[ozar]

Hello admins... can anyone tell me why the fonts look so bad on this site? I've surfed to at least 50 different sites immediately before posting this to make sure it's only here, and the fonts looked great on all the other websites.

Here's a comparison screenshot to explain what I'm referring to:



As you can see in the shot, the fonts at the Fvwm (Window Manager) Forum look nice and crisp, whereas they look bumpy and almost unreadable in some places on this site. I do understand they don't look this way for everyone, or they'd all be complaining.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[budman7]

I thought it was just my computer not displaying the fonts correctly.

On most websites I have to do CTRL++ to get them to where they are good.

[scientica]

the problem is this css rule I think:

	font: 10pt verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;

I always use one of the 5 generic font families for my sites:
serif, sans-serif, monospace, cursive or fantasy (I favour sans-serif and monospace, since they are the ony ones that, imho, looks good on a screen, I sometimes use serif for headings on stuff that's ment to end up on paper, since it looks a little better for headlines on printed paper, but i tend to stay true to sans-serif and monospace(<- ][ 8> monospace ) )
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/fonts.html

btw, iirc verdana is a MS font, that is, one is expected to only find them (legally (it wouldn't surprise me if it'd be illegal eg in the USA to copy that font from a MS install and use it in linux - since I guess fonts are bent-over under "interlectual pen^H^Hroperty")) on windows machines.

[Giles]

If its a really big problem & you use Firefox there's a work around:

Edit > Preferences > Content Tab > Under "Fonts & Colors" click "Advanced" > Uncheck "Allow pages to chose their own fonts, instead of my selections above".

(Though of course that'll then apply to every site you visit until you change the settings back)

Toodle-oo
Giles

[Dapper Dan]

Ozar, I'm not having this problem at all and I use Friefox too. My fonts here look as good as the page on the right in the screen you show above. In fact, since I downloaded the latest Nvidia drivers and let the configurator configure itself automatically, all my fonts look far better than they used to.

[ozar]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I'm glad to hear that it's not just on my own machines, although I am sorry to hear that you too are seeing those ugly fonts.

Originally Posted by scientica

the problem is this css rule I think:

	font: 10pt verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;

btw, iirc verdana is a MS font,

That's exactly what I was thinking, too, scientica. I'd already reviewed the source code and when I saw verdana first in the list, I figured that was the problem. If the fonts order were changed around, it would probably clear up the issue. Yeah, using a Microsoft font (especiallly first in the fonts list) on a Linux site just doesn't seem right.

Thanks for the suggestion Giles, but that's the work around I've already been using. The thing is, by using it fonts on every website look the same. Still it's better than looking at the ugly fonts on this website.

Thanks for the input Dapper Dan, I'll look into the nvidia configuration idea to see if that helps.

[scientica]

You could try overriding the CSS with a firefox extension, I'm not at home now (so I can't check), but iirc it's the Developper's Toolbar extension that offers that extension.

[ozar]

Originally Posted by scientica

You could try overriding the CSS with a firefox extension, I'm not at home now (so I can't check), but iirc it's the Developper's Toolbar extension that offers that extension.

Thanks, scientica - that's a good idea, too. I'll look into that as another option.

[kkubasik]

Originally Posted by scientica

You could try overriding the CSS with a firefox extension, I'm not at home now (so I can't check), but iirc it's the Developper's Toolbar extension that offers that extension.

My solution, works fine, I'll post a link to the file when I get home for any of you web-illiterate out there.

[ozar]

Hmm... wonder if this could be related to the way fonts are setup in my particular distro?

[Fixed... see "edit" note below]