Java Runtime Environment fonts

Some users may find the default Java fonts or the display mode of fonts in Java applications to be unpleasant. Several methods to improve the font display in the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) are available. These methods may be used separately, but many users will find they achieve better results by combining them.

TrueType fonts appear to be the best supported format for use with Java.

Anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing of fonts is available with Oracle Java 1.6 and OpenJDK on Linux.

Running an xsettings daemon

Java tries to get the system defaults through xsettings. On GNOME you do not have to do anything, gnome-settings-daemon is already running. Otherwise Xsettingsd is a lightweight alternative.

Overriding the automatically picked up settings

If you do not want to run an xsettings daemon, or the fonts still look ugly, there is also an environment variable to configure anti-aliasing:

_JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=setting'

Where setting is one of the values:

Setting	Description
`off`, `false`,	No anti-aliasing
	Full anti-aliasing
	Use the font's built-in hinting instructions
`lcd`,	Anti-aliasing tuned for many popular LCD monitors
`lcd_hbgr`, ,	Alternative LCD monitor setting

The and lcd settings work well in many instances.

To optionally to use GTK look and feel, add the following line instead:

_JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel'

Specify the variable on the command line before the executable to try the new configuration:

_JAVA_OPTIONS=options executable

Re-login for the changes to take effect.

Font selection

TrueType fonts

Some Java applications may specify use of a particular TrueType font; these applications must be made aware of the directory path to the desired font. TrueType fonts are installed in the directory . Add the following environment variable:

JAVA_FONTS=/usr/share/fonts/TTF

Fixing tofu

Place font files in . Create it if needed.

Substitute the for the of the JRE you are actually using. Note that the feature is removed since Oracle Java 9, as Oracle considers it a bug to encourage users to change , moved the configuration files to and called the fallback functionality a "mis-feature". The specific function providing this behavior is sun.awt.FontConfiguration.getInstalledFallbackFonts, and OpenJDK seems to still have it.

Doing so makes Java always add the fonts in this directory into the fallback sequence to look for character shapes (glyphs) in. This way, no matter what fonts the application has asked for, these additional fonts will provide the missing glyphs when needed.

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