Xming - PC X Server

Adding fonts

You want to add new fonts locally? You could search for *.TTF files on your system and copy to directory 'fonts/TTF' any you are licensed to copy (or different font types from other systems e.g. gzip compressed .pcf files). Then run 'mkfontscale' (from the Xming install directory) to create a 'fonts.dir' file, to make the fonts usable, like this

>cd C:\Program Files\Xming
>mkdir fonts\TTF     if directory TTF doesn't exist and then copy the appropriate *.TTF font files into it
>mkfontscale fonts/TTF            makes a 'fonts.scale' file in directory fonts\TTF
>mkfontscale -b -s -l fonts/TTF   makes a 'fonts.dir' file from 'fonts.scale' (used instead of 'mkfontdir')

Or just simply access Windows System TrueType fonts directly by creating harmless 'fonts.scale' and 'fonts.dir' files in the Windows System fonts directory (typically C:\WINDOWS\Fonts), like this

>mkfontscale C:/WINDOWS/Fonts
>mkfontscale -b -s -l C:/WINDOWS/Fonts   ignore the 'Couldn't...fon' messages

Additionally you have to tell Xming to use a font directory not in the default font path (i.e. not in 'built-ins', 'misc', 'TTF', 'Type1', '75dpi' or '100dpi') by adding the font directory to the default font path using the 'font-dirs' file in the install directory

# In file font-dirs make sure you have the entry...
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts

or by appending to the default font path during runtime (or prepending to put the new fonts first in the search order)

>xset fp+ C:/WINDOWS/Fonts             append or
>xset +fp C:/WINDOWS/Fonts             prepend

or by including the font directory at startup like this (you also have to include all the defaults)

>Xming -fp "built-ins,C:/Program Files/Xming/fonts/misc/,C:/Program Files/Xming/fonts/TTF/,
  C:/Program Files/Xming/fonts/Type1/,C:/Program Files/Xming/fonts/75dpi/,
  C:/Program Files/Xming/fonts/100dpi/,C:/WINDOWS/Fonts" -multiwindow -clipboard

It is however better to adjust font size in the client application. The render size of some fonts on Windows is different from the render size on a Linux desktop. So, remote client applications rendered by Xming may display with smaller or larger fonts than you expect. When you adjust the application be aware that you are adjusting its configuration on the remote host to fix a problem on the local display.

fonts.alias

Some applications can't manage only with the data supplied in the 'fonts.scale' and 'fonts.dir' files and need more traditional X names in an alias file. To create a 'fonts.alias' file you could use the usual 'mkfontalias.py' script by copying the 'fonts.dir' file onto a machine with Python (the methods above produce lower case in the 'fonts.dir' file so the script needs altering see 'my mkfontalias.py') and then 'grep' out the aliases you want and copy the 'fonts.alias' file back to the Windows machine 'C:\WINDOWS\Fonts' directory

$ python my_mkfontalias.py
$ grep 'iso8859-1"' fonts.alias > new_alias
$ grep 'iso8859-15"' fonts.alias >> new_alias
$ cat new_alias > fonts.alias

In some cases, applications rely upon the fonts named 'fixed' or something like '9x18'. In these cases, it is important that the 'fonts.alias' file specifies the correct character set. Users of iso8859-X encodings where X != 1 should modify the 'fonts.alias' files in directories '75dpi', '100dpi' and 'misc' by replacing the 'iso8859-1' string with the proper encoding name. This can be accomplished on a machine with 'sed', substituting the proper value for <X>

$ sed -i 's,iso8859-1\( \|$\),iso8859-<X>\1,g' fonts.alias

List fonts

To list the fonts resourced by an X server

>xlsfonts

To see the font path

>xset q

Using a remote X font server

To use a remote X font server, if one is available on your network, start Xming with option -fp

-fp tcp/<IP of font server>:7100

Antialiasing

The core X fonts protocol uses names such as '-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-80-iso8859-1'. These fonts are rendered by the X server (Xming) without antialiasing.
Xft provides antialiased font rendering through FreeType, and fonts are controlled from the client-side using Fontconfig.

Adding fonts
Font size
fonts.alias
List fonts
Using a remote X font server
Antialiasing

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Xming website, documentation and images are licensed under a

Adding fonts

Font size

fonts.alias

List fonts

Using a remote X font server

Antialiasing

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