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Font feedback

Posted By: Michael Petch
Date: Friday, 23 December 2011, at 9:31 a.m.

In Response To: Font feedback (Nack Ballard)

Generally speaking this problem isn't the browser but the installed fonts on the OS you are using. A default XP install has a lot of old fonts that do not support the unicode low line. Many of the fonts were considerably updated in Vista (and some in Win7).

Upgrading to IE9 will likely not solve this problem on XP, as I don't believe that IE9 will touch the fonts (I may be wrong, but that is what my gut says). Generally speaking if you want better fonts on XP, copy them from a Vista (or better yet Win7). Win7 has the most number of fonts that support the low line unicode characters.

You can remove fonts on XP and then copy in new ones through windows explorer. The fonts are in c:\windows\fonts .

As an experiment, I removed the Consolas font installed on my XP system, and then copied the version from Win7 and bingo, it (Consolas) rendered properly with Mike's chart and looked great. I chose Consolas because I noticed Mike used it in one of his other posts AND it happens to be my favorite monospace programmers font. The low line is distinctly below the letter 'g'.

One of the primary defaults for Unicode on Windows is Arial Unicode MS (Some may remember this in the last go around with fonts in Excel). It isn't the best looking font but it does support Low Line. Unfortunately the low line passes through the bottom of some characters that have descenders (like 'g', 'y' etc). Nack has observed this according to his post.

Most older fonts (especially on XP) don't support Low Line and that is why you'll see them rendered improperly unless you update the fonts. Tara's hack is a good one, but only if you intend to render in something that is HTML.

So to sum it up you need proper fonts installed. XP is old, and doesn't support low line in most fonts. I can reproduce what Nack is seeing on XP/IE8 here. Manually copying fonts from a Vista/Win7 box can fix this.

PS: On most Linux platforms these days the default fonts for X-windows generally have good support for unicode (including low line).

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