If you’re using the Plasma desktop, well you should
because it’s dope, and you happen to be using LibreOffice, which
you most likely are, after all, let’s face it, ’tis the most popular office suite for Linux, then you may
have come across an annoying bug. Everything looks peachy but the LibreOffice interface has that grainy
2006 feel.
In this short guide, I will show you how you can improve the look & feel of LibreOffice so that it
fits more naturally into the Plasma desktop environment. Moreover, the tweak also applies to a wider range
of programs, and it should give you ever so slightly better fonts. Having read my
Fedora font saga, you know what I’m talking about. After me.
Problem
You start LibreOffice, this is what it looks like. Notice the start difference between the title font
and the file menu font. The latter is just too thin, looks weird, and it feels as though plucked from a
completely different desktop.
There are several things you can try. One, OpenGL settings. This can potentially help how LibreOffice
displays on the screen. LibreOffice > Tools > Options > View. Then you can toggle OpenGL on.
Do note that this setting may cause LibreOffice not to be able to start at all. This is a side issue,
but you should be aware of the potential issue. If LibreOffice refuses to start thereafter, you should
delete your program configuration and start fresh. The exact location of the configuration in the Plasma
desktop is:
~/.config/libreoffice
You can also test if enabling/disabling hardware acceleration makes a difference, as well as the use of
anti-aliasing (aha, hint). You should close the program and start it again to see what gives. Lastly, for
those among you who remember font tweaks, specific font changes for the interface are no longer possible as
a user setting anymore.
Solution
What you
do want to do on a more permanent basis is to change the anti-aliasing
settings in the system fonts menu. By default, Plasma will use
system settings, whatever
they mean for your particular platform, graphics card and Plasma version. You want to override those.
System settings > Fonts. Under anti-aliasing, change from system default to Enabled. Then click
Configure to fine-tune your selection. Choose RGB for sub-pixel rendering type and slight for Hinting
style. Restart LibreOffice.
Results
You will notice that the menu now shows beautifully in font style and size that match the rest of
the system, and it looks modern and elegant. You will also notice that the actual font on the screen looks
a tad better. Compare please the before and after screenshots. Click to enlarge to full size, as the
details are too subtle to see on resized images. You should ignore the actual icon theme, as it is not
relevant – it does impact the overall look and feel, though. Just focus on the text part.
Sorry about the vertical misalignment, but it’s part of the whole deal.
Conclusion
Fonts, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the OSS Linuxer. Its continuing mission: to explore
strange new fonts, to seek out new kerning and new configurations, to boldly git where no one has forked
before. In a nutshell, the font game remains the wild west of the distro world, along half a dozen other
non-standardized, unregulated, unspecified yet critical aspects of desktop computing.
Perhaps this will go pro one day – see the pun there – but until that happens, we will need to invest
time and energy fighting and figuring out fonts and other tweaks to make applications look and behave the
part. LibreOffice is a high-profile victim in this game, and probably because it isn’t an integral part of
the KDE suite, it suffers double. Luckily, this little OCD tutorial will help you enjoy ever so slightly
sharper fonts, from this day till the end of the world, we few, we happy few, we band of geeks. Engage.
Cheers.