[Bug 436505] New: condensed Nimbus fonts inaccessible to applications

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=436505

Summary: condensed Nimbus fonts inaccessible to applications
           Product: Fedora
           Version: rawhide
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: low
          Priority: low
         Component: urw-fonts
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]
         QAContact: [e-mail]
                CC: [e-mail]

Description of problem:

The urw-fonts package includes four Type 1 fonts with FamilyName Nimbus Sans L
with Condensed in the FullName.  But most current applications cannot deal with
Condensed, so these fonts are simply inaccessible to them.  In particular, 
browsers like Firefox and Konqueror do not recognize them and so web authors
have no way to specify them on web pages. This is unfortunate because these
fonts are installed on virtually every Linux system and there is no other
condensed sans font that is widely installed.

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

2.4-3

How reproducible:

always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Try to select Nimbus Sans L Condensed.
2.
3.

Actual results:

Can't be selected.

Expected results:

Can select them.

Additional info:

There seem to be three approaches to this problem. One is to insist that every
application deal with condensed/expanded fonts in the same way that they deal
with bold/italic/etc. This is a good long-term solution. A short-term solution
is to hack the fonts in question so that their FamilyName is Nimbus Sans L
Condensed; this has already been adopted by Mandriva and, apparently, Suse:

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=367188

Another is use fontconfig to achieve the same, as in

<match target="scan">
   <test name="family" compare="eq">
      <string>Nimbus Sans L</string>
   </test>
   <test name="width" compare="eq">
      <int>75</int>
   </test>
   <edit name="family" mode="assign">
     <string>Nimbus Sans L Condensed</string>
   </edit>
 </match>

or variants thereof.

I'll attach a simple html file which illustrates the problem.  In any browser on
Fedora, the two lines will be in the same fonts.  When the font files are
patched as suggestedb or the fontconfig snippet above installed, condensed fonts
are used for the second line.

------- Additional Comments From [e-mail]  2008-03-07 11:58 EST -------
Created an attachment (id=297217)
 --> (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=297217&action=view)
Test file to illustrate inaccessibility of condensed fonts in browsers.