How do we change fonts now

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 14:02 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Bastien Nocera (bnocera at redhat.com) said: 
> > > though. Laptops are increasingly coming with displays featuring
> > > significantly higher than 96dpi resolution; I'm wondering when the first
> > > 2k LCDs will hit.)
> > 
> > You can increase the DPI of the screen in "Universal Access" -> "Larger
> > text".
> 
> I must be weird, in that I have a > 96 dpi screen, and I want the default
> fonts *smaller*.
> 
> Then again, 140dpi on a laptop at typing distance is different from 140dpi
> on a on-desk monitor, in terms of the relative visual height of text. And
> without assuming everyone has a webcam, we're not going to auto-adjust
> for viewing distance any time soon.

I'd argue that you should always set the correct DPI, and then adjust
the font point size to adjust the final display to your subjective
preferences. Strictly understood, the DPI setting doesn't have any
subjectivity to it; there is a single correct value which causes any
given font point size to render at the actual physical size it's
supposed to be. You're supposed to use the ability to change the font
point size to adjust for your personal preference, not the DPI setting.
Reality fails to live up to my strict standards in various ways, but
damnit, that's reality's fault. =)

(this is how I do it on the Vaio P, btw - size 11 fonts at 220dpi
actually look ridiculous on it, but I still set the DPI to 220, and then
set my preferred font size to be 7 or 8, which gives the appearance I'm
happy with.)
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
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