Special characters don't appear in GNOME

Jetro · 01-21-2011, 03:06 PM

Hello, I am trying to make – specifically Norwegian characters – appear properly. Right now they look like this:

http://i51.tinypic.com/mc7j3q.png
when they should look like æ, ø & å. (Hope you can see the characters!

) Characters like ü turns the same.

This is a font that I downloaded called PT Sans. The letters I want are included, they just don't appear right in the GNOME environment, it seems. They work just fine in other applications, such as OOo Writer.

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04.

DavidMcCann · 01-22-2011, 06:41 PM

This looks like a tricky question. I've just examined the font, and there are no problems in it. Which applications are giving you the Cyrillic characters? And what do you get from entering the command "locale" in a terminal?

Jetro · 01-23-2011, 03:21 AM

Thanks for your reply, I had almost given up...

I get these weird signs in 'the Gnome environment', if I can call it that, when PT Sans is set as Application font. As you see in the picture, all folder names containing æøå become like this. The same happens if I try to create a folder (or file, for that matter). It also occurs in Empathy.
As for X-Chat: When the Application font overrules the font settings, I get weird characters there also. When I turned that off, however, and specifically chose PT Sans for it, I didn't get weird characters anymore.
So, what all these have in common is that it is when PT Sans is set as a standard font I get these characters.

Could it have something to do with the way I installed the font? First, I just put it in the .font folder in Home, then I did this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ubuntu Wiki

Manually:
There are various locations in GNU/Linux in which fonts can be kept. These locations are defined in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf; standard ones include /usr/share/fonts, /usr/local/share/fonts, and /home/<username>/.fonts (where <username> is your user name).
The easiest way to install a truetype font is to press alt-F2 and enter the following code (this will open nautilus in the right directory):

gksu nautilus /usr/share/fonts/truetype

Then create a new directory, name the directory whatever you like (choose a name that you remember if you ever need to backup your fonts personal fonts). Copy the fonts into that directory and finally rebuild the font information files by pressing alt-F2, mark 'run in terminal' so you can see the progress and entering the following code:

sudo fc-cache -f -v

I did not remove the original files I had put in the .font folder prior to that.

Code:

locale
LANG=en_US.utf8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.utf8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.utf8"
LC_TIME="en_US.utf8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.utf8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.utf8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.utf8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.utf8"
LC_NAME="en_US.utf8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.utf8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.utf8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.utf8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.utf8"
LC_ALL=

I'm running an English interface, but it has never been an issue with Norwegian characters before.

Samotnik · 01-23-2011, 03:41 AM

Are this symbols look the same with different fonts?
If they are shown properly with other fonts, then it's internal encoding in PT Sans, which is corrupted.
If they look alike in all other UTF fonts - then you should check, if your filesystem is kept in utf8 encoding. If it is not, then you can convert it in utf8 with convmv command.

Jetro · 01-23-2011, 03:51 AM

I haven't tried every other font. I don't know what differates 'UTF fonts' from other types of fonts, so I wouldn't know which ones to check. But as far as I know this is the only font this occurs with.

Also, I tried this for funsies: Changing the 'Window title' font to PT Sans, then opening a folder called "Blåbær". It showed correctly. So it seems to be a problem with the 'Application' font.

DavidMcCann · 01-23-2011, 05:10 PM

There's nothing wrong with the font, as far as I can see. Fontforge loads it without protest and shows a standard encoding. I've installed it in .fonts, set it as Application font, created a folder with å in the name, and Nautilus displayed the character properly.

It's very strange that Latin 1 characters should appear as Cyrillic, even if you had the wrong locale, which you don't.

So, it works with my version of Gnome but not yours, and your version of Gnome works with other fonts! Obviously there's some strange interaction going on, but it's beyond my skills to sort it out. You may just have to give up on PT sans.

Jetro · 01-24-2011, 06:57 AM

Hehe, all right. Thank you still, though!

Jetro · 01-25-2011, 05:09 AM

I got it fixed now. I honestly don't know what fixed it, but I once again took the files from the download folder and put them in the .font folder. It now works.

Aaand I restarted, and now they're back to being weird characters again. xD What the hell. Well, tough crap, I guess.