Rendering issues with Times New Roman and diacritics

haraven · December 20, 2022, 7:28pm

Hi,

I have a somewhat specific problem that I don’t know how to fix. I searched online for similar issues but haven’t been able to find anything about this.

The issue is that text containing diacritics, written with Times New Roman, gets rendered incorrectly. Other fonts, like Noto Sans, seem to work fine. I had some screenshots, but it won’t let me post them.

Diacritics appear slightly bigger than other characters, and in words with diacritics, letters n and m are also bigger and they look like they use a different font (even though they’re still Times new Roman).

The issue seems system-wide. I haven’t tried to set my OS language to Romanian, but I’m guessing I’d be seeing the same sort of incorrectly rendered characters popping up.

I have installed all of the language packs I could install for my system. I have also checked the forums for similar issues and checked the wiki guide for improving font rendering, but nothing has worked.

I appreciate any pointers.

Thank you very much.

bogdancovaciu · December 20, 2022, 7:44pm

Hello,

Can’t say i even encountered this issue in any software by using that font, or when using diacritics.

You mean for the UI after you set the font in System Settings to Times New Roman? With the system in Romanian or English, still there should be no issue with diacritics.
Maybe view that issue will help. See this:

Also please share from terminal
inxi -Fazy

haraven · December 20, 2022, 7:58pm

Hey, thanks for the answer.

You mean for the UI after you set the font in System Settings to Times New Roman? With the system in Romanian or English, still there should be no issue with diacritics.

I should’ve been more specific, sorry. I meant it happens across multiple applications. So far I’ve noticed the issue when reading Romanian text in Google Docs using Brave and when editing Romanian documents using OnlyOffice. It doesn’t seem to happen for the system font setting.

This is text from a document I’ve opened in OnlyOffice:
https://i.imgur.com/GxL1gAs.png
This is text from a document I’ve opened in Google Docs using Brave:
https://i.imgur.com/yO9Yhhf.png

I’ll paste below the output from inxy -Fazy:

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.84-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64
    root=UUID=451d958a-1692-49d6-b502-ac45972be06f rw quiet
    udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.26.4 tk: Qt v: 5.15.7 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM
    Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: MSI model: Z97S SLI Krait Edition (MS-7922) v: 2.0
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 10.2
    date: 11/10/2014
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i7-4790K bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell
    gen: core 4 level: v3 note: check built: 2013-15 process: Intel 22nm
    family: 6 model-id: 0x3C (60) stepping: 3 microcode: 0x28
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 4 tpc: 2 threads: 8 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 256 KiB desc: d-4x32 KiB; i-4x32 KiB L2: 1024 KiB desc: 4x256 KiB
    L3: 8 MiB desc: 1x8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2585 high: 4500 min/max: 800/4500 scaling:
    driver: intel_cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 1301 2: 3087 3: 1541
    4: 4424 5: 2677 6: 1055 7: 4500 8: 2095 bogomips: 64026
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT
    vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Unknown: No mitigations
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl and seccomp
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW,
    STIBP: conditional, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1080] driver: nvidia v: 525.60.11
    alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm non-free: 525.xx+
    status: current (as of 2022-12) arch: Pascal code: GP10x process: TSMC 16nm
    built: 2016-21 pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:1b80 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: KYE Systems (Mouse Systems) Genius Webcam type: USB
    driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus-ID: 3-4:2 chip-ID: 0458:6006
    class-ID: 0102 serial: <filter>
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.6 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: N/A
    display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 92 s-size: 1060x301mm (41.73x11.85")
    s-diag: 1102mm (43.38")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 pos: left res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92
    size: 531x299mm (20.91x11.77") diag: 609mm (23.99") modes: N/A
  Monitor-2: HDMI-0 pos: primary,right res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93
    size: 527x296mm (20.75x11.65") diag: 604mm (23.8") modes: N/A
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 525.60.11 renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX
    1080/PCIe/SSE2 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 9 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI
    driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 3-4:2 v: kernel chip-ID: 0458:6006
    bus-ID: 00:1b.0 class-ID: 0102 chip-ID: 8086:8ca0 serial: <filter>
    class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP104 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1
    chip-ID: 10de:10f0 class-ID: 0403
  Device-3: KYE Systems (Mouse Systems) Genius Webcam type: USB
    driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
  Sound API: ALSA v: k5.15.84-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.21 running: no
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.63 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: d000 bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.15 TiB used: 617.34 GiB (28.1%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM010-2EP102
    size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter> rev: CC43 scheme: MBR
  ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Kingston model: SHFS37A120G
    size: 111.79 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: BBF0 scheme: MBR
  ID-3: /dev/sdc maj-min: 8:32 vendor: Western Digital
    model: WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter>
    rev: 1A01 scheme: MBR
  ID-4: /dev/sdd maj-min: 8:48 vendor: Kingston model: SV300S37A240G
    size: 223.57 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: BBF0 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 223.27 GiB size: 218.71 GiB (97.96%)
    used: 173.97 GiB (79.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdd2 maj-min: 8:50
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 312 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdd1 maj-min: 8:49
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 39 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 27%
Info:
  Processes: 258 Uptime: 5m wakeups: 0 Memory: 15.58 GiB used: 3.3 GiB (21.2%)
  Init: systemd v: 252 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers:
  gcc: 12.2.0 clang: 14.0.6 Packages: 1723 pm: pacman pkgs: 1695 libs: 361
  tools: pamac pm: flatpak pkgs: 28 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9 default: Bash v: 5.1.16
  running-in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.24

bogdancovaciu · December 20, 2022, 8:36pm

Indeed looks odd, but, one thing i don’t use is Brave Browser, and i prefer LibreOffice over OnlyOffice.

Failed to reproduce in Gimp:

Also LibreOffice shows fine:

And something from a random document. We can agree that indeed the render is not perfect, but is not as wild as in your screenshots

Taking the same text into OnlyOffice got me the same result as in your screenshots.

I do think the issue is in the way OnlyOffice renders that font, but then remains the Brave issue too to be determined. Will do more tests in a VM install and see if there is something that can be done.

haraven · December 20, 2022, 8:54pm

I just tried GIMP, LibreOffice and Firefox, and they all render text much better.

LibreOffice and GIMP render very well, but Firefox still has some subtle issues:
https://i.imgur.com/J2wyNmX.png

If there’s no way to fix the rendering for OnlyOffice and Brave, I’ll consider switching to different apps.

Thanks for looking into this.

bogdancovaciu · December 20, 2022, 9:35pm

To me the easiest resolution, not a solution tho, is simply change the Font family of the documents i have. One of other reasons is this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Microsoft_fonts
And also use more matured software …

haraven · December 21, 2022, 7:19am

I managed to fix the issue across the board using the packages from the Wiki page you linked.

Previously, I’d had ttf-ms-fonts installed from the AUR. I uninstalled the package and installed ttf-ms-win11-auto and rebooted.

Fonts now render fine in all of the apps I had issues with before.

Thanks very much!

bogdancovaciu · December 21, 2022, 7:42am

Indeed the times.ttf and other font files from it are newer than the standalone Times New Roman one, or the other standalone ones, just that we can’t provide them automatically in our installed system. Either way, glad you sort it out.

system · December 23, 2022, 9:42pm

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