XFree86 4.0 introduced native support for TrueType fonts, along with other new features. The enhanced font support is based on xfsft from Juliusz Chroboczek, which in turn is based on the FreeType font library originally from Mark Leisher, so the configuration is similar to xfsft and Redhat's patched xfs. As of 4.0.2, XFree86 begins to support anti-aliasing which is a technique for smoothing font outlines (see section below).
The FontPath is still in XF86Config, as always. For Redhat 6/7 using a stock XFree86 4.x (i.e. NOT the Redhat 7.x supplied version), this will mean moving the Redhat xfs FontPath from /etc/X11/fs/config back to XF86Config. A separate font server is no longer needed just for TrueType support. You may disable it, unless it is needed to serve fonts to other clients in a network environment. See the section below for Redhat 7.x specific configuration issues.
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/local/share/fonts/ttfonts"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
EndSection
In order to use TrueType, you must also specify which font module the X server should be using in the "Module" section:
Section "Module"
Load "freetype"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
<load other modules....>
EndSection
Note that there can be only one 'Module' section, so include any other modules here as well.
You also must to create fonts.scale and fonts.dir file for each TrueType font directory, just like for xfsft and Redhat's xfs. ttmkfdir will come in handy for fonts.scale. See the xfs Section 3.2.2 above for more details and examples.
xtt is another available TrueType module that is best known for supporting ideographic (Oriental) type fonts. You can use either, but only one at a time.
X server command line options are still the same as previous versions of X:
$ startx -dpi 100
Anti-aliasing is a technique for producing even smoother, crisper looking fonts by subtly softening the sharp, jagged edges. This has long been a feature of Apple and Microsoft font rendering, and is now making it's way into X via the X Rendering Extension specification thanks to Keith Packard. The new extensions provide other benefits as well. This is still a bit experimental at this time (June 2001). Distributions that support anti-aliasing with their stable/official versions are now being released.
That is the good news. The bad news is that not all drivers support anti-aliasing yet. This is a moving target, so you will have to dig around to find whether your chipset is supported or not. The recently released 4.1 should have near universal support. More not-so-good news is that few applications are actually taking advantage of this yet. We will have to wait for the various toolkits (TK, GTK, etc) to catch up.
If you are reading this long after the publication date (June 2001), hopefully most of these shortcomings will have been overcome. All hardware will eventually be supported, mainstream distros will have shipped releases that include the new extensions, and they will be enabled by default. Many apps will look better since they will be "AA" aware, and we won't have to jump through any configuration hoops just to make it work. In the meantime, read on ...
Minimum requirements for Anti-Aliasing:
XFree86 4.0.2 or later.
You graphic card's driver has to support anti-aliasing. If 4.0.2 (or greater) is already installed, you can get this information direct from the driver with xdpyinfo. Run this and look for "Number of Extensions:". If this lists "RENDER" among them, then you should be good to go. If not, well, it isn't going to work, and you will have to wait for an updated driver.
The Freetype2 library available from http://www.freetype.org, and also now bundled with XFree86. XFree needs to be linked against this, so install and build first if building from scratch. Your distro should have Freetype packages as well. Just make sure it is freetype-2.
TrueType fonts are best for display purposes. Type1 is also good. See above sections.
For KDE users, KDE supports anti-aliasing as of 2.x. This will require QT-2.3.0 or later, and built with Xft support. A nice font HOWTO from Troll Tech for KDE and QT can be found: http://trolls.troll.no/~lars/fonts/qt-fonts-HOWTO.html.
Gnome does not support anti-aliasing at this time (as of 1.4). Awaiting GTK implementation (probably for GTK 2.0). Apparently this will be available later this year, so stay tuned.
Applications that "know" about anti-aliasing. Not necessarily at the individual application level, but the libraries and toolkits (GTK, TK, etc.) that the application are built against, must be able to use the new features. At this time, there are scant few. KDE/QT is first out of the box. Also, xterm supports the new extensions.
The new rendering extensions configuration file, XftConfig, must be configured for the fonts you want to use.
The new extensions supplant much of what we have been doing with font servers like xfs. fonts.alias and similar configuration files, for instance, are not used for fonts that are being controlled by the new extensions.
Keith Packard has brief summary of the steps required for building, installing and configuring from source at http://www.xfree86.org/~keithp/render/aafont.txt. No need to reprint it here.
