Bug 129081

Summary:	sans font defaults to Verdana when MSfonts are downloaded
Product:	[openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1	Reporter:	Matthias Hopf <mhopf>
Component:	Basesystem	Assignee:	Mike Fabian <mfabian>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	adrian.schroeter, coolo
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	Other
OS:	Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Other	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Matthias Hopf 2005-10-18 16:32:49 UTC

The default font sans-serif is currently mapped to Verdana, if the Microsoft
fonts are downloaded via YOU.

As Verdana is not Helvetica compatible, this gives users a lot of headaches, as
the metrics of the default font doesn't match the most often used metric. I have
an example of an pdf that looks bad in kpdf, because it falls down to
sans-serif, while xpdf explicitely loads Nimbus Sans, which is Helvetica compatible.

All Helvetica compatible fonts should come first in the default list.
The same goes for serif and monospace, of course.

Comment 1 Mike Fabian 2005-10-20 09:22:59 UTC

Can you please attach the example pdf for reference?

Comment 2 Mike Fabian 2005-10-20 10:20:31 UTC

I submitted the following change to STABLE:

++++++ suse-post-user.conf ++++++
--- /work/SRC/all/BASE/fontconfig/suse-post-user.conf	2005-09-27 14:54:36.000000000 +0200
+++ /sakura/mfabian/suse-packages/STABLE/fontconfig/suse-post-user.conf	2005-10-20 11:58:41.000000000 +0200
@@ -12,12 +12,12 @@
 		<prefer>
 			<family>Times New Roman</family>
 			<family>Thorndale AMT</family>
-			<family>SUSE Serif</family>
 			<family>Nimbus Roman No9 L</family>
+			<family>SUSE Serif</family>
+			<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
 			<family>Luxi Serif</family>
 			<family>Likhan</family>
 			<family>FreeSerif</family>
-			<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
 			<family>Times</family>
 			<family>TSCu_Times</family>
 			<family>BPG Chveulebrivi</family>
@@ -39,15 +39,15 @@
 	<alias>
 		<family>sans-serif</family>
 		<prefer>
-			<family>Verdana</family>
 			<family>Arial</family>
 			<family>Albany AMT</family>
+			<family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
+			<family>Verdana</family>
 			<family>SUSE Sans</family>
+			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans</family>
 			<family>Luxi Sans</family>
 			<family>Mukti Narrow</family>
 			<family>FreeSans</family>
-			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans</family>
-			<family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
 			<family>Helvetica</family>
 			<family>TSCu_Paranar</family>
 			<family>BPG Glaho</family>
@@ -67,15 +67,15 @@
 	<alias>
 		<family>monospace</family>
 		<prefer>
-			<family>Andale Mono</family>
 			<family>Courier New</family>
 			<family>Cumberland AMT</family>
-			<family>SUSE Sans Mono</family>
 			<family>Nimbus Mono L</family>
+			<family>Andale Mono</family>
+			<family>SUSE Sans Mono</family>
+			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family>
 			<family>Luxi Mono</family>
 			<family>Mukti Narrow</family>
 			<family>FreeMono</family>
-			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family>
 			<family>Terafik</family>
 			<family>TSCu_Paranar</family>
 			<family>BPG Courier</family>

Comment 3 Mike Fabian 2005-10-20 10:31:20 UTC

This will not change the default fonts slightly:

-  If the Microsoft webfonts are installed:

   + "Arial" will be used for "sans-serif" instead of "Verdana". "Arial"
     is metric compatible to "Helvetica", "Verdana" is not, it is wider.

   + "Courier New" will be used for "monospace" instead of "Andale Mono".

   + no change for "serif"

-  If the Microsoft fonts are *not* installed but the Agfa fonts are installed:

   + no change for any of "serif", "sans-serif", and "monospace"

-  If neither the Microsoft fonts nor the Agfa fonts are installed:

   + "Nimbus Roman No9 L" will be used for "serif" instead of "SUSE Serif"
      because "Nimbus Roman No9 L" is metric compatible to "Times".

   + "Nimbus Sans L" will be used instead of "SUSE Sans" for "sans-serif"
     because "Nimbus Sans L" is metric compatible to "Helvetica".

   + "Nimbus Mono L" will be used instead of "SUSE Sans Mono" because
     it is compatible to "Courier".

Comment 4 Mike Fabian 2005-10-20 10:32:05 UTC

Closing as FIXED because the above change is submitted to STABLE.

Comment 5 Mike Fabian 2006-11-10 15:11:50 UTC

The problem in kpdf seems to have been fixed in the meantime.

Matthias and me just tried and could not reproduce the problem
in kpdf anymore.

If a pdf-document, which specifies "Helvetica" but does not embed the
font, is displayed with kpdf, it is displayed correctly no matter
which font is made the default for "sans-serif".

kpdf requests "Helvetica" (probably it didn't do that before)
and then the rule in /etc/fonts/conf.d/30-urw-aliases.conf defines
"Nimbus Sans L" as a suitable replacement for "Helvetica".

Therefore, I believe that we are free now to choose what looks nicest
as the defaults for "sans-serif", "serif", and "monospace", we don't
have to choose fonts which are metric compatible to the Adobe fonts
any more.

Comment 6 Mike Fabian 2006-11-10 16:42:01 UTC

fontconfig package with defaults changed as follows submitted to STABLE:

Index: suse-post-user.conf
===================================================================
--- suse-post-user.conf     (revision 47) 
+++ suse-post-user.conf     (working copy) 
@@ -12,10 +12,10 @@
 		<prefer>
 			<family>Times New Roman</family>
 			<family>Thorndale AMT</family>
-			<family>Nimbus Roman No9 L</family>
 			<family>DejaVu Serif</family>
 			<family>SUSE Serif</family>
 			<family>Bitstream Vera Serif</family>
+			<family>Nimbus Roman No9 L</family>
 			<family>Luxi Serif</family>
 			<family>Likhan</family>
 			<family>Frank Ruehl CLM</family>
@@ -50,11 +50,11 @@
 		<prefer>
 			<family>Arial</family>
 			<family>Albany AMT</family>
-			<family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
 			<family>Verdana</family>
 			<family>DejaVu Sans</family>
 			<family>SUSE Sans</family>
 			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans</family>
+			<family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
 			<family>Luxi Sans</family>
 			<family>Mukti Narrow</family>
 			<family>Nachlieli CLM</family>
@@ -85,13 +85,13 @@
 	<alias>
 		<family>monospace</family>
 		<prefer>
-			<family>Courier New</family>
-			<family>Cumberland AMT</family>
-			<family>Nimbus Mono L</family>
 			<family>Andale Mono</family>
 			<family>DejaVu Sans Mono</family>
 			<family>SUSE Sans Mono</family>
 			<family>Bitstream Vera Sans Mono</family>
+			<family>Courier New</family>
+			<family>Cumberland AMT</family>
+			<family>Nimbus Mono L</family>
 			<family>Luxi Mono</family>
 			<family>Mukti Narrow</family>
 			<family>Miriam Mono CLM</family>

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