Ubuntu
poppler package

  1. Bug #80921
  2. Comment #32

Comment 32 for bug 80921

Revision history for this message
Tobias Wolf (towolf) wrote :

It seems that Poppler also disables hinting completely. I created test packages in a special PPA that enable both slight hinting, which really improves vertical text contrast, and the default LCD filter, which improves horizontal contrast a great deal.

I had to revert the removal of the FreeType LCD filtering API in Cairo 1.7.6 so that Tom’s patch still works as intended. The PPA sources can be found here:

https://edge.launchpad.net/~improved-lcd-filtering/+archive

The attachment shows one example of the effect of slight hinting and the subpixel LCD filter.
Please test, you will see that in most cases it improves readability, but for some (thin) fonts and zoom levels, there’s also color fringing.