Better fonts in Ubuntu with freetype auto-hinter

Alrighty ! If you felt fonts in Ubuntu looked fuzzy and not-cool, you are probably right. Because it can be changed and in all probabilities you'll like the change. I am talking of auto-hinting which is compiled into freetype ( font rendering libraries ) but not enabled by default in Ubuntu 8.04 So without any delay , here's how to enable auto-hinting in Ubuntu 8.04 - add the following lines to your .fonts.conf file in your home directory i.e /home/chet/.fonts.conf

<match target="pattern">

  <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">

   
<bool>true</bool>

  </edit>

</match>

Please note that this text should go before the </fontconfig> tag. So your sample .fonts.conf might look like below :

<fontconfig>



 <match target="font"></match>

  <edit mode="assign"
name="rgba"></edit>

   <const>none</const>



 <match target="font"></match>

  <edit mode="assign"
name="hinting"></edit>

   <bool>true</bool>



 <match target="font"></match>

  <edit mode="assign"
name="hintstyle"></edit>

 
<const>hintmedium</const>



 <match target="font"></match>

  <edit mode="assign"
name="antialias"></edit>

   <bool>true</bool>



 <match target="pattern"></match>

    <edit name="autohint"
mode="assign"></edit>

      
<bool>true</bool>



</fontconfig>

Thats it ! Log-out and log-in to experience the goodness of auto-hinter !