fontsize and dpi

[Stijn Hoop]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2005 at 11:45:09AM +0200, Dag-Erling Sm?rgrav wrote:
> Stijn Hoop <stijn at win.tue.nl> writes:
> > I don't know when X gained the capability to decipher this on its own, but
> > I know that lots of people were running with 75dpi on 100dpi monitors,
> > resulting in horrible default fonts etc. One of the problems with webpages
> > in *nix vs Windows, differing fontsizes, is caused by exactly this.
> 
> X will correctly determine the physical resolution on DDC-capable
> monitors (with a DDC-capable graphics adapter, of course).  Otherwise,
> it assumes 75dpi.  You can of course specify the correct resolution on
> the command line, or (better yet) specify the display dimensions in
> the configuration file and let X figure out the resolution.

Yeah, I discovered that earlier in this thread. A nifty feature. The
thing I was arguing against is the default of 75dpi in the absence of
DDC (I run into this because of a crappy KVM switch).

However, having no substantial evidence as to the common monitorsize
and screen resolution, I don't know anymore whether it should be
changed.

> BTW, back in the bad old days before Xft, X had 75dpi and 100dpi
> renderings of most fonts and no good way to adapt those to
> intermediate resolutions.  This is still the case for the most
> commonly used monospace fonts.

And like I wrote earlier, IMHO the TTF fonts are so much nicer than
the 75dpi and 100dpi ones, that I promptly deinstall those two everywhere
I can. But this is clearly a matter of personal preference.

--Stijn

-- 
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