Newer distro releases are likely to have the foundation support for anti-aliasing available now. Redhat, for instance, has it available as of Redhat 7.1. Or look for the pre-release/unstable packages from your distro. This would be a good approach to take at this time if you want to be on the cutting edge, and may be more palatable for some than building each package from source.
To verify the necessary components, first make sure the "freetype" module (and any others) are loaded. Check the X server output:
(II) LoadModule: "freetype"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/fonts/libfreetype.a
(II) Module freetype: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
compiled for 4.0.3, module version = 1.1.9
Module class: XFree86 Font Renderer
ABI class: XFree86 Font Renderer, version 0.2
(II) Loading font FreeType
Then verify if the "RENDER" extension is available, either check with xdpyinfo, or check the X server log, typically /var/log/XFree86.0.log:
(II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
(II) Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension
(II) Initializing built-in extension XTEST
(II) Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD
(II) Initializing built-in extension LBX
(II) Initializing built-in extension XC-APPGROUP
(II) Initializing built-in extension SECURITY
(II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA
(II) Initializing built-in extension XFree86-Bigfont
(II) Initializing built-in extension RENDER
If "RENDER" is there, anti-aliasing and the other advanced rendering extensions should be enabled.
By Danny Tholen <obiwan@mailmij.org>
Xft is an interface to the freetype rasterizer written by Keith Packard, member of the XFree86 Project, Inc. It allows applications to use fonts from the new X render extension using a unified font naming scheme. In /etc/X11/XftConfig (or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XftConfig) you will find a configuration file which can be adapted to suit your personal taste. In this section I will explain the syntax and demonstrate some things you can do with this file.
The following information is based on 4.0.3. 4.1 is just released, and there may be a few new wrinkles not touched on here.
The basic structure revolves around a 'pattern'. A pattern is a set of name/valuelist pairs, each valuelist contains one or more typed values. A certain application requests a font, for example:
family: "Arial"
size: 12
encoding: "iso8859-1"
A size 12 arial font in latin-1 encoding. The Xft extension will now try to patch this pattern to all of the fonts available in the system. And selecting the one with the best score. Before the matching is done Xft looks in XftConfig. The requested pattern can here be extended before use. An example is:
match any family == "Arial" edit antialias = true;
This will enable anti-aliasing for all fonts of the family Arial.
Also, the X server is queried to list all of its fonts; the XLFD contains just enough information to match fonts roughly.
Here's a list of attributes used in matching fonts (in priority order, this may not be up to date anymore!):
foundry font foundry (string, like "monotype")
encoding font encoding (string, like "iso8859-1")
spacing font spacing (integers or proportional (0), mono (100),
charcell (110))
bold is the font bold? (boolean)
italic is the font italic? (boolean)
antialias is the font antialiased? (boolean)
family font family (string)
size font size (double)
style font style (string, like "Bold Italic")
slant font slant (roman, italic, oblique)
weight font weight ( integers or light, medium (100), demi-bold,
bold, black)
rasterizer not yet used (probably "TrueType", "Type1", ...)
outline are outlines available? (boolean)
Adds a directory to the list of places Xft will look for fonts. There is no particular order implied by the list; Xft treats all fonts about the same.
Cause Xft to load more configuration parameters from the indicated file. "includeif" doesn't elicit a complaint if the file doesn't exist. If the file name begins with a "~" character, it refers to a path relative to the home directory of the user. This is useful for user-specific configurations.
If a pattern from an application matches the pattern after "match", it is edited with the instructions in edit. The pattern match is done as follows:
match qual FIELD-NAME COMPARE CONSTANT
where qual is either any (matches one specific font) or all (matches all fonts). An example:
match all foundry==¨monotype¨
which will match (and edit) all fonts belonging to the foundry "monotype".
match any family==¨arial¨
will match (and edit) one specific font with the family name "arial".
FIELD-NAME is any one of the properties found in the above section Structure, or additionally:
pixelsize font size in pixels (integer)
charspace character space (integer)
minspace minimal spacing (integer)
rgba color hinting (string ¨rgb¨ or ¨bgr¨ and
vertical hinting ¨vrgb¨ ¨vbgr¨)
xlfd x server font (string, type xlsfonts to
see a list of your xlfd strings)
file the font file (string)
core use X core fonts? (boolean)
render use render fonts? (boolean)
index I have no idea what this does:)
scalable is the font scalable (boolean)
scale scale the font (integer)
charwidth character width (integer)
charheight character height (integer)
matrix no idea (not really at least)
COMPARE can be <, >, or ==.
