Description of problem: Openoffice font rendering has become noticably worse in a recent update. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): openoffice.org-core-2.0.4-5.5.17.i386.rpm How reproducible: Compare rendering of words in GNOME panel against rendering of same words at same size in Openoffice.org Steps to Reproduce: 1. Use DejaVU fonts 2. Turn on antialiasing in OOo and sub-pixel or best shape in Gnome 3. Compare rendering of "Applications Places System" Actual results: OOo renders letters thicker and less beautiful ;-) Expected results: The same (they both use freetype library) Additional info: I noticed the change a while ago - probably the openoffice.org-core-2.0.4-5.5.10.i386.rpm update. At the time I thought it was my poor font rendering. OOo used to look as nice as gnome applications but then it changed - it now renders as nice as the 2nd best setting in gnome (for my display) - that is Best Shapes not Sub-pixel.
Part of me now feels a little stupid. I spent about 10 mins googling before writing this report - and then immediately after writing it I found the solution. In ~/.fonts.conf I changed <match target="font" > <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" > <const>none</const> </edit> </match> to: <match target="font" > <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" > <const>rgb</const> </edit> </match> and this fixed the problem. I'm not sure what it means, or what changed it, or why it only affected OOo.
I see a little difference alright, but to be sure I'm looking at the same thing. What are you comparing, the menu bars ?, i.e. is there a difference in e.g. the "File" between gedit and openoffice.org. If that's a good example, then what's the selected font and size in gnome font preference for "application font", and the output of fc-match -v "that font"
I think I see the problem, I see that the cairo logic for subpixels has changed slightly. We are using FL_Load_Glyph with flags of 0x10200 while cairo apps like gedit are loading with 0x00200 hint medium is getting mapped to hint slight for us at the moment. I'll make a test build and provide a replace libvcl680li.so for you to test this, and if works out I can push a FC-6 update.
Created attachment 152606 [details] replacement for /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/program/libvcl680li.so Can you please test this for me to see if it fixes the problem for you ? i.e. mv /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/program/libvcl680li.so /tmp copy this attachment to /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/program/libvcl680li.so launch office and see if the text is improved afterwards you can replace /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/program/libvcl680li.so with the version you moved to /tmp
Yes this fixes the problem. I changed ~/fonts.conf back to my original settings (none for sub pixel and hintmedium), checked it made the fonts worse, then tried your new library and it looked as good as gnome - much better. Thanks.
excellent, I'll push this out as an update soon then.