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1 Bitstream Vera Fonts - April 16, 2003
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2 =====================================
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3
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4 The version number of these fonts is 1.10 to distinguish them from the
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5 beta test fonts.
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6
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7 Note that the Vera copyright is incorporated in the fonts themselves.
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8 The License field in the fonts contains the copyright license as it
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9 appears below. The TrueType copyright field is not large enough to
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10 contain the full license, so the license is incorporated (as you might
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11 think if you thought about it) into the license field, which
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12 unfortunately can be obscure to find. (In pfaedit, see: Element->Font
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13 Info->TTFNames->License).
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14
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15 Our apologies for it taking longer to complete the fonts than planned.
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16 Beta testers requested a tighter line spacing (less leading) and Jim
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17 Lyles redesigned Vera's accents to bring its line spacing to more
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18 typical of other fonts. This took additional time and effort. Our
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19 thanks to Jim for this effort above and beyond the call of duty.
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20
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21 There are four monospace and sans faces (normal, oblique, bold, bold
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22 oblique) and two serif faces (normal and bold). Fontconfig/Xft2 (see
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23 www.fontconfig.org) can artificially oblique the serif faces for you:
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24 this loses hinting and distorts the faces slightly, but is visibly
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25 different than normal and bold, and reasonably pleasing.
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26
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27 On systems with fontconfig 2.0 or 2.1 installed, making your sans,
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28 serif and monospace fonts default to these fonts is very easy. Just
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29 drop the file local.conf into your /etc/fonts directory. This will
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30 make the Bitstream fonts your default fonts for all applications using
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31 fontconfig (if sans, serif, or monospace names are used, as they often
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32 are as default values in many desktops). The XML in local.conf may
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33 need modification to enable subpixel decimation, if appropriate,
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34 however, the commented out phrase does so for XFree86 4.3, in the case
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35 that the server does not have sufficient information to identify the
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36 use of a flat panel. Fontconfig 2.2 adds Vera to the list of font
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37 families and will, by default use it as the default sans, serif and
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38 monospace fonts.
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39
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40 During the testing of the final Vera fonts, we learned that screen
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41 fonts in general are only typically hinted to work correctly at
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42 integer pixel sizes. Vera is coded internally for integer sizes only.
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43 We need to investigate further to see if there are commonly used fonts
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44 that are hinted to be rounded but are not rounded to integer sizes due
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45 to oversights in their coding.
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46
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47 Most fonts work best at 8 pixels and below if anti-aliased only, as
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48 the amount of work required to hint well at smaller and smaller sizes
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49 becomes astronomical. GASP tables are typically used to control
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50 whether hinting is used or not, but Freetype/Xft does not currently
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51 support GASP tables (which are present in Vera).
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52
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53 To mitigate this problem, both for Vera and other fonts, there will be
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54 (very shortly) a new fontconfig 2.2 release that will, by default not
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55 apply hints if the size is below 8 pixels. if you should have a font
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56 that in fact has been hinted more agressively, you can use fontconfig
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57 to note this exception. We believe this should improve many hinted
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58 fonts in addition to Vera, though implemeting GASP support is likely
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59 the right long term solution.
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60
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61 Font rendering in Gnome or KDE is the combination of algorithms in
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62 Xft2 and Freetype, along with hinting in the fonts themselves. It is
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63 vital to have sufficient information to disentangle problems that you
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64 may observe.
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65
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66 Note that having your font rendering system set up correctly is vital
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67 to proper judgement of problems of the fonts:
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68
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69 * Freetype may or may not be configured to in ways that may
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70 implement execution of possibly patented (in some parts of the world)
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71 TrueType hinting algorithms, particularly at small sizes. Best
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72 results are obtained while using these algorithms.
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73
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74 * The freetype autohinter (used when the possibly patented
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75 algorithms are not used) continues to improve with each release. If
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76 you are using the autohinter, please ensure you are using an up to
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77 date version of freetype before reporting problems.
