Bug 2386191 - Bold fonts in KDE Plasma are too bold
Summary: Bold fonts in KDE Plasma are too bold
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: qt6-qtbase
Version: 42
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jan Grulich
QA Contact: Fedora fonts special interest group
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-08-03 16:53 UTC by joshas
Modified: 2026-06-08 18:06 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2026-06-08 18:06:21 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Bold font issue is visible in this screenshot (108.54 KB, image/png)
2025-08-03 16:56 UTC, joshas
no flags Details
Disabling this particular font fixes the issue (148.00 KB, image/png)
2025-08-03 16:56 UTC, joshas
no flags Details
Issue fixed, this is how everything should look after installation (109.11 KB, image/png)
2025-08-03 16:57 UTC, joshas
no flags Details

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.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora Linux 42 on 2026-05-13.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
'version' of '42'.

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Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
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of Fedora Linux, you are encouraged to change the 'version' to a later version
prior to this bug being closed.

Comment 9 Aoife Moloney 2026-06-08 18:06:21 UTC
Fedora Linux 42 entered end-of-life (EOL) status on 2026-05-27.

Fedora Linux 42 is no longer maintained, which means that it
will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we
are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora Linux
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