
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5. Version of which operating system |
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6. Please include a screenshot, when possible. |
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Please check the fonts list archives before reporting problems to cut |
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down on duplication. |
