[Pkg-fonts-bugs] Bug#358526: ligature problems in freefont

[Jan Willem Stumpel]

Thanks for this prompt action. However, we are not there yet.

In the new version the strange st ligature in FreeSerif is still
present and mandatory, and shows when web pages are viewed *in
Firefox*.

The st ligature should IMHO not be used with Roman fonts. It may
look elegant in Italic fonts, but in Roman fonts it looks just silly.

Also, there seems to be something wrong with the horizontal
spacing of the st ligature (and of other ligatures in FreeSerif).
One effect is that when a word ends with st, the following space
shrinks to almost nothing.

This shows up only in pages in which the text is *justified*! An
example is http://www.dur.ac.uk/m.d.eddy/HoSinDurhamHarriot.html

-- see how the supposedly "justified" text is in fact rather
   ragged on the right when FreeSerif is used. Lines with
   ligatures in them are too short. Somehow the width reported for
   purposes of justification seems different from the width for
   display.
-- see also the strange "shifting" effect when portions of a line
   are selected in this page.

These effects are also present with FreeSans, but to a lesser
extent, because the often-occurring st ligature is not mandatory
in FreeSans. With the new version of FreeMono, which neutralises
all ligatures, the effects do not occur at all.

This may be a "new bug".

Regards, Jan