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78
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79 * Please identify what version of freetype you are using in any
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80 bug reports, and how your freetype is configured.
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81
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82 * Make sure you are not using the freetype version included in
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83 XFree86 4.3, as it has bugs that significantly degrade most fonts,
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84 including Vera. if you build XFree86 4.3 from source yourself, you may
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85 have installed this broken version without intending it (as I
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86 did). Vera was verified with the recently released Freetype 2.1.4. On
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87 many systems, 'ldd" can be used to see which freetype shared library
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88 is actually being used.
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89
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90 * Xft/X Render does not (yet) implement gamma correction. This
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91 causes significant problems rendering white text on a black background
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92 (causing partial pixels to be insufficiently shaded) if the gamma of
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93 your monitor has not been compensated for, and minor problems with
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94 black text on a while background. The program "xgamma" can be used to
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95 set a gamma correction value in the X server's color pallette. Most
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96 monitors have a gamma near 2.
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97
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98 * Note that the Vera family uses minimal delta hinting. Your
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99 results on other systems when not used anti-aliased may not be
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100 entirely satisfying. We are primarily interested in reports of
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101 problems on open source systems implementing Xft2/fontconfig/freetype
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102 (which implements antialiasing and hinting adjustements, and
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103 sophisticated subpixel decimation on flatpanels). Also, the
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104 algorithms used by Xft2 adjust the hints to integer widths and the
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105 results are crisper on open source systems than on Windows or
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106 MacIntosh.
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107
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108 * Your fontconfig may (probably does) predate the release of
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109 fontconfig 2.2, and you may see artifacts not present when the font is
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110 used at very small sizes with hinting enabled. "vc-list -V" can be
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111 used to see what version you have installed.
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112
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113 We believe and hope that these fonts will resolve the problems
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114 reported during beta test. The largest change is the reduction of
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115 leading (interline spacing), which had annoyed a number of people, and
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116 reduced Vera's utility for some applcations. The Vera monospace font
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117 should also now make '0' and 'O' and '1' and 'l' more clearly
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118 distinguishable.
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119
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120 The version of these fonts is version 1.10. Fontconfig should be
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121 choosing the new version of the fonts if both the released fonts and
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122 beta test fonts are installed (though please discard them: they have
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123 names of form tt20[1-12]gn.ttf). Note that older versions of
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124 fontconfig sometimes did not rebuild their cache correctly when new
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125 fonts are installed: please upgrade to fontconfig 2.2. "fc-cache -f"
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126 can be used to force rebuilding fontconfig's cache files.
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127
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128 If you note problems, please send them to fonts at gnome dot org, with
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129 exactly which face and size and unicode point you observe the problem
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130 at. The xfd utility from XFree86 CVS may be useful for this (e.g. "xfd
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131 -fa sans"). A possibly more useful program to examine fonts at a
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132 variety of sizes is the "waterfall" program found in Keith Packard's
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133 CVS.
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134
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135 $ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:/local/src/CVS login
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136 Logging in to :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:2401/local/src/CVS
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137 CVS password: <hit return>
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138 $ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@keithp.com:/local/src/CVS co waterfall
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139 $ cd waterfall
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140 $ xmkmf -a
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141 $ make
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142 # make install
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143 # make install.man
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144
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145 Again, please make sure you are running an up-to-date freetype, and
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146 that you are only examining integer sizes.
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147
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148 Reporting Problems
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149 ==================
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150
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151 Please send problem reports to fonts at gnome org, with the following
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152 information:
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153
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154 1. Version of Freetype, Xft2 and fontconfig
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155 2. Whether TT hinting is being used, or the autohinter
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156 3. Application being used
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157 4. Character/Unicode code point that has problems (if applicable)
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158 5. Version of which operating system
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159 6. Please include a screenshot, when possible.
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160
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161 Please check the fonts list archives before reporting problems to cut
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162 down on duplication.
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