Tweaking fonts, a Linux PDF editor, and more

Baskervville Glyphs

Changing the name of a font

Continuing to set up the Linux environment on the Chuwi MiniBook X, I needed the Baskerville* font to work with the templates I've lovingly hand-crafted over the years. I installed Baskervville (note the double 'v'), but since the font name didn't match exactly, Libre Office didn't use it, and instead I got some generic sans serif monstrosity.

No problem, found an archived tutorial on how to change the name of the font. tl;dr version, using fonttools (which was already installed on this Fedora 40 machine), use ttx <font filename> to build a .ttx XML file for the font, then edit that XML file, using find-and-replace to swap, e.g., Baskervville to Baskerville. Then run ttx <.ttx file> to recompile the file back to a font file. Then, remove the old .ttf (or .otf or whatever) files from $HOME/.fonts and copy the recompiled files in. Done.

Installing fonttools

If you don’t already have ttx installed, you’ll need to install fonttools. On a RHEL 8 machine with Python 3.8 installed, that’s as simple as:

# pip3.8 install fonttools     # installs to /usr/local/bin/ttx

A Linux PDF editor

I needed a general purpose PDF editor on Linux, something like Preview or Adobe Acrobat Pro on the Mac. For commercial work I'll splurge (well, the company will) on a paid product, but for light home use I couldn't justify $70+ or a subscription. But luckily I found this blog post discussing the previous (v4.x) version of Master PDF, which is free for non-commercial use. (Note, I did have to substitute https for http in the links, e.g., https://code-industry.net/public/master-pdf-editor-4.3.89_qt5.x86_64.rpm.) So far I like Master PDF 4.3.89 just fine; my only quibble is when printing forms that have elements that shouldn't print (like a "Print this Form" button), they do. But they're easily erased from the final document (I print to cups-pdf (rpm)). The newest version of Master PDF is available from Code Industry, Ltd. It's a polished app that so far does what I need.

Other tweaks

Played around with monitor-sensor (from iio-sensor-proxy) and determined my MiniBook X thinks it's in right-up when it's actually in landscape mode. Editing my orginal entry to discuss the orientation fix.

 Also, I have this on my "setting up a new Mac checklist," but I don't have a similar checklist for Linux (yet?), so I missed configuring Firefox not to pop up the downloads wdiget for completed transfers.

 

* Butterick would probably give me grief for using Baskerville, a "C-list" system font by his estimation, but it's likely to be installed on other computers when collaboratively working with others on a document, etc., so, needs must. Too, Baskerville is reportedly a good font to use when you want to enhance your credibility: The Baskerville typeface effect; The Typeface of Truth; The Baskerville Experiment: Font and its influence on our perception of truth. (I touched on this once before: http://flying-geek.blogspot.com/2021/03/typefaces-fonts.html.)