missing fonts and related questions

[James Richard Tyrer]

Ross Boylan wrote:
> I am running KDE 2.2.2 in Debian GNU/Linux testing, and also KDE
> 3.1.2.  The former is from Debian packages; the latter I built from
> CVS about a week ago.
> 
> In both I notice big problems with fonts.  When I go into a font
> picker (e.g., Control Center | Look & Feel | Fonts in KDE 2) there are
> some fonts listed (e.g., Times, Fixed, Courier) that seem blank: no
> preview appears in the box.  Further, in dropdown lists of fonts
> (where the fonts appear in their own style--e.g., in KWord) there are
> many blank lines.  I think these match the blanks from the other
> tools.  Also, many things (e.g., HelpCenter) have blanks or horizontal
> lines where text should be.
> 
> What do such gaps mean?  Where are things falling down?
> 
> My XFree went through a period without access to TrueType fonts (note:
> Times New Roman, a TT font, does not appear on the list of fonts I see
> in KDE, though Times does), but I have fixed that.  xfontsel now shows
> a full set of fonts.  But KDE can't see them.
> 
> I am also using Debian's defoma and the more general fontconfig to
> manage fonts.
> 
> I read that Qt had a change in naming conventions for some fonts, but
> I can't see any trace of it in my .qt directory.
> 
> Finally, the configuration is odd.  KDE 3.1.2 has a font installer
> tool, but it seems to require that there be a single font directory
> hiearchy.  My TrueType fonts are in a separate directory; is there
> any way to get this to work?  

You should use: "Administrator Mode" unless you want to install the fonts 
for only one user account.  There is a known bug in KFontInst.  Bug #55617

> And KDE 2 has no analogue to this
> facility that I can see.

There are three packages that are needed for fonts:

	FreeType2
	Xft version >=2
	FontConfig

And make sure that you don't have more than one version installed.

I suggest that you get the latest version of FontConfig:

http://fontconfig.org/release/fontconfig-2.2.0.tar.gz

When you build Qt you need to make sure that it can find these.  After some 
experience, it is MHO that they are best installed in the X11R6 directory 
tree.  Otherwise unless they are in: "/usr" you will need to add an: 
"-I<prefix>" for each one on the Qt configure command line.  That is, if 
you installed FreeType2 with a prefix of: "/usr/local" then add: 
"-I/usr/local" on the Qt configure command line.

--
JRT

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