Re: [Fonts]fontconfig <alias> question

[Keith Packard]

Around 23 o'clock on Dec 26, Michael Guntsche wrote:

> Is it possbile to substitute/alias the Helvetica font with Verdana even
> if both are installed? (fc-list shows both)

Yes, but this will *always* replace Helvetica with Verdana, even if you 
select "helvetica" in an application font menu.

The "alias" mechanism in the font configuration creates family entries of 
"weak" binding; such names always defer to the "strong" binding created by 
the application specification of a font family.  This ensures that 
application family names generally override any substitutions seen in the 
font configuration; usually that's what you want.

I put in an escape hatch though -- you can create a "strong" entry in the 
family with a match/edit rule that specifies the binding.  This allows you 
to override the usual rules and map existing family names to other 
existing family names:

Here's what I put into my /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file (and which may go into
the distribution for 4.3):

<match target="pattern">
        <test name="prefer_outline">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </test>
        <test name="family">
                <string>Helvetica</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
                <string>Arial</string>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern">
        <test name="prefer_outline">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </test>
        <test name="family">
                <string>Times</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="strong">
                <string>Times New Roman</string>
        </edit>
</match>

These rules map Helvetica to Arial and Times to Times New Roman.  As you
probably know, Monotype was paid by MS to create Arial as an Helvetica
"clone" so that MS wouldn't have to pay the Linotype license fee (a
per-copy royalty); it's not the same as Helvetica, but it does have 
essentially identical escapements which means type set with Helvetica will 
line up the same as type set with Arial.  Verdana is quite a bit wider set,
making it a less suitable replacement.

To enable these rules, I place:

<match target="pattern">
        <edit name="prefer_outline">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

in my ~/.fonts.conf file to turn on the above substitution rules.  If we 
get outline simalcrula for the other core bitmaps, we would add more rules 
to the /etc/fonts/fonts.conf and then users with the enabling rule would 
automatically get the new substitutions as well.

Keith Packard        XFree86 Core Team        HP Cambridge Research Lab


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