Linux Lake 04:linux Desktop system font Configuration a synopsis (top)

Font Display effect test

　　 This section is designed to test the display of italicized word, including the English fonts in the song body, "This is english,how does it looks like?". This line is a small print. The following words are bold in the song body . Punctuation ",. ：；！ "
　　 This section is designed to test the appearance of boldface characters, including the English fonts in boldface, "This is english,how does it looks like?". This line is a small print. punctuation ",. ：；！ ”。 What does Microsoft Jas look like? " ：！ ”？
　　 This paragraph shows how does serif Chinese fonts looks like, including the English language inside the display effect. is serif same as Times New Roman?
　　 This paragraph shows how does Sans-serif Chinese fonts looks like, including the English language inside the display effect. is Sans-serif same as Arial?
　　 This paragraph shows how does UI fonts looking like, there are also specialized interface fonts, such as Tahoma fonts in Windows: File->new->new Project.
#include <stdio.h>
int main () {
return 0;//Obviously this is to test the equal width font
}

#include <stdio.h>//Observe the code below to see if Monospace equals Courier New
int main () {
return 0;
}

Classification of fonts and their uses

In the first part of the article (that is, the content before this part), I deliberately wrote some text to test the display of various fonts. These test texts I have carefully modified in the HTML source code mode. The 1th paragraph of the font is set to the song body, including the English, small and bold words. 2nd paragraph In addition to the last sentence, the rest of the fonts are set to bold, including English and small print; the last sentence is set to Microsoft Black, which is to compare the effect of Microsoft Jas Black and normal blackbody. The 3rd paragraph except the last sentence, the rest of the fonts are set to serif, including the Chinese; the last sentence is set to times New Roman. The 4th paragraph except the last sentence, the rest is Sans-serif, the last sentence is Arial. The 5th paragraph of the font is set to Tahoma. The last two blocks of code, the font for the 1th block is set to Monospace, and the 2nd block of code is set to Courier New. Why this setting, I will follow the picture to explain each. Below, you need to understand the classification of the font and its purpose.

1. English fonts are divided into three categories, namely, serif fonts (serif), sans serif fonts (sans-serif), and equal-width fonts (monospace). Serif is a lined font, which means that there is additional decoration at the beginning and end of the stroke, and the thickness of the stroke varies. Sans-serif does not have these extra decorations, and the strokes are about the same thickness. In the traditional text printing, it is generally believed that liner physical performance brings better readability (compared with sans serif), especially in large passages, the liner increases the visual reference to letters when reading. Sans-serif bodies are often used in headings, shorter text passages, or some popular writings. Compared to the serious liner body, no liner body gives a casual and relaxed feeling. At the same time, because sans serif font strokes more full, so more suitable for the computer screen display, in printing and printing, you can use sans serif font to do the title, bold font and so on to express emphasis. Equal-width fonts do not have to say more, mainly for the terminal font or programming.

2, Chinese fonts can be categorized according to the English font, because the Chinese are equal width, so only need to distinguish between lined (serif) and sans Serif (sans-serif). Chinese song body, imitation is equivalent to the English serif, so used in traditional printing and printing effect is better. And the Chinese bold, italic, round body and other fonts equivalent to the English Sans-serif, for the computer screen display better, can also be used in printing and printing in the title and bold words.

3, the classic representative of Serif font has Georgia and Times New Roman,sans-serif font Classic representatives have Arial and Verdana,monospace font Classic representatives have courier New and Dejavu sans Mono.

The technology of font display in computer

The fonts in the computer are both an art and a technology. It's hard to see the fonts on your screen look nice. Fonts can be represented as dots (bitmap) or as outlines (outline). Bitmap fonts cannot be scaled, and outline fonts can be scaled arbitrarily.

1, to obtain sharp and clear effect, the small print must be displayed as a dot matrix (bitmap), large characters can be displayed as outlines;

2, to display the outline font, in order to make the font edge appears relatively smooth, you need to the font edge antialiasing (anti-alias);

3, in order to achieve better results, font design manufacturers in the design of fonts, the font will be fine-tuning (hinting). Font fine-tuning is a time-consuming task, so the automatic fine-tuning technique (Autohint) is produced;

4, in order to let the font on the LCD display for better results (mainly for the font edge smooth), produced a sub-pixel smoothing technology (subpixle), Microsoft's ClearType technology is also part of the sub-pixel smoothing technology. The so-called sub-pixel, refers to each pixel in the individual R, G, B components, so the sub-pixel smoothing with good, the font edge looks smoother, if not good, the font edge will appear colorful. It is precisely because the CRT monitor and the LCD monitor each pixel composition way is different, so in the CRT monitor can not be the pixel smooth.

5, increase the DPI of the screen, you can increase the stooped pixels, so as to achieve a smoother display effect. For example, on a traditional 96dpi computer monitor, a 9pt character is drawn with 12 pixels, a 12pt character is drawn in 16 pixels, and it is really difficult to smooth using the contour font. But in the current Android phone, Apple ipad and other devices, high-resolution eye screen is more than 300dpi, draw a 12pt character can use more than 50 pixels, font smooth nature is not a problem, there is no need to use dot matrix, fine tuning, anti-aliasing, sub-pixel technology. I think that with the development of display hardware technology, the above technologies will become clouds.

The tablet is the display effect of the font test paragraph in the Win7 system. In addition to the title and small print, the other fonts are 12pt. As you can see, the English fonts of the 12pt italicized word and serif are displayed as dots, so the results are clear and sharp. And the black body, Microsoft Jas and Sans-serif fonts are not lattice, but because the Sans-serif itself is full of strokes, so also got a good display effect. Microsoft Jas is said to have a cost of $100 per word, designed for ClearType technology, but in effect, it is not much stronger than the ordinary blackbody.

