Firefox fonts render differently on Linux
 

Why do the fonts in Firefox seem to render differently under Linux than under Windows? the seem to render smaller, but not always. For example on one site I work on, the headings and body text look different on any windows browser (and in Konqueror), but they all look the same on Firefox on Linux--until I blow up the font size to 120%--and then the body text is too large and the heading text is wierd. I'm a web designer and this makes for some interesting challenges as I'm moving to Linux. Is there a way to fix it? I'm using the 1.0-3 release via DEB from Debian.org. Is is maybe a problem with the Debian release?

All thats probably going on is the selection of which font to use, also the default sizes selected whithin the browser. Afterall its probably a safe bet that the fonts your using under windows are diffrent from thoose in Linux.

Also since people can adjust these to their own taste ( I have a minimum size of 8 and a medium of 10 regardless of what the site thinks is the right size ) trying to get everthing to look the same is going to be impossible. thats why a properly designed site should adjust dynamically to whatever size of font is being used using.

Is it an xft build of Mozilla? Read about fonts http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO/ You can (if you have windows installed) drag and drop ttf fonts from windows/fonts to /usr/share/fonts (for system wide use) or to /home/user/.fonts (for your own use)

Unfortunately, I'm ahead of you on both points. I made a bad choice of words. It's not so much a rendering issue as a size and style issue. The font in question is specifically called by the page (Tahoma), and I do have it installed in Linux. Remember, it's not just Linux browsers in general, but also between Konqueror and Firefox. The same page can be loaded in the two browsers. In Konqueror it looks the same as in FF or IE on Windows. But in FF for Linux, it looks different. I've tried diddling with the font sizes, etc., but it does a limited amount of good.

I guess my question is this: if a font is called by a page to be an exact size, then it should render the same size in both browsers unless the user overrides it. I certainly have not overridden it in either browser. These are basically vanilla installs. In reality, I notice the same problem in Nvu for Linux as well. I guess I'm just wondering what the deal is. FF on Linux should, provided the required font resources are in place (and they are), render the same as FF in Windows, at least.

I agree and know this. And I design with this in mind. But I'm not even getting bold vs. normal text to come out quite right. Go here: http://newhope.squarespace.com. Load it in both Konqueror and Firefox. The Konqueror rendering matches that of Windows' browsers (FF or IE). The Firefox rendering doesn't come close. If you Ctrl + Firefox, you'll probably get the right font weights, but then the size is all messed up. Not a huge issued, but a frustration.

A disclaimer: that site is not my design. I just maintain content there. It's basically a placeholder for a better site to come.

Hmm I see what you mean, I think it might be whatever lib Firefox is using to render the fonts, or theirs some imbuilt kerning option in the Linux version of Firefox thats making it render diffrently. It still looks good in either though.

I had to reset Firefiox to its tiny font defaults, ( why their so small is beyond me. ) but even at bigger sizes you could see what you meant.

I guess that's my other question. Why are the defaults so small on Linux? The windows version isn't like that.

[rant] I guess I'm a little frustrated because the idea behind cross-platform software is that it basically works the same on all platforms. Firefox doesn't, which leaves me a little disappointed in the Mozilla Organization. Thunderbird is even worse. They still have the crappy icons from like .5 or .6 in there--the ones w/o proper alpha blending--for .9. We should have the same icons, at least, by .9.[/rant]

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. ;)