[SOLVED] Firefox Font Issues (Blurry, Font Settings Ignored)

[Gav80K]

I'm new to Linux and started out by trying to configure the fonts to my preferences. I'm using the MATE version of Mint 13 RC and have set the Application, Document, Desktop and Window Title fonts to Tahoma 8, and set the font rendering to Monocrhome.

All the applications I've checked (Libre Office, Opera, Caja etc) are using the fonts I set in the Appearance Preferences, with the exception of Firefox, which is using its own (hard to read) font in menus and dialog boxes:



How can I get Firefox to use the fonts I set in Appearance Preferences?


I'm also having another issue with Firefox where the fonts on web pages are extremely blurry and hard to read. I looked what the font settings Firefox used in Windows and found it to be:

Default: Times New Roman
Proportional: Serif
Serif: Times New Roman
Sens Serif: Arial
Monospace: Courier New

I tried setting these fonts in Mint Firefox but website fonts are still extremely blurry (Windows left, Mint right):


Opera under Mint looks largely the same as Firefox under Windows, so it looks like its' a problem with Firefox under Mint.

It's not unique to one website, and I'm seeing blurry fonts everywhere in Firefox Mint. This makes Firefox pretty much unusable under Mint, but since Firefox is my preferred browser I'd like to be able to fix it.

Any idea how to fix the font rendering in Firefox?

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[wasicu]

Have you told Firefox NOT to use the page's fonts? This is how I have mine set:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hns4pyp7wpwiqmh/firefox-fonts.png

[nomko]

Have you told Firefox NOT to use the page's fonts? This is how I have mine set:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hns4pyp7wpwiqmh/firefox-fonts.png

isn't that a standard setting of Firefox??

[rivenathos]

This is the method I have used for making Firefox fonts play nicely. It works for me. Might work for you. Might not.

Basically, in Terminal, enter:

Code: Select all

gksudo nautilus

Find:

Code: Select all

/etc/fonts/conf.d

Then, delete the three files that start with a 10. Yes, delete them.

Once deleted, close the Terminal, open it back up, and key in:

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

Once you restart Firefox, you should see an improvement in your font rendering. Good luck.

[Gav80K]

rivenathos, thanks a lot for the help. That solved both problems. Font's in the menus and on web pages are now completely clear.

It's a shame it doesn't work straight out the box. Problems like this can be rather off putting to a new user. I'd spent hours searching for and trying out various suggestions I'd seen on other sites, but unti now none of them had worked. I was on the verge of giving up completely.

Thanks again for the help.

[rivenathos]

Gav80K,

I completely agree that this little niggle can be off-putting to newcomers. I am glad my previous research into fonts was able to help you fix your problem.

This Firefox font issue originally happened to me back back around version 3, and it bothered me something awful. I searched and searched until I found the method I shared with you. Ever since then, whenever I install Linux Mint with Firefox on systems, this little fix is part of my automatic routine. It works in Ubuntu, also.

On a side note, Iceweasel (the Debian version of Firefox) does not have this font issue out of the box. Someone somewhere fixed it way back when. Just FYI.

Oh yeah, by the way, welcome to Linux Mint! I should have said that earlier, but I did not notice it was your first post in the forum.

[rivenathos]

Just for my knowledge and future reference, if anyone else reading this thread uses this method and finds it does not work, please let me know via PM. I do not wish to suggest any methods that no longer work. Thanks!

[Gav80K]

On a side note, Iceweasel (the Debian version of Firefox) does not have this font issue out of the box. Someone somewhere fixed it way back when. Just FYI.

I saw Iceweasel suggested as a solution on another site, but when i tried apt-get install iceweasel it instead installed Firefox:

Code: Select all

Note, selecting 'firefox' instead of 'iceweasel'
firefox is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 98 not upgraded.

apt-cache search iceweasel also returns Firefox so I assumed iceweasel had been abandoned. I probably should have looked into it more, but at the time I thought that all applications were in the repository. I've now realised that's not the case, and many of the file managers I've been trying weren't in the repository and had to be downloaded from the websites.

Oh yeah, by the way, welcome to Linux Mint! I should have said that earlier, but I did not notice it was your first post in the forum.

Thanks a lot. It's pretty confusing whe you've been using Windows for 20 years. I don't know what I'm doing, don't know where any of the files are and am having trouble with concepts like file permissions, but I'll just pick things up slowly.

With the direction Microsoft is taking Windows 8 in, learning to use Linux is pretty much essential

[Dry Lips]

I also just wanted to say thanks to rivenathos! I had the same problem, and the solution you came up with worked perfectly!

Thanks!

[guimaster]

Can't you just navigate to your Home folder and delete "Fonts.conf" to fix this problem? That worked for me.

This is a regular problem with KDE after any sort of change to the desktop themes. I don't know if that fix will work in Mint KDE, but it worked for Ubuntu with KDE installed along-side Unity.