Tagged: fonts

Inconsistent font rendering in GNOME and KDE


I’m running KDE on (K)Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) and here’s the problem. I start KWrite and GEdit, and configure them to use the **exact same font**. However, the two applications render the same font very very differently. Check out these screenshots to see what I mean.

**KWrite with Inconsolata 11pt, 96 dpi**
{{http://floatingsun.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/screenshot11.png|KWrite Inconsolata 11pt}}

**GEdit with Inconsolata 11pt, 96 dpi**
{{http://floatingsun.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/screenshot12.png|GEdit Inconsolata 11pt}}

Dear lazy web, if any of you know how to get KDE and GNOME to render fonts in the same way, please let me know. I have made sure both KDE and GNOME are rendering fonts using the same DPI. I have tried with other fonts as well with similar results. I’ve always had issues with fonts rendering differently in GNOME and KDE, so this really isn’t a distribution specific problem.

**Update (11/01/07 2pm PST)**

Some useful links I discovered after writing this post:
* [[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.kde.general/15660|font size, dpi and rendering in KDE and GNOME]]
* [[http://scanline.ca/dpi/|X Server DPI]]
* [[http://www.mozilla.org/unix/dpi.html|http://www.mozilla.org/unix/dpi.html]]

Favorite programmer fonts


I’m very particular about my [[http://floatingsun.net/2006/07/06/the-essential-workspace/|working environment]], specially the font that I use for programming, reading mails etc. I prefer monospace fonts for programming as well as reading mails.

When I first started serious programming, I didn’t really pay much attention to what font I was using — I just used to go with the defaults. It wasn’t until I was reading an introductory book on Java by [[wp>James_Gosling|James Gosling]] (it was one of the early editions of //The Java Programming Language//) that I realized what I was missing. They had used Lucida Sans Typewriter for all of the code samples in that book and I just immediately fell in love. Fortunately, the Java SDK has always shipped with that font, so obtaining the font wasn’t a problem.

{{ http://floatingsun.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/fonts.png|Monospace Fonts}}

I stuck with Lucida Sans Typewriter for a very long time, at least a couple of years. After starting grad school, when I started playing around with Debian, I heard of a new family of free fonts called [[http://www.gnome.org/fonts/|Bitstream Vera]]. The fixed font in that family was very catchy — at that time, the GNOME folks had a lot of screenshots up on the web (all featuring Bitstream Vera), it was plain, simple, crisp and a refreshing change from Lucida Sans Typewriter. And a huge plus was that gVim looked beautiful with Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

And so it was for another few years. Recently though, a new font seems to have taken the editing world by storm. Thanks to the new found love developers have found for the Mac OS, as well as the inadvertant evangelizing by the likes of [[http://macromates.com/|Textmate]], [[http://www.rubyonrails.org/screencasts|Ruby on Rails]], [[http://turbogears.org/|Turbogears]] etc, [[wp>Monaco_%28typeface%29|Monaco]] has become immensely popular. To me, its greatest appeal is that at first glance it doesn’t //seem// like its a fixed-width font, and its curves are strangely enticing. You can find a copy of the font for use on Linux at [[http://www.gringod.com/2006/11/01/new-version-of-monaco-font/|GrinGod]].

So what are your favorite monospace fonts?