Problem with curly braces (hinting issue?) [Debian]

[paride]

At some zoom levels the {} characters do not appear aligned as they should, see the attached picture. This happens with both the official builds and with ttf files built from source (ttfautohint 1.8).

[chrissimpkins]

Can you let me know what sizes are affected between 8 - 14? I am assuming you are viewing this on Debian with default hinting settings?

[paride]

That's with size 10. I'm viewing it on Debian with the default hinting settings, that now are set to "slight hinting".

[chrissimpkins]

What application are you viewing it in? I need to get an idea of the renderer to see if I can reproduce this. Can you also confirm that it occurs at other sizes between 8 - 14? No need for additional screenshots, just need the sizes affected for you.

[paride]

At first I noticed it in a terminal emulator, but then I easily reproduced in with LibreOffice Writer, where I took the screenshot from.

I've not been able to reproduce it with other sizes. It also depend on the zoom setting: the screenshot is taken using a 150% zoom (things are tiny on my 1920x1080 14 inch laptop screen). If I zoom less or more, then issue isn't visible anymore.

[chrissimpkins]

At 100% as viewed normally it is not visible?

[paride]

Not visible.

[chrissimpkins]

Will try to reproduce. I have been viewing on Arch and Ubuntu. Mind showing me your xrdb -query for reference?

[paride]

$ xrdb -query
*customization: -color
Xcursor.size:   28

[chrissimpkins]

Here is what I am seeing on Arch at size 10:

zoomed:

and on Ubuntu at size 10:

zoomed:

All images in Libre Office Writer 5.

I'm afraid I cannot reproduce this. Maybe it is an artifact of the zoom tool for some reason?

[chrissimpkins]

This is one of the best sources of Linux specific documentation about font rendering that I have come across:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Font_configuration

and this is also helpful:

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Improve_Font_Rendering

Your ~/.Xresources settings appear different than those on my Arch and Ubuntu systems. For instance, here are the settings on Ubuntu:

*customization:	-color
Xft.dpi:	96
Xft.antialias:	1
Xft.hinting:	1
Xft.hintstyle:	hintslight
Xft.rgba:	rgb
Xcursor.size:	24
Xcursor.theme:	DMZ-White

See the Manjaro documentation link above. It might be worth an attempt at modifying those settings to see if you get improved font rendering across the board on your system if this is not something that you have previously done. You'll probably want to turn the autohinting off, keep hintslight as the hintstyle, use subpixel rendering, and activate antialiasing if these are not defaults on your system.

[paride]

@chrissimpkins it seems to me that you zoomed the screenshot (as it's pixelated), while I was meaning the zoom level within LibreOffice. Could you try setting the zoom level to 150% within LibreOffice.

I'm using LibreOffice 6, and I think your ~/.Xresources values correspond to the defaults, so I'm using the same settings. Anyway if you can't reproduce I'll try to play with the settings and see if I can find what the relevant setting it.

[chrissimpkins]

zoomed to 300% from within LibreOffice 5 Writer on Ubuntu:

[paride]

To me in happens only when at 150%, but there are probably several other factors involved, I don't doubt it's difficult to reproduce. I will investigate.