Re: Bug#254223: ttf-bitstream-vera: lowercase m character too narrow (6x15 rather than 7x15)

[Michael Fedrowitz <michaelf debian org>]

merge 254189 254223
tags 254223 + upstream
forwarded 254223 fonts gnome org
thanks

On Sun, Jun 13, 2004 at 02:27:55PM -0400, Geoff Goodell wrote:

 Hi,

> The Bitstream Vera Sans Mono font that is 15 pixels in height (I would
> specify a point size, but that seems to vary depending upon other
> characteristics of my environment) seems to have a problem.
> Specifically, the lowercase 'm' glyph is one pixel too narrow; whereas
> other characters have a width of seven pixels, the width of 'm' is only
> six pixels.  This is really frustrating, since I use the 15-pixel-high
> Sans Mono to display code and other text that should align properly.
> 
> Some applications (e.g. gnome-terminal) seem to correct for
> misalignment.  However, other applications (notably: browsers like
> Mozilla) do not.  To see the problem for yourself, you need only visit
> this web page:
> 
> http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~goodell/font-problem.txt
> 
> Here is what that web page looks like to me:
> 
> http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~goodell/font-problem.gif
> 
> Notice that 'm' is the only lowercase letter that exhibits this
> characteristic.  I have observed that with both larger and smaller font
> sizes, this behavior is not present, and things work fine.
> 
> I really like Bitstream fonts, but this 'm' problem sadly renders this
> particular font unusable for me, at least in this particular size.
> 
> Please let me know if you need more information.  Note that I have
> antialiasing enabled, but I don't think that this should make a
> difference.

Ok, I've played with this for a bit: first of all I can only reproduce
this in mozilla based browsers (and for some reason it happens at
different sizes in different browsers). This might mean it's a problem
in mozilla's rendering. Also this only happens when using the bytecode
interpreter, but not when using the autohinter (or when using no hinting
at all). This could either point at a bug in freetype's bytecode
interpreter or at some obscure problem in Vera's hinting.

Which of the three it is, I have no idea, but maybe someone else has
some more insight here.

-Michael


> -- Package-specific info:
> Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
> | Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
> |/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
> ||/ Name                 Version              Description
> +++-====================-====================-========================================================
> ii  libfreetype6         2.1.7-2              FreeType 2 font engine, shared library files
> ii  libxft2              2.1.2-6              FreeType-based font drawing library for X
> ii  fontconfig           2.2.2-1              generic font configuration library