Writing.Fantastic Fonts in KDE
Last updated on Tue Dec 23, 2008 |

Is Linux ready for the desktop? If so, which window manager is the best? Should you use proprietary device drivers with your otherwise completely free/open source operating system? How about proprietary fonts?

None of these questions will be addressed or answered here.

If, however, you're already using the K Desktop Environment (KDE) as the desktop system for your Linux or UNIX machine, check out this very short tutorial on getting the absolute best looking fonts out of your window manager.

In all honesty, I'm not exactly sure where I first learned about this trick — I didn't come up with it on my own, though. But, because I haven't seen it described many other places and because I've run into a lot of long-term KDE users who didn't know about it, I thought it would be worth adding to this site. Now onto the instructions . . .

1. In your /home/user/ directory (where "user" is replaced with your username), look for a file called .fonts.config.
2. Fire up your favorite text editor to either modify or create .fonts.config.
3. Create an entry in .fonts.config that reads:
   
   
   <match target="font">
       <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
           <bool>true</bool>
       </edit>
   </match>
4. In the K Menu go to "Appearance->Themes->Fonts" and make sure that "Use anti-aliasing:" is set to "enabled." (NOTE: Depending on whether you have a completely default KDE installation, a Linux-distro-modified version, or even a self-customized version, the path to getting to the "Fonts" configuration may be slightly different but probably very similar to what's listed here.)
5. On the same screen, click the "Configure" button.
6. Lastly, make sure that "Use sub-pixel hinting" is checked on and set the corresponding color value to "RGB."

That's it! Save all of your changes and restart your session to enjoy the best looking fonts you've ever seen on your KDE desktop.

On a final note, these instructions should work for any KDE 3.x. I've only tried KDE 4 when it was in beta, and I think I remember that this trick worked on that, too. If I confirm this myself or if somebody sends me confirmation, I'll change this note.