CONSTANT is the value of the field-name in the appropriate type (see above section Structure).
You can use multiple matches before you use the "edit" statement:
edit FIELD-NAME ASSIGN EXPR SEMI
Where ASSIGN can be one of =, += or =+. With =, the matching value in the pattern will be replaced by the given expression. += or =+ will prepend/append a new value to the list of values for the indicated field.
EXPR sets the FIELD-NAME to a value.
SEMI is a semicolon (;). You can use multiple instructions, separated by a semicolon. See below for examples if this is confusing.
And now I´ll try to list a few useful configurations and explain them. Note that it is configured for my system, and I may use different fonts than you, so try to adapt the examples to your own needs.
How do I make fonts available to Xft?
List your Type 1 and TrueType font directories with "dir". On my system (Mandrake 7.2) this becomes:
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/drakfont"
How do I use a user specific XftConfig file?
Put an .xftconfig file in your user directory and add:
includeif "~/.xftconfig"
to your standard XftConfig. This will enable a user specific configuration file, but it will not complain if there is no such file.
How do I make aliases for my fonts?
I noted that my KDE console asks for "mono" fonts when it is looking for a fixed font. "console" is used when I select "linux" in the font menu of the KDE konsole. Therefore, I used two aliases for fonts which are also named "fixed":
match any family == "fixed" edit family =+ "mono";
match any family == "console" edit family =+ "mono";
Anti-aliasing my fonts makes me dizzy!
Although there is a big fuzz around AA in X, good fonts actually look better if they are not anti-aliased. The anti-aliasing blurs the fonts by adding gray pixels to the edges, and this may strain your eyes if you looking at them for a long time. (Your eyes will try to get the fonts sharper, which of course is not working because they are blurred;) However, for very small fonts, anti-aliasing may increase the readability of the fonts, because with sharp edges, there are to little pixels available for your mind to figure out what it means. And for bigger fonts, the edges become very jagged when not anti-aliased, so here you also might want to have aliased fonts. Of course you can also turn off the anti-aliasing for specific fonts. In other operating systems, most truetype fonts are not anti-aliased between 8 and 12 pixels, while only large Type1 fonts are anti-aliased.
Use the following in your XftConfig to anti-alias only fonts of specific sizes:
match
any size > 8
any size < 15
edit
antialias = false;
My fixed fonts do not appear or look _very_ wrong in the KDE konsole or similar programs!
I noted that somehow a lot of fixed font do not tell Xft that they are fixed, and thus, mono spaced. Therefore only a part of the font is displayed. We can manually set the spacing for these fonts (this assumes you have fixed aliased with mono as in question 3 above:
match
any family == "mono"
edit
spacing = mono;
My Symbol, Webdings, etc. fonts do not show up!
For some reason some (symbol) fonts are not correctly recognized, and Xft will show your default font, or a font which has the closest match (which is generally not what you mean at all). For Adobe Symbol and MS-webdings I did the following to get them working:
match
any family == "webdings"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "symbol"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
A useful way of figuring out these things is to activate debugging with:
export XFT_DEBUG=1024
This will generate a lot of output, especially if you have many fonts, because it lists the properties and scores of every font available. You can also use other values. For a nice summary of what happens (requested font, XftConfig substitutions, x server additions and the finally matched font), you can use XFT_DEBUG=2.
Why do my KDE programs start now soooo slooow?
The Xft mechanism in XFree prior to 4.1 had to parse the XftConfig file each time a program was started. And the info of all these fonts had to be re-read. As of X 4.1.0, a cache is used and starting applications using Xft is much faster. Especially if you have many fonts this can be very useful. So, upgrading XFree86, and related packages, is a good idea.
I have a LCD screen, can I use subpixel hinting instead of normal anti-aliasing?
Yes you can. Subpixel hinting uses colors instead of gray pixels to do the AA. I do not have a LCD screen so I do not have any idea of how it looks but you can play with the rgba setting. Try:
match edit rgba=bgr;
or use rgb if you have a different type of monitor. For vertical AA you can try vbgr and vbgr.
My fonts still look bad!
If you do not have some good truetype fonts, it is worth to go and look for them on the Internet. Other reasons why your fonts still look bad can be because of your build of freetype2. Snapshots versions before 2.0.2 were compiled with an option that had some patent issues. Therefore, the standard 2.0.2 and 2.0.3 compiles without this option. To fix this, download the freetype2 source rpm and change in include/freetype/config/ftoption.h line 314:
#undef TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
to:
#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
and rebuild with this modified source. See the freetype2 README file for details. Adobe Courier looks terrible on my system, so I made an alias so that Lucida console is displayed instead. If anyone can get it to display nicely I would appreciate it.
