Re: Question on fonts

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 18:09:28 +0000 (GMT), john <address@hidden> said:

    john> I am sure this is a naive question but I am getting more confused 
after
    john> each message....

No worries, weʼre here to help.

    john> I am not a visual person, and know nothing about fonts, except the
    john> font I get with current master is thin and spidery and so hard to
    john> read.  If I run emacs 25.3 (from my GNU/Linux distro) I get a font
    john> that is clearer and a little heavier.  What I would like is to have
    john> that 25.3 font on the current system.

Run 'C-u C-x =' on 25.3, that will pop up a buffer with a description
at the bottom of what font is being used.

    john> I saw messages about .Xresources but I do not have such a file
    john> anywhere.  There are two files /etc/X11/Xresources and
    john> /etc/X11/xdm/Xresources which I suspect are the same but there is
    john> nothing in them relating to which font is used.  As far as I can tell
    john> the current emacs is built with cairo, Freetype, and HarfBuzz but I
    john> have no idea what that means.

Donʼt worry about Xresources files, they just get in the way. Since
youʼre using cairo and freetype, the set of fonts available will
probably be different from 25.3, so either

1. Use M-x menu-set-font and see if you can find a font with the same
name as on 25.3.

2. Use M-x menu-set-font and try out the available choices and sizes
until you find one that suits you.

Donʼt forget to do 'Option->Save Options' afterwards.

If you *really* want to use the same font and step 1 doesnʼt find it
for you, then you'll have to find a scalable version of it somewhere
and install it. How to do that will vary based on your distribution
and desktop environment.

Robert