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Strange fonts or characters (Opera 12.02)


Nomen

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BTW again, the only Font viewer that was able to display such Unicode fonts *in Win 98* was ... CHARMAP.EXE from Windows XP.

All the others I've tried only show the ANSI map characters.

 

SeeFont: http://www.jongware.com/binaries/seefont_1_0.zip

FTView: http://roy.orz.hm/soft/ftview.exe

dtl OTMaster Light: http://www.fonttools.org/downloads/OTMA/OTM_Light_370_WIN.zip

Type Light: http://cr8software.net/files/Typelightsetup.exe

 

;)

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@ Drugwash

Your page: https://duckduckgo.com/?q="noticons.ttf"  is fine here with Win98 SE (KEx 4.5.2, RP 9.7) in Opera 11.01 and 12.02 even with Webfonts download enabled.

Read here if it can help you ( https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/alternative-for-wp-dashboard-pages-webfont ):

How to disable the on-the-fly use of downloadable web fonts in your browser?

Firefox option: open about:config, and set gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled to false.

... Sadly, my above solution is not adequate...

 

Thank you, Charles, I had read that topic before but not very carefully. After disabling downloadable fonts (and installing the fonts in loblo's package), the text on DuckDuckGo's results page is displayed correctly and so are the glyphs at Font Awesome (had that font already installed but wasn't working).

 

Unfortunately there still are a few elements on the DuckDuckGo page that won't show correctly, namely the magnifiying glass on the 'go' button at the top, the X on the 'stop' button that appears when hovering the 'go' button and the menu button at the top-right (see screenshot: above XP, below 98SE). Those are also glyph fonts (DDG_ProximaNova). There are a few replacement families in the CSS but the optimum ones (ProximaNova) are not free. :(

post-99477-0-38321700-1427023475_thumb.j

 

The widespreading usage of webfonts is making browsing more and more difficult. The EOT fonts that could be grabbed from IE's temporary folders are unfortunately not convertible, or at least I couldn't find a way (read: offline application, at least) to do it.

 

I also tried to copy the EOT fonts to <FF profile>\extensions\font as I read somewhere long ago, to no avail (haven't restarted Firefox yet).

 

 

(fixed a minor typo)

Edited by Drugwash
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I don't think Firefox supports eot fonts, AFAIK they are for IE only (decompressed by t2embed.dll).

 

Sometimes eot fonts aren't compressed but mere ttf files without an internal name which can generally be fixed in a font editor such as fontforge or type light.

 

There is at least one online font conversion site that does (or did) conversion of compressed eot to other formats but I can't remember which one.

 

Anyway webfonts are always served in multiple formats so you just need to grab an easily convertible format to convert to ttf if ttf isn't available as webfont which happens sometimes. Fontforge can convert woff and svg fonts to ttf.

 

For DuckDuckGo you need: https://duckduckgo.com/font/ddg-serp-icons.ttffavicon.ico

Edited by loblo
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Thanks for the excellent explanation of webfonts, loblo. I tried to install those fonts you kindly provided but get various errors even after changing KernelEx compatibility modes. Occasionally I get errors indicating it's looking for a different version of Windows. This is the usual error I get:

SOME GLYPHS-ICONS WEBFONTS FOR OPERA 12 caused an invalid page fault in
module SOME GLYPHS-ICONS WEBFONTS FOR OPERA 12.02 ON 98-ME.7Z.EXE at 0177:00406a90.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0177 EIP=00406a90 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00000000 SS=017f ESP=0098fac0 EBP=0098fae8
ECX=a503d27b DS=017f ESI=00000000 FS=1927
EDX=00000000 ES=017f EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 40 0c 8b 40 18 89 45 f4 8b 45 f4 a3 1c 10 47
Stack dump:
5b5a5958 5f5e5d5c 00000000 2b3818b8 a503d27b b21fdf90 b21fdf90 00000000 7b5a5958 00000000 0098fd90 0043a221 8b8a8988 8f8e8d8c 93929190 97969594

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Sorry Prozactive, I should have mentioned  the need to untick the option to use the download manager before clicking on the download button. You then should get a 7z archive instead of an exe file.

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I don't think Firefox supports eot fonts, AFAIK they are for IE only (decompressed by t2embed.dll).

 

Sometimes eot fonts aren't compressed but mere ttf files without an internal name which can generally be fixed in a font editor such as fontforge or type light.

 

There is at least one online font conversion site that does (or did) conversion of compressed eot to other formats but I can't remember which one.

 

Anyway webfonts are always served in multiple formats so you just need to grab an easily convertible format to convert to ttf if ttf isn't available as webfont which happens sometimes. Fontforge can convert woff and svg fonts to ttf.

