Will my fonts every look good?

[Bill Moseley <moseley@hank.org>]

I think I've spent too much time messing with my fonts, reading TrueType,
AA, and de-uglification HOWTOs, and messing things up with msttcorefonts.

Is it possible to get really nice looking fonts overall?

Any help on any of these would be helpful.

I have some screen shots.

1) http://hank.org/fonts.png

After installing mscorettfonts Opera's form fields are a big font (see
drop-down bos), and in Mozilla (on the left) the menu is AA I think.  
That side-bar menu is ugly.  

(Is that right that Mozilla uses AA fonts even if there's not a Xftconfig
file??)

2) http://hank.org/fonts2.png

That the same look but using a XftConfig file to enable AA fonts in Opera.
I think I like the non-AA fonts in Opera better.  Mabye I'm just not an
AA-kind of fellow.

3) http://hank.org/fonts3.png 

Shows that I can't type at this time of night, somewhat ugly AA fonts in
Google results for both Opera and Mozilla, and how msttcorefonts seems to
have messed up some of my programs (xfontsel).  A number of x* programs
use that "comic sans ms" font by default.  Argh!

4) http://hank.org/fonts4.png

Some more ugly fonts in abiword.  I haven't messed with it much.


5) Finally, when printing with jpilot on my HP LaserJet with Cupsys the
fonts are ugly (well at least when printing a monthly calendar landscape).

Someone mentioned I might need to install "Screen Fonts".  Anyone know
about this, and what I need to do?

I'm running XFree86 4.2.1, Debian 2.4.20, with nvidia drivers & a Gforce2
TI. 21" Sony G500 monitor at 1152x864.  My eyse are not what they used to
be.


$ dpkg -l | grep font
ii  console-data   2002.12.04dbs- Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fallback table
ii  console-tools  0.2.3-23.3     Linux console and font utilities.
ii  console-tools- 0.2.3-23.3     Shared libraries for Linux console and font 
ii  defoma         0.11.1         Debian Font Manager -- automatic font config
ii  fontconfig     2.1-10         generic font configuration library
ii  gsfonts        6.0-2.1        Fonts for the ghostscript interpreter
ii  gsfonts-x11    0.16           Make Ghostscript fonts available to X11.
ii  libfontconfig1 2.1-10         generic font configuration library (shared l
ii  libfontconfig1 2.1-10         generic font configuration library (developm
ii  libfreetype6   2.1.3-4        FreeType 2 font engine, shared library files
ii  libfreetype6-d 2.1.3-4        FreeType 2 font engine, development files
ii  msttcorefonts  1.1.2          Installer for Microsoft TrueType core fonts
ii  psfontmgr      0.11.1         PostScript font manager -- part of Defoma, D
ii  x-ttcidfont-co 13             Configure TrueType and CID fonts for X.
ii  xfonts-100dpi  4.2.1-3        100 dpi fonts for X
ii  xfonts-75dpi   4.2.1-3        75 dpi fonts for X
ii  xfonts-base    4.2.1-3        standard fonts for X
ii  xfonts-scalabl 4.2.1-3        scalable fonts for X
ii  xfs            4.2.1-3        X font server




-- 
Bill Moseley moseley@hank.org