Re: X fonts in konqueror and OpenOffice too large

From: Rod Smith (rodsmith_at_nessus.rodsbooks.com)
Date: 06/02/04 

Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 10:32:31 -0400

In article <pan.2004.06.02.13.26.56.628037@hotmail.com>,
        Pete LaGrange <oldman1961@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> I hope this is the correct group for this. My problem is that the fonts in
> OpenOffice are too big (File, Edit etc.) and I can't even get to the menu
> to modify them. Konqueror also displays web pages in a very large font
> and refuses to change font size, otherwise Konq behaves normally. My specs
> follow.

Some programs, including most KDE programs, are sensitive to the reported
physical resolution (in dots per inch, or dpi) of the screen. This can
cause problems such as you report, as well as mismatched on-screen and
printed font sizes. The workaround is to force the X server to report its
resolution in a certain way. You can do this by editing your
/etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Go to the "Monitor"
section and edit the following line (or add it if it's not already
present):

DisplaySize 325 260

This sets the claimed physical size of your monitor, in millimeters (mm).
The above figures make X report a dpi of 100 when used with 1280x1024
resolution. To figure the correct values, take your monitor's x or y
resolution in pixels, multiply it by 25.4, and divide by your desired dpi
figure. For instance, in the above example, 1280 horizontal resolution
times 25.4 divided by 100 dpi equals 325.12 (rounded to 325); and 1024
vertical times 25.4 divided by 100 dpi equals 260.096 (rounded to 260).

In most cases, a screen resolution of between 72 dpi and 100 dpi is
appropriate. I use 100 because that seems to generate the best (albeit
still poor) printed output from KDE applications.

This said, I can't guarantee that setting the X dpi value will solve your
problems. I don't believe OpenOffice.org is sensitive to this, although I
could be mistaken. The problems I've encountered have all been related to
Qt programs, and are apparently due to a long-standing Qt bug. 

-- 
Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

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