[DejaVu-bugs] [Bug 11494] New: Italic is mislabeled as oblique

bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org
Sat Jul 7 07:35:09 PDT 2007


http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11494

           Summary: Italic is mislabeled as oblique
           Product: DejaVu
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: x86 (IA32)
               URL: http://www.2a.pl/~ne01026/serif.xml
        OS/Version: Linux (All)
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: Serif
        AssignedTo: dejavu-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
        ReportedBy: giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl


*Problem statement
The X font server configuration file 
/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType/fonts.dir
contains the following entry:
DejaVuSerif-Oblique.ttf -bitstream-dejavu
serif-medium-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
However, the font in question is not oblique, it is italic.

 *Detailed explanation:
<http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Italic_type> says:
"In typography, italic type refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized
form of calligraphic handwriting.  Sometimes the term italic is wrongly applied
on oblique fonts (mostly sans-serif), when they are merely distorted into a
slanted orientation."
In this case, the common mistake is committed the other way round: the typeface
with has an italic design but is labeled as oblique.

 *Test case (how it hurts):
Konqueror renders the following HTML formula using a slanted typeface rather
than an italic one:
<style type="text/css" > .formula { font-family: serif } </style ><p
class="formula" 
><var >x</var ><sup >2</sup >&nbsp;+<var >y</var ><sup >2</sup >&nbsp;
=&nbsp;<var >z</var ><sup >2</sup ></p >
It is not what I meant; it makes HTML formulae render ugly on Wikipedia.

 *Explanation (my theory about what happens about the scenes)
The style for the text 'x' contains "font-family: serif" inherited from the 
class 'formula' and "font-style: italic" inherited from the 'var' element. 
Konqueror substitutes the font Dejavu serif by default; the style wants to have
it italic.  However, when I look at the XLFDs available "out of the box" using
xfontsel (or in the aforementioned file fonts.dir) I can see that the X font
server has the following XLFDs to choose from:
-*-dejavu serif-medium-r-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
-*-dejavu serif-medium-o-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
And the font requested to render the formula must match
-*-dejavu serif-medium-i-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Since no match is found, the X font server generates the font on the fly by
slanting the regular font (-r- to -i-).

 *Remedy (my suggestion how to fix it)
 - Rename DejaVuSerif-Oblique.ttf to DejaVuSerif-Italic.ttf (this will probably
require changing the contents of the TTF accordingly)
 - Change the corresponding XLFDs in fonts.dir
from -bitstream-dejavu serif-medium-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-* 
to -bitstream-dejavu serif-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-*


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