As I said earlier, serif and Sans-serif are the category names of the fonts, not the specific font names. Times New Roman is the most classic serif font under Windows, but you can see that it is not the preferred font for serif fonts, the fonts that are set to serif and the fonts that are set to Times New Roman are not the same, but are very beautiful lined fonts, Serif's Chinese chose a different type of bitmap font than the Arial. Arial font is the most classic sans serif font, and you can see that the fonts that are set to Sans-serif and set to Arial display the same effect. Just Sans-serif Chinese is replaced by the dot matrix of the song body. The Tahoma font's display and Sans-serif are slightly different in width but still plump.

Use CTRL + mouse wheel to zoom the page. When you enlarge a webpage, you can see the appearance of the outline font, such as:

(Note: The pictures in my text are not the original size, can be viewed by CTRL + mouse wheel magnification, or you can open the picture in a new window.) ）

Fonts in Linux

Below, a large number of images to visually feel the different fonts and different font display technology will bring the effect.

is the CentOS 5 display effect, do not feel the font is very virtual? The fonts in the System menu are very sharp. In fact, prior to Fedora 9, the Red Hat series of Linux distributions in Chinese font display are very vague. It is for this reason that I used to have some time in favor of using the red Flag of Linux. The reason that the fonts in CentOS Display Hollow is because the small print does not use dots.

The small print uses the outline font to be hollow, the big character uses the contour font effect to be much better. Use CTRL + mouse wheel to enlarge the Web page, you can see the large display is very clear and full. Such as:

The font display in CentOS 5 also has a strange phenomenon, that is, it thinks that Serif's Chinese should be in italics, and that its sans-serif also shows a lined font, which is obviously wrong. And for historical reasons, it has no blackbody. Such as:

Support for Chinese in the CentOS system relies mainly on two sets of fonts that Wending to the open source community in 2001: Wending Pl kai and Wending Pl fine Shanghai song, such as:

Here's a look at how it looks in Ubuntu. As you can see, Ubuntu focuses on Sans-serif and boldface, except for the fonts that explicitly specify serif and Times New Roman, all of which are shown in Sans-serif and boldface. And there is no dot matrix. This further confirms what I said earlier that the Blackbody fit the screen display, the song body suitable for printing and printing. All bold in the system will not lose the text information, but will certainly affect the aesthetics. Ubuntu does not correctly select the Monospace font for the courier, but instead chooses a nice, equal-width font for the new.

Use CTRL + the mouse wheel to enlarge the page to see clear and full fonts, such as:

For the interface font, under Windows There is also a dedicated interface font Tahoma,ubuntu, the font is called Ubuntu, is open source. Since Ubuntu 14.04, has not adopted the Wenquanyi Zen hei of the black body, but instead of using the Droid Sans Fallback, yes, Google is spending money for the Android system design fonts. Anyway, the font also has no dot matrix, I think the display effect is just like that.

Here's a look at Fedora 20, which is also dominated by boldface. As you can see from the image below, other font displays are the same except times New Roman.

Viewing the Fedora 20 system, you can see that it is still installed with AR PL uming, which is the Arial, but it is not used, and it is not installed in italics, although its software source has Cjkuni-ukai. It uses the blackbody is the Wen Quan Shu Yi series.

A few of the previous essays were done under Ubuntu 14.04, and this time I decided to switch to the Fedora 20 system. Bask in my desktop, such as:

From the AR pl These characters can be seen, AR pl uming and Text tripod contribution of the two sets of fonts are same strain. Indeed, it is only after the merger, modification, addition of Japanese Korean and Hong Kong characters commonly used type, renamed to Cjkunifonts, which is said to contain lattice. From the name can be seen, with this set of fonts, China, Japan and South Korea can be done. The main font for CentOS 6 is it. For example, the small print a little bit, clear sharp:

When zoomed in, the outline font is displayed, but it seems to be missing a blackbody, such as:

The only drawback to this set of fonts is its punctuation, with commas and periods often running in the middle of a line rather than at the bottom of a line. This is not a big deal, in fact, Microsoft YA black quotation marks are not beautiful, right?

CentOS 6 already has Wenquanyi Zen hei, such as, so does not show blackbody not because there is no blackbody, but because there is no correct configuration:

Through the above series, we can see which Chinese fonts are used by each operating system, and also show the defects of each operating system in font configuration. From another aspect, the trend of selecting fonts is also reflected. Can be summarized as follows:

1, the Linux system in the Song Dynasty only the first contribution of the text Ding Shanghai song, and there is no lattice. Later developed to the Cjkunifonts, the song body has a dot matrix, its font is called Ar PL uming, in the Linux system want to use the song body, it all depends on it. But Cjkunifonts's lattice does not seem to fit our habits, fortunately Wen Quan Shu has a very beautiful lattice font, although only covers the range of 9pt to 12pt.

2, Linux system in the beginning of the lack of black, now we all realize that the black body in the screen display has a good effect, so the black body flooding. Microsoft spends big price people design Microsoft Ya Black is blackbody, open source font Wen Quan Yi do is also blackbody, Google money to do the droid Sans fallback or black body. Ubuntu is in bold, and Fedora is in bold. It can be said that Wen Quan Shu to choose the black body as a point of entry is really the right choice, and indeed is our vast number of Linux users of the gospel.

3, even the latest Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu 14 and Fedora 20, its font settings are not reasonable, the serif, Sans-serif, Arial, boldface understanding is not correct. So, for the font, we have to configure it ourselves.

(Jingshan Ranger in 2014-06-18 published in the blog Park, reproduced please indicate the source. ）