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Re: Configurint order of fallback fonts



On Sun, 14 Feb 2010 17:08:14 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:

> Thanks, Camaleón. I really thought that the font fallback was handled by
> the OS, not by OOo itself. 

I'd say "fifty-fifty" :-)

> Therefore, while this solves my current
> issue, it still leaves the general case unsolved. Is this always handled
> at the application level, or is there OS font substitution as well?

It is explained a bit in the above link (copy/paste):

***
OOo uses several ways to find a suitable replacement:

* font alias information provided by the system (e.g. from a fonts.dir 
file)
* hard-coded list of fallback-fonts, from VCL.xcu (tried first)
* alternative font name spellings
* font-attributes (e.g. does it have CJK-characters, is it a Symbol-font) 
or style (serif/non-serif, proportional/non-proportional) 

if all that fails as well:

* use a default font 
***

The first point ("font alias provided by the system") is what I am 
currently using for Iceweasel: I do not have installed Helvetica font 
face in my system so the default fontconfig setup "auto-replaces" 
Helvetica with Nimbus Sans, with looks horrible in my system (I don't 
have anti-aliasing enabled).

In order to get another font rendered, I had to create a "~/.fonts.conf" 
file to give the highest preference to Arial instead Nimbus Sans. This 
way, whenever Helvetica is found, it just renders Arial, because of the 
aforementioned setting.

This works very well with Iceweasel but I guess it will depend on each 
application. As long as apps honor this setting (it seems OOo and 
Iceweasel do), it should be possible to perform a more /fine-grained/ 
font susbtitution.

I found this Debian FAQ very useful when i was looking for information 
about fonts:

http://wiki.debian.org/Fonts/Defoma

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


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