JDK-6476281 : Some characters are not displayed properly when font size <= 10
  • Type: Bug
  • Component: client-libs
  • Sub-Component: 2d
  • Affected Version: 5.0u8
  • Priority: P4
  • Status: Open
  • Resolution: Unresolved
  • OS: solaris_2.5.1,windows_xp
  • CPU: sparc
  • Submitted: 2006-09-28
  • Updated: 2021-12-18
Related Reports
Duplicate :  
JDK-6511522 - Some characters are not displayed properly when font size <= 10
Description
Steps to recreate:
-------------------
 1. Run the Font2DTest in the demo package (demo\jfc\Font2DTest)
 2. Change the size value to 10, or less than 10 (the problem is very clear when the size is set to 8).
 3. Change the Font and you will see that some parts of the following characters (among others) are not displayed properly.


Font 'Arial' : 'F','H','K','M','N','R','U','W','j','k','m','n','u'
  
Font 'Courier New' : 'Q','W','e','w'

Font 'Times NEW Roman' : 'M','NZ','i','l','m','n','q'
Comments
EVALUATION I've looked at these examples in Font2DTest and compared with windows notepad with font smoothing turned off. Since windows uses VGA res (96 dpi) then in notepad to compare Java's 8 pt to the windows font you must select 6 pt ie 96/72 * 8 = 6, to make a valid comparison. What I see is that pretty much across the board these fonts are illegible in notepad at that size. I think GDI maybe does a bit better than JDK on a couple of things we should be able to get right. Eg I'd expect F and H in Arial to be in better shape. But it doesn't seem as if these fonts are expected to be used at these sizes. Even in notepad I couldn't possibly read the text I entered if I didn't know what it already said. (See the attached arial.png image) I did confirm that at pt size 8 and below the fonts themselves in their 'gasp' table indicate that hinting doesn't apply and they should be grey-scaled rendered instead.
29-09-2006