This is my XftConfig:
#
# XftConfig
#
# By: Danny Tholen
#
# Use with Type1 and TrueType fonts
#
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
dir "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/drakfont"
dir "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
#
# alias 'fixed' and 'console' for 'mono'
# (some programs ask for 'mono' if they mean 'fixed';)
#
match any family == "fixed" edit family =+ "mono";
match any family == "console" edit family =+ "mono";
#
#Check users config file
#
includeif "~/.xftconfig"
#
# Use TrueType fonts for defaults
# Danny: disabled
#match any family == "serif" edit family += "Times New Roman";
#match any family == "sans" edit family += "Verdana";
#
# Use lucida console as default fixed type font
# and set the spacing of "mono" to 100, this
# fixes broken fonts which are fixed, but do not
# set mono-spacing.
match
any family == "mono"
edit
family += "lucida console";
spacing = 100;
#
# Alias between XLFD families and font file family name, prefer local fonts
#
match any family == "Charter" edit family += "Bitstream Charter";
match any family == "Bitstream Charter" edit family =+ "Charter";
match any family == "Lucidux Serif" edit family += "LuciduxSerif";
match any family == "LuciduxSerif" edit family =+ "Lucidux Serif";
match any family == "Lucidux Sans" edit family += "LuciduxSans";
match any family == "LuciduxSans" edit family =+ "Lucidux Sans";
match any family == "Lucidux Mono" edit family += "LuciduxMono";
match any family == "LuciduxMono" edit family =+ "Lucidux Mono";
#
# TrueType font aliases
#
match any family == "Comic Sans" edit family += "Comic Sans MS";
match any family == "Comic Sans MS" edit family =+ "Comic Sans";
match any family == "Trebuchet" edit family += "Trebuchet MS";
match any family == "Trebuchet MS" edit family =+ "Trebuchet";
match any family == "Monotype" edit family =+ "Monotype.com";
match any family == "Andale Mono" edit family += "Monotype.com";
match any family == "Monotype.com" edit family =+ "Andale Mono";
# Danny:
# set the AA for different fonts
#
# most TT fonts do not need to be aliased between
# 8 and 15 points, although this might be a matter of taste.
match
any size > 8
any size < 15
edit
antialias = false;
# Danny: Courier looks terrible, and I
# cannot get most characters to fit nicely
# in their space. So I use courier 10 pitch
match
any family == "courier"
edit
family += "courier 10 pitch";
# these are symbols, and for some reason this needs to be added!:
match
any family == "webdings"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "symbol"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "Standard Symbols L"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "dingbats"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
match
any family == "Cursor"
edit
antialias = false;
encoding += "glyphs-fontspecific";
# maybe arial looks better like this?:
match
any family == "Arial"
any size > 7
any size < 15
edit
antialias = false;
# end
You've gone through all the steps, and verified that the "RENDER" extension is available, but you don't perceive a difference? Well, maybe the applications themselves just aren't there yet, and are not able to utilize these new features. Mozilla and Netscape, for instance, are not able to yet (as of this writing).
So how to know what does and does not make use of anti-aliasing? A quick test is to use something like xmag, or gimp, and enlarge the text considerably. Look for diagonal lines, and if they are clearly stair-stepped with no softened edges. If so, then while anti-aliasing is technically available, it is not being used. With anti-aliasing you should see gradients instead of well defined sharp edges. You can compare this with xterm and "AA":
$xterm -fa charter -fs 14
Redhat 7.0 introduced some changes to X configuration over previous Redhat versions. It is also different from the stock XFree86 configuration as addressed above. Notable differences:
Both XFree86 3.3.6 and 4.x are included. If upgrading you may wind up with 3.3.6. The X configuration file is XF86Config for 3.3.6 and XF86Config-4 for 4.x. Of course, you'll need to know which is which for editing and configuration purposes.
xfs is still handling all font duties. A default Redhat 7.x installation does not use the 'modules' section of XF86Config. Instead it relies on xfs. This is different from a stock installation of XFree86 4.x where the X server does all the font work -- including TrueType.
The socket for xfs is "unix/:7100" with RH 7.x, as opposed to "unix/:-1" in previous versions.