Bug 2386191

Summary: Bold fonts in KDE Plasma are too bold
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: joshas
Component: qt6-qtbaseAssignee: Jan Grulich <jgrulich>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Fedora fonts special interest group <fonts-bugs>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 42CC: fonts-bugs, jgrulich, kde-sig, tagoh, zejdzztegomaila
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Desktop
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
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Description Flags
Bold font issue is visible in this screenshot
none
Disabling this particular font fixes the issue
none
Issue fixed, this is how everything should look after installation none

Description joshas 2025-08-03 16:53:35 UTC 
After clean install of KDE Plasma Desktop, all bold fonts used in KDE applications, like System Settings or Dolphin are too bold.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop or run live session
2. Open System Settings
3. Notice bold font used in main section titles
Actual Results:
Font is too bold, making it hard to read.

Expected Results:
Standard bold font should be used.

Additional Information:
Disabling "Noto Sans ()" font from Font Management fixes the issue. Note, that this font has no name in the list.
Comment 1 joshas 2025-08-03 16:56:24 UTC 
Created attachment 2102604 [details]
Bold font issue is visible in this screenshot
Comment 2 joshas 2025-08-03 16:56:58 UTC 
Created attachment 2102605 [details]
Disabling this particular font fixes the issue
Comment 3 joshas 2025-08-03 16:57:41 UTC 
Created attachment 2102606 [details]
Issue fixed, this is how everything should look after installation
Comment 4 Jens Petersen 2026-03-26 12:35:54 UTC 
Is this a variable fonts issue?

Perhaps it should be moved to KDE or Qt
Comment 5 Jens Petersen 2026-03-30 07:10:54 UTC 
Would be good to try with F43 and F44
Comment 6 Akira TAGOH 2026-03-30 08:08:01 UTC 
(In reply to Jens Petersen from comment #4)
> Is this a variable fonts issue?
> 
> Perhaps it should be moved to KDE or Qt

Likely. However, The way the reporter pointed out didn't help for me (tested on f44).

That said the root cause may be the same to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2179854
In fact, running dolphin with QT_NO_SYNTHESIZED_BOLD=1 do the trick.

We should move this to Qt.
Comment 7 Nik Nikovsky 2026-04-13 07:19:42 UTC 
I was asked to drop my findings here, so here I am.
I spun up a live Fedora 43 KDE VM on Distrosea and can confirm this issue is happening.
..although the VM is a bit out of date (6.17.1-300 kernel)
Comment 8 Fedora Release Engineering 2026-05-06 13:42:48 UTC 
This message is a reminder that Fedora Linux 42 is nearing its end of life.
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