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9 displays as - in every browser

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Bob Tennent

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Apr 2, 2021, 8:44:08 AM4/2/21
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On my CentOS-7 system, "9" displays as "-" in google-chrome,
chromium, firefox, vivaldi, and opera. Why?

Eli the Bearded

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Apr 2, 2021, 1:53:57 PM4/2/21
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In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On my CentOS-7 system, "9" displays as "-" in google-chrome,
> chromium, firefox, vivaldi, and opera. Why?

Have you ruled out a corrupt font file?

Elijah
------
had a printer with corrupt built-in fonts once

Bob Tennent

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Apr 2, 2021, 2:39:54 PM4/2/21
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On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 17:53:54 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On my CentOS-7 system, "9" displays as "-" in google-chrome,
>> chromium, firefox, vivaldi, and opera. Why?
>
> Have you ruled out a corrupt font file?

Seems to happen only for certain web sites.


Eli the Bearded

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Apr 2, 2021, 2:50:53 PM4/2/21
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In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 17:53:54 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On my CentOS-7 system, "9" displays as "-" in google-chrome,
>>> chromium, firefox, vivaldi, and opera. Why?
>> Have you ruled out a corrupt font file?
> Seems to happen only for certain web sites.

And are those web sites specifying a particular font?

Have you tried this on another device? Maybe it's something about the
site(s). If it's only certain web sites, you could share and maybe
someone else running CentOS-7 (I'm not) could try to reproduce.

Have you tried cut-n-pasting the text to see if it shows up as a - or a
9 in another program? Consider trying programs that support HTML paste,
like Libre Office, and those that don't, like ed/vi/emacs in an xterm.

Elijah
------
really, what have you done to try to really identify the problem?

Bob Tennent

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Apr 2, 2021, 7:16:09 PM4/2/21
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On Fri, 2 Apr 2021 18:50:51 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded wrote:

>> Seems to happen only for certain web sites.
>
> And are those web sites specifying a particular font?

A typical problem site is imslp.org. I can't find where the
font is specified. It's not the default font I've specified
in preferences.

> Have you tried this on another device?

Yes. Another CentOS-7 system. No problems.

> Have you tried cut-n-pasting the text to see if it shows
> up as a - or a 9 in another program?

Selecting a title with 9s and pasting into an xterm shows
the 9s.

Eli the Bearded

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Apr 2, 2021, 7:30:43 PM4/2/21
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In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A typical problem site is imslp.org. I can't find where the
> font is specified. It's not the default font I've specified
> in preferences.
...
> Yes. Another CentOS-7 system. No problems.
...
> Selecting a title with 9s and pasting into an xterm shows
> the 9s.

All consistent with a corrupt font. Checksum the font files and compare
with the working system. It might be something else still, but that
seems most likely now.

Elijah
------
try Web Developer -> Inspector to find the font by name

Bob Tennent

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Apr 2, 2021, 9:09:12 PM4/2/21
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Seems to be one of "Lucida Grande","Trebuchet
MS","Verdana","Helvetica","Arial",sans-serif;

fc-match Lucida Grande fails but fc-match Trebuchet reports

DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"

Is that the suspect font? I opened my DejaVuSans.ttf in
fontforge and 9 is 9. Same with all the others.

Bob Tennent

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Apr 2, 2021, 9:45:23 PM4/2/21
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Using the following test file:


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<style type="text/css">
body { font-family: "Lucida Grande";}
</style>
</head>
999
</BODY></HTML>

I've determined that my Lucida_Grande.ttf is the problem
(though in fontforge it is showing 9 as 9). After removing
Lucida_Grande.ttf from my system (and calling fc-cache) the
problem has been solved. Thanks!

Jasen Betts

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Apr 3, 2021, 12:00:45 AM4/3/21
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On 2021-04-02, Bob Tennent <rdte...@tennent.ca> wrote:
> On my CentOS-7 system, "9" displays as "-" in google-chrome,
> chromium, firefox, vivaldi, and opera. Why?

I had problems like that when I was overclocking my video card,
rebooting or restarting X11 would temporarily fix it.

--
Jasen.

Eli the Bearded

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Apr 3, 2021, 1:26:55 AM4/3/21
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In comp.os.linux.development.apps, Bob Tennent <rdte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seems to be one of "Lucida Grande","Trebuchet
>> MS","Verdana","Helvetica","Arial",sans-serif;

Firefox inspector (which is the only one I've used recently, and not
much) underlines the font being used.

>> fontforge and 9 is 9. Same with all the others.

Fontforge must be using the font files differently, but I can't say how.
Fonts are complicated.[*]

> Using the following test file:
...
> <style type="text/css">
> body { font-family: "Lucida Grande";}
> </style>
> </head>
> 999
...
>
> I've determined that my Lucida_Grande.ttf is the problem

That's good. Corrupt fonts are not common, or at least not commonly
noticed. If ¥ prints as ₩ but you never buy anything in Yen or Won, you
might not realize the problem.

Elijah
------
[*] https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/an-entire-game-inside-of-a-font/
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