Bug 2493991

Summary: Liberation Mono font: hyphen is placed 30% too low, making it indistinguishable from underscore
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Byron Hawkins <byron.c.hawkins>
Component: liberation-fontsAssignee: Jens Petersen <petersen>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 42CC: fonts-bugs, i18n-bugs, mark, mclasen, petersen, rstrode
Target Milestone: ---Flags: petersen: needinfo? (byron.c.hawkins)
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Unspecified   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Attachments:
Description Flags
Screenshot highlighting pathological hyphen placement in Liberation Mono font none

Description Byron Hawkins 2026-06-28 15:50:46 UTC
Created attachment 2146981 [details]
Screenshot highlighting pathological hyphen placement in Liberation Mono font

Description of problem:

In the Liberation Mono font distributed with Fedora 42 (and possibly everywhere the font is distributed), the hyphen character is placed 30% too low relative to the basic ASCII glyphs. It appears below the cross of a lowercase "x", making it indistinguishable from an underscore when rendered at a usable size (see screenshot). There are certain stylistic liberties available when crafting a font, and this is not one of them. It is simply a bug to place the hyphen at such a low position.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

liberation-fonts-all.noarch                          1:2.1.5-13.fc42
liberation-mono-fonts.noarch                         1:2.1.5-13.fc42
liberation-sans-fonts.noarch                         1:2.1.5-13.fc42
liberation-serif-fonts.noarch                        1:2.1.5-13.fc42                     

How reproducible: 

Install and use the font.


Steps to Reproduce:
1. dnf install liberation-mono-fonts
2. select the Liberation Mono font in some application
3. type two words connected by a hyphen, then type two words connected by an underscore

Actual results:

At a usable size, the two pairs of words appear identical.

Expected results:

Every font should place the hyphen at least parallel to the cross of a lowercase "x", usually higher. 

Additional info:

Comment 1 Jens Petersen 2026-06-30 04:17:24 UTC
I can't reproduce in current Fedora Rawhide Workstation Live image.
Note also F42 is no longer supported.

More details are needed: what application are you using?
Maybe a screenshot.

You could try whichfont to get additional information perhaps.
Also maybe pango-view or gnome-text-editor.

Also the liberation fonts are very stable:
it seems highly unlikely they have started to misbehave.

Comment 2 Jens Petersen 2026-06-30 04:21:01 UTC
Also you desktop is probably quite relevant information.