Here is a *long* how-to I wrote on the subject of fonts, specifically for Slackware. It doesn't get around to AbiWord, but hopefully, your fonts will be improved all around:
I've broken this process to 4 steps:
Compile and install Freetype library
Install additional TTF fonts.
Compile / Install Mozilla
Install OpenOffice.org 1.1
The instruction I provide will be at a fairly low level. Some distros
may (and probably do) have tools to make some of these steps easier.
(Such as font installation) Since I have little experience with
modern Desktop Linux distributions, I will not be able to comment.
Hecklers are welcome to promote their distro of choice by pointing out
how much easier some of these steps are on their preferred system.
Step Number 1, Install Freetype
This step involves overwriting a system library, (because we want any
application that might be linked to the old library to use the new
one). This may cause problems with dependency tracking systems (such
as RPM or Deb.) and or the library right get overwritten again when
you run an update of your Linux system. Maybe someone could suggest
and test a better way of doing this, (such as uninstalling freetype
entirely and installing the new one in /usr/local)
For those whom might not know, True Type fonts in Linux can be
rendered in one of two ways. The first and best way is to use Font
Bytecode Hints that are part of the font itself. This hinting system is what
makes fonts on Windows and Macs look so damned good at any size. It
is also, unfortunately, patent encumbered, and therefore turned off by
default on many commercial distributions. The second method of
rendering TTF font's is with Freetype's very own auto hinting system
(patent pending,
). This is now the default configuration of
Freetype, and also that of many Linux distros. Unfortunately, the
method of font hinting cannot be configured at run time, but must be
compiled into the freetype binary.
Download the latest version of freetype from
http://freetype.sourceforge.net/index2.html
Unpack the tarball.
Optionally, read the file docs/TRUETYPE. Note that as of this
writing, the instructions in this file are wrong.
Open the file include/freetype/config/ftoption.h in your text editor
of choice.
Find the line that reads:
"/* #define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER */" and remove the
comment marks. (The /* and */ ). This line should now read:
#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
Save and close the file.
>From this point, follow the instructions in docs/UPGRADE.UNX
Step Number 2. Install TTF Fonts.
At this point, I'm assuming your running at least Xfree86 v. 4.2. If
not, you might consider upgrading.
Please refer to:
www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/fonts2.html#4
In particular, I found useful sections 2.2.2. Installing scalable
fonts and 2.1.2. Fine-tuning Xft (personally, I find anti-aliased
fonts to be headache inducing and turn them off where possible.. I
seem to be in the minority in this case, however. Gnome, KDE and
OpenOffice.org also have independent controls to configure
anti-aliasing in those respective environments.) You will notice from
the first section of that document that installing fonts for XFT
enabled applications is simplicity itself. Remember, however, that
not all application are XFT enabled. If you want your True Type fonts
to be accessed by other applications, the steps in 2.2.2 should be followed.
Two of the fonts I find most vital are Microsoft Arial and Microsoft
Times New Roman (I don't know if these typefaces actually belong to
MS, but you can find them in any Windows installation.)
Also note, if you want to use True Type fonts in applications that are
not XFT enabled, you might want to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and
uncomment the Load "freetype" in Section "Module". I found mine was
commended out by default with my installation of Xfree.
Step Number 3, Compile and Intall Mozilla
If you install the default Mozilla binaries, XFT is not enabled. You
will find at
www.mozilla.org/releases/index.html that there is a
contrib build of Mozilla with XFT enabled. However, it is linked to
gtk toolkit (instead of gtk2). gtk does not work so great with XFT,
and the UI fonts end up small and hard to read.
Therefore, I suggest downloading the source tarball. A special
warning; this is a large code base that will take several hours to
compile on a high performance PC. There should at least be 1GB of
free disk space as well. If someone wants a pre-compiled binary,
e-mail me and I should be able to create one for your system.
Unpack the tarball and run ./configure --help | less for a list of
configuration option. The trick there that you won't find documented
anywhere is to link the application to the gtk2 toolkit. Your
configure should look something like this.
./configure --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --enable-xft --enable-crypto
--disable-debug --enable-optimize="-O3" --enable-strip
On my system, I also add -march=athlon-xp to the --enable-optimize
option. You can modify this to suite your system if you know what
compiler flags work best for your architecture and version of gcc.
They don't mention this in the help, but enable crypto is required for
https support (Secure web pages.)
After configure is done, run make.
When make is finished, if it doesn't die or crash, you can test your
new build by cd'ing to dist/bin directory and run ./mozilla
When your satisfied that all is working, cd to
xpinstall/packager and run make. This will create a tarball
in the dist/bin directory. Move the tarball (tar.gz) file to
somewhere useful (like /usr/local) and unpack it. This will leave a
binary installation of your freshly compiled mozilla.
Note: You cannot run mozilla from a Symlink without various
environment variables being configured. If you want mozilla to run
from your system standard path, create an executable bash script that
simply runs /usr/local/mozilla/mozilla. Make certain you remove any
old binary or symlink from previous mozilla installations. I suggest
uninstalling the Mozilla package from your package manager of choice
before installing this one.
Optionally, from your compiled Mozilla source tree, you can also build
an automatic mozilla installer. See instructions at:
www.mozilla.org/build/distribution.html and skip to step 5.
Step Number 4, Install OpenOffice.org
For those masochists who are actually still reading:
I've never successfully built Open Office from source. The OpenOffice
binary installer comes with its own pre-compiled freetype library
(without hinting). I've noticed, however, that as of the 1.1 series,
the installer will link the application to your system freetype
library if available. You can verify this by running ldd soffice.bin
| grep freetype (my soffice.bin is located in
/opt/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/program). The result should be something
like libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6, indicating that my
soffice is linked to the freetype I installed earlier. If this is not
the case on your system, you might have to re-install OpenOffice and
or symlink the file freetype is linked to in the OpenOffice directory
to the correct library file. I'm not sure off hand how to do this.
To install your TTF fonts in OpenOffice, run the spadmin program (as
root). spadmin is in the same directory as soffice.bin. Click on
fonts button, then click on Add button. Click the ... button and find
the directory where you copied your TTF fonts from step 2. (In my
case, /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/TTF. At your option, you can check to
create soft links only (which will prevent copying all the files to
the Office directory.) Click on Select All button and click on OK.
Note: make sure all users have read and execute permission to the
/opt/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/share/fonts/truetype direcotory. If found
this was bugged in one of the release candidates (probably fixed by now.)
