Oversize (or undersized) fonts in firefox, etc

Insanity5902

I had an issue with some fonts on certain web pages display way way to big. I couldn't find anything on the forums and took lots of work to find the answer on google so I am sharing it here. I noticed the problem mainly with firefox, but it was also apperent in my WM (fvwm) b/c I had all my desktop font stuff set to 6 or 7.

This problem was the DPI. The autoDPI of xorg was setting mine to nearly 120. I found the formally for using the DPI of your choice with Xorg option DisplaySize, here is how:

Take your Screen resolution (mine is 1440x900) multiple each by 25.4 and the divide by the DPI you want (I wanted 96). Plug these numbers into DisplaySize option and you are set. So Here is the math and a code exert from my xorg.conf

(1440 * 25.4) / 96 = 381
(900 * 25.4) / 96 = 238

Add 'DisplaySize 381 238' to your Monitor Section and you are good to go ex:

ThomasAdam · Guru Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Posts: 448 Location: England

Pity -- I'd had a similar solution to this written up for months on the fvwmwiki.org site before it went down.

-- Thomas Adam

chovy · Guru Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 453

thanks, i still have some weird font issues...looks great on winXP. Perhaps that's just the nature of the linux font.

Anyway, I corrected mine using your calculations and now have:

$ xdpyinfo | grep resolution
resolution: 95x96 dots per inch

It looks clearer, but still too crisp. glxgears is slow as hell too...but I think that's another issue.
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klowe · n00b Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 8

Deleted

torf · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 2:29 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot, exactly what I needed!

Anybody got an explanation of the formula itself? Where does the 25.4 come from?

Veldrin · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject:

micr0c0sm · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject:

gerard27 · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject:

Hello all,
I would like to change my resolution also but adding DisplaySize doesn't work.
It remains at 93 x 95 dpi.
My display is 1920x1200.
1920 * 25.4/120 = 406.4
1200 * 25.4/120 = 254

timeBandit · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:16 pm Post subject:

gerard27 · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject:

Hi timeBandit,
I use KDE and it has the same possibility.
Unfortunately Firefox etc. use GTK.
I could change some of the fonts with gtk-chtheme,but I am still not satisfied.
Thanks for answering though.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

gsoe · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject:

Gerard: If you use nvidia drivers you can use the following options in xorg.conf:

gerard27 · Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject:

Thanks gsoe,
I've been away hence the late answer.
Well I guess not all new things are an improvement.
I tried to lower the resolution for pictures and noticed that it won't work.
Gerard.
_________________
To install Gentoo I use sysrescuecd.Based on Gentoo,has firefox to browse Gentoo docs and mc to browse (and edit) files.
The same disk can be used for 32 and 64 bit installs.
You can follow the Handbook verbatim.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Download

RazielFMX · l33t Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 835 Location: NY, USA

I found this thread incredibly helpful in resolving my unreadable small fonts on my laptop. However, the 95x96 was driving my nuts after the fix, so I decided not to round...