 

For DuckDuckGo you need: https://duckduckgo.com/font/ddg-serp-icons.ttffavicon.ico

Thank you for your efforts! :) I went ahead and based on the names I had previously gathered in EOT format I downloaded the corresponding TTF versions. There are six of them:

ddg-serp-icons.ttf

ddg-static-icons.ttf

ProximaNova-Light-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-RegIt-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-Reg-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-Sbold-webfont.ttf

After placing them all in the Windows\Fonts folder and refreshing its contents (important!), everything looks fine now.

 

Nevertheless - what are we supposed to do when each site will use its own (maybe proprietary) version of a font that we don't have a local replacement for? This is getting out of hand! :(

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Nevertheless - what are we supposed to do when each site will use its own (maybe proprietary) version of a font that we don't have a local replacement for? This is getting out of hand!  :(

 

It's all a matter of the amount of "power" you have (when compared to the amount of "power" the site owner and the demented kid professional team of web designers he hired has) and more than that on how many people (like you and me) are on our side.

 

As an example, if you write a nice letter to (say) a small hotel in the country telling them how you were not able to read much of their site because it uses a stupid *whatever* setup (including but not limited to webfonts) and that you regret having decided to book for the weekend some other hotel nearby because their site was at least §@ç#ing readable, and the hotel owner receives just 1 (one) other similar letter, you might obtain (not a benefit to you, but as a benefit for all the following customers) a decent, normal site.

 

Now, if you try the same with (say) Mega.co.nz that insists that my Opera is "a bit outdated" (and "Please update to the latest version or switch to a recommended browser:") while a newer Opera is "supported" and that either Firefox (I believe very latish versions only) or Chrome are "Recommended!" (while Safari and IE are "partial support" -sic!) you should know that you (and myself) have no chances whatsoever :(.

 

jaclaz

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Yes, I know all of this, I understand it at a very deep level and it kills me that nothing can be done by the regular people (like you and I) to change things for the best.

We could talk forever about standards, options, openness, choice, whatever but those in charge will only do what their narrow minds tell them to do, regardless of our opinions.

And you know what happens when one pi$$es against the wind... :(

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Thank you for your efforts! :) I went ahead and based on the names I had previously gathered in EOT format I downloaded the corresponding TTF versions. There are six of them:

ddg-serp-icons.ttf

ddg-static-icons.ttf

ProximaNova-Light-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-RegIt-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-Reg-webfont.ttf

ProximaNova-Sbold-webfont.ttf

After placing them all in the Windows\Fonts folder and refreshing its contents (important!), everything looks fine now.

 

Nevertheless - what are we supposed to do when each site will use its own (maybe proprietary) version of a font that we don't have a local replacement for? This is getting out of hand!  :(

 

Everything looks fine except that your downloaded  Proxima Nova fonts probably don't get used if you've just dumped them as is in your font folder  as their internal name doesn't match the font-family name in the site CSS. There is a Firefox extension that lets you check out which font is actually in use by using context menu for selected text: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/theme-font-size-changer/

 

I limit myself to adding iconic fonts only to my font folder because there is no fallback for them and I won't go over 50 of them which should largely cover for all the sites I visit semi-regularly.

Edited by loblo
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Yes, I noticed their internal name is missing/garbled. However, I wonder how the site recognizes them for a regular operation - only by link?

Type Light (which I installed earlier thanks to your links) can rename a font internally so we can fix them.

 

Indeed, the shape is important to some extent but the contents is the most important, after all.

 

EDIT:

 

Those DDG ProximaNova fonts look like ¤% when size is under 18pt, no matter what I try (gfx.use_text_smoothing_setting disabled/enabled).

I must force 'minimum font size' to 18, which blows everything out of proportions.

well, back to using own nice fonts... :(

Edited by Drugwash
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@loblo
After installing your fonts I started getting repeated general protection faults with GDI.EXE in Opera while web surfing. I'm not sure if your fonts are the root cause but I've just deleted them and will report back if the errors stop.

 

PS: I've also noticed a new/updated ttfCache file in my \Windows directory. Not familiar with this file but I suspect it's b/c I installed those new fonts.

Edited by Prozactive
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More tests with the Drugwash's DuckDuckGo page ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22noticons.ttf%22 ):

 

* With Webfonts enabled, Opera 11 doesn't display the icons! (even when ddg-serp-icons.ttf is installed in Windows),
and Opera 12 shows wrong icons (like for the Nomen's page), but if I install ddg-serp-icons.ttf Opera 12 display is correct.

* If I disable this feature and install the font, everything is right in both versions.

 

So, for now I feel better to disable it permanently.  :}

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FWIW, here's how it works (at least in Win 98):
- Opera (11 & 12) displays first the local default font (if it finds any)
- in Opera 11, the Webfont download feature *doesn't* work, and Opera sticks with this local font,

that's why there's no glitch with the Nomen page and no icon with the Drugwash page
- in Opera 12, the feature is working but buggy and display wrong characters if it is enabled.

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