[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#495598: [ghostscript] opentypefont

[Fabian Greffrath]

Am 08.02.2011 15:32, schrieb Fabian Greffrath:
> I have seen many bug reports in which people complained about
> improperly rendered web pages that had their prefered font set to
> either Helvetica of Nimbus Sans, which means that the type1 system
> fonts are selected for display. I am not sure, but I believe that the
> kerning information for these fonts are not taken into account in
> these cases. With truetype fonts (which have the information of both
> the afm and the pfb file compiled in by fontforge) this problem should
> be solved, while still preserving the original shape of the font.

This is indeed the truth!

1) I have only the regular gsfonts package installed, fontconfig uses 
the Nimbus Sans L Type1 variant (.pfb extension) as a replacement for 
Helvetica:

$ fc-match Helvetica
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"

2) I render an example text using pango-view and requesting the 
Helvetica font. The resulting PNG is attached to this email:

$ pango-view --font "Helvetica" --text "Zwölf Boxkämpfer jagen Viktor 
quer über den großen Sylter Deich." -o n019003l_pfb.png

3) Now I convert the Type1 font into Truetype format and copy the 
resulting ttf file into my ~/.fonts directory. Fontforge immediately 
prefers this one over the Type1 variant (mind the .ttf extension), so 
there is no further action neecssary on the fontconfig side:

$ fc-match Helvetica
n019003l.ttf: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"

4) Now I render the exact same text again:

$ pango-view --font "Helvetica" --text "Zwölf Boxkämpfer jagen Viktor 
quer über den großen Sylter Deich." -o n019003l_ttf.png

Please note the difference in hinting: It is completely messed up with 
the pfb variant and has vastly improved with the ttf variant.

We should provide the transformed fonts ASAP!

  - Fabian
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