I just install OpenOffice 1.0.3 on my RH9 box. Before I install OpenOffice, I installed j2re1.3.1 too ( cuz it said it needs it.. oh well)

The problem is this. Everything goes FINE, expect the fonts are so ugly... what gives? The font in the menu bar of the word processor , the actual fonts used for text, every font goes weird... Well...They are still readable, but they are so ugly.

Any Idea?

Have you tried the de-uglification Howto for XFree86 yet?

The fonts that come with Linux are (IMHO) not as good as Windows fonts. The reason for this is that it takes a lot of time and high tech to create fonts. Naturally, there's a lot of R&D that goes into their creation.

If you are dissatisfied with the quality of the fonts supplied with your Linux distro, you can import the proprietary fonts from your Windows OS. There used to be a little program in Red Hat that did it all automatically, but maybe this was a little on the edge. He he... They (The Big Bad Software companies) might have a case for suing a Linux distro out of existence... Maybe that's why you don't see this little font installer program prominently displayed anymore... So you'll have to figure a way to import the fonts yourself from your Windows partition.

Also you might want to check and see if the anti-aliasing feature is enabled in your KDE desktop.

Or, as I have discovered, there are an infinite number of ways to tweak better performance out of X, and maybe this could be at the root of your dissatisfaction.

Good luck!

Try Ximian's version of OOO 1.03. The fonts are much better and it will load ttf's from your /usr/share/fonts directory. Also download Bitstream's vera fonts. They are very nice.

where can I download the Ximian's version of OpenOffice.org? Is there a rpm package for it?

What is ttf?

Where can I download Bitstream's vera fonts?

Here is a link for the page :

http://www.ximian.com/products/desktop/download.html.

When running the installer only choose the Open Office software. I have run the Ximian Desktop 2 and removed it because of how it affected KDE but that is a personal choice.

*.ttf is the extension for True Type Fonts. If you have a Windows partition on your box you can copy them from your /Windows/fonts directory into your /usr/share/fonts directory. Your font server will load them when you reboot the system. Other versions of Open Office did not make them available to the user in the program but Ximian's does. If you do not have access to MS fonts you can download open source fonts from Bitstream or Gnome. Both have worked on an open source set of fonts that are very good ........Bitstream vera fonts.

If you have problems finding the source for any of the above use google search to find them.

The ximian desktop is great... openoffice is great
the combination of ximian desktop & redhat's bluecurve is amazing!
thanks a lot !!!

Are your system fonts still ugly or was it just Open Office you were concerned over? Bitsream vera fonts are worth trying.

glad I could help.

The fonts of the system