Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

lmeurs wrote:LS,

We have written a Javascript/CGI-script that replaces text in HTML elements with an anti-aliased background image. The scripts work fine but for one thing: on some servers edges of letters happen to appear a bit distorted/less smooth. A fine example is the letter 'o':



We are working with three servers:

- Windows XP SP3 development server with IM 6.2.8,
- Fedora 6 production server with IM 6.2.8,
- Suse 10.2 production server with IM 6.3.0.

One and the same script is running on all three of the servers, but unfortunately with two different kinds of results: the Fedora server produces the right result, the other two not, even though the Windows machine has the very same version of IM installed and Suse even has a newer version!

Can anyone tell us what we can do about it? Any help is appreciated!

Sincerely,

Laurens Meurs (Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

fmw42 wrote:I am no expert on these matters, but I suspect the font you are using is not identical on each computer. Even if the name is the same, the source of the font may be different and this can cause slight differences in rendering. Also one font set may not have the exact size you have specified and it then needs to scale that from a smaller or larger one. So I would look into making sure you install the same font (say from the server that looks good) to the other servers.

magick wrote:Its possible you may have different Freetype versions on your machines or Freetype may be configured for the patented Apple hinting method on one server but not the next.

lmeurs wrote:Anthony, for this script written in Perl I am actually using PerlMagick and I address the font in the following manner:

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$image->[0]->Annotate(font=>'./fonts/GOTHIC.TTF' , text=>'test 1 2 3...');

The same font is used on all three machines...

lmeurs wrote:The server that did give the wanted output is based on Fedora 6 and has freetype.i386 and freetype.x86_64 installed, both version 2.2.1.17.fc6. How do I know which version is used: i386 or x86_64? The other Linux server has Suse 10, freetype.i586 1.3.1-1193 and freetype2.i586 2.2.1.20061027-11 installed.

rpm -qil {package}

ldd /usr/bin/convert

libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6

rpm -qf /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6

I have tried to run show_fonts, but on both servers I got an error:

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> /bin/bash ./show_fonts -2 -o arial2.png Arial
'/show_fonts: line 38: syntax error near unexpected token `
'/show_fonts: line 38: `}

After removing a trailing space on line 38 I got the following error, which I do not know what to do with

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> /bin/bash ./show_fonts -2 -o arial2.png Arial
'/show_fonts: line 54: syntax error near unexpected token `in
'/show_fonts: line 54: `  case "$1" in

And unfortunately graphics_utf gives similar errors...

lmeurs wrote:Ok, the new show_fonts was available for download and we tried it, but it still trips over the $1 variable:

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> sh ./show_fonts
'/show_fonts: line 60: syntax error near unexpected token `in
'/show_fonts: line 60: `  case "$1" in

Anyway we try to call the script (bash or sh, with or without -2), we do not get any further than line 60.

Then again, when I look at the config files http://www.wishdesign.nl/fora/configure.fedora.xml and http://www.wishdesign.nl/fora/configure.suse.xml, I see some big differences in the 'configure' variables. Can this have something to do with it?