bugFree UCS Outline Fonts - Bugs: bug #49500, bold lowercase 'i' looks uppercase...

 
 

bug #49500: bold lowercase 'i' looks uppercase 'I'

Submitter:  None
Submitted:  Tue 01 Nov 2016 04:46:41 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  web pages Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  screen rendering Status:  Non-bug
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  Stevan_White
Originator Email:  -email is unavailable- Open/Closed:  Open
Release:  * 2012-05-03
* Mandatory Fields

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Tue 01 Nov 2016 11:01:13 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Hi David,

Well that looks better than your other post, but worse than my experiment with FireFox.  Of course I did mine in Windows 10, like the original poster -- I don't know how big the difference is regarding font rendering.

You might consider fiddling wiht the ClearType settings.

Cheers!

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 01 Nov 2016 10:50:53 PM UTC, comment #6: 

I am not the original poster, I was just trying to demonstrate the different sizes as seen in Firefox on Windows since you said to the OP that you didn't have a Windows machine handy.

My image #38860 is of the ttf version in Firefox. I made screenshots at each size, and put the snippets into a single graphic, for convenience.

I have attached a new screenshot, this from LibreOffice Writer, showing Free Sans ttf at 6 to 12 points in half-point increments. Again, this is at 120 dpi.


David Lasher <dlasher>
Tue 01 Nov 2016 10:33:11 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Same thing on Linux.
Linux wins.
But of course, Linux is the primary target of this project.

The small t at 6 and 5 point does funny things in Windows.  I'm guessing it's a hinting issue.  Windows makes much heavier use of hings than anything on Linux has, and they have batallions of workers hand-hinting fonts.  Yet...the font renderer on Linux does better without all that.  There is a tale here, I think.

Cheers!


Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 01 Nov 2016 10:07:27 PM UTC, comment #4: 

See attached.

Windows 10
Firefox 49.0.2
FreeFont (ttf) 20120503

I'll give you it's marginal at 5 pt.  And I had never noticed the capital G left so little space on the right.  I'll fix that.

But no, something isn't installed or configured rignt on your systems.  Best guess: you're using the OpenType build, contrary to the instructions.  The dot on the i is distinct even at 6 pt, and visible at 5 pt.

Let me know how it goes!

(file #38862,

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 01 Nov 2016 09:38:26 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Hi David:

It would be helpful to report:

  • is this the TrueType or OpenType build of the font
  • what application you used to generate the picture

without this it's difficult to know how to reproduce your issue.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 01 Nov 2016 08:50:19 PM UTC, comment #2: 

For what it's worth, here is what I see.

Windows 7 x64
Display 1920×1080 at 120 dpi
Firefox 49.0.2
Free Sans ttf version

This is the relevant snippet at sizes 10 thru 16.



David Lasher <dlasher>
Tue 01 Nov 2016 06:38:56 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Hello, anoonymous,

On my system (Linux Mint 18) using Firefox 49.0.2, the page looks quite different from your image.  See attached.  This is using 10 pt font, which seems rather smaller than what you have.

To me, the dot on the i is quite distinct, and the e's are better shaped than in your picture.  But overall the letters are lighter in your picture, and the GN is spaced better, I think.

All of these effects are games being played by the font rendering software, trying to put small shapes in a pixellated environment.  At small font sizes the behavior becomes very idiosyncratic.  At some point, trade-offs must be made.

There are some things to look for though.  For Windows, make sure you install the TrueType (.ttf) package, rather than the OpenType. The former is hinted, and Windows makes more use of hinting.

In Firefox there are hidden setting (under about:config) that affect font rendering.

In Windows, the font rendering technology is called ClearType.  It has adjustments and can be turned on and off.

Fiddle around with these.  Meanwhile I'll have a look at the page in Windows, once I get to a machine that's running it.

Cheers!




Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 01 Nov 2016 04:46:41 AM UTC, original submission:  

font: FreeSans
browser: Firefox Beta 50.0b11
(default font option at: about:preferences#content at the location bar)
dist: Windows 10
page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_FreeFont

issues:
1. bold lowercase 'i' looks uppercase 'I' or lowercase'l'
2. bold lowercase 'e' looks like a stout round bold phi character.
3. basically, the font in bold

Anonymous

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #38865:  Free Sans 6-12.png added by dlasher (16KiB - image/png)
file #38863:  waterfall.png added by Stevan_White (38KiB - image/png)
file #38860:  Free Sans 10-16.png added by dlasher (10KiB - image/png)
file #38857:  Font-linux.png added by Stevan_White (257KiB - image/png)
file #38852:  font.PNG added by None (311KiB - image/png)
file #38851:  font.PNG added by None (311KiB - image/png - FreeSerif has issues as well when in bold)

 

Depends on the following items: None found

Items that depend on this one: None found

 

Carbon-Copy List
  • -email is unavailable- added by dlasher (Updated the item)
  • -email is unavailable- added by Stevan_White (Updated the item)
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    Follow 11 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2016-11-01 dlasher Attached File- Added Free Sans 6-12.png, #38865
    2016-11-01 Stevan_White Attached File- Added waterfall-linux.png, #38864
    2016-11-01 Stevan_White Attached File- Added lasher-sizes.html, #38862
        Attached File- Added waterfall.png, #38863
        StatusNeed info Non-bug
    2016-11-01 dlasher Attached File- Added Free Sans 10-16.png, #38860
    2016-11-01 Stevan_White Attached File- Added Font-linux.png, #38857
        StatusNone Need info
        Assigned toNone Stevan_White
    2016-11-01 None Attached File- Added font.PNG, #38852
    2016-11-01 None Attached File- Added font.PNG, #38851

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