Looking for a good "default" font (small 'L' vs. capital 'i' problem)

[Christoph K.]

Hi all,

I'm unsatisfied with the default sans font in debian for use in the
graphical user interface (in my case XFCE).

My main concern with the default sans font (I guess it's Bitsream Vera,
but that doesn't really matter) is the the small 'L' and the capital 'i'
look the same (mostly).

Everyone who has tried to read unknown characters (e.g. a password
generated automatically oder base64 encoded data) knows what pain it is to
distinguish these characters.

Could you please recommend a "suitable" sans-serif font that
a) has "proper" 'l' and 'I' characters

b) looks harmonious on screen, even for small (8pt, 10pt) font sizes
e.g. not too narrow, not too wide, no weird characters, etc.,
maybe even beautiful, without being "artistic" / fancy
(I noticed how different the interaction with my computer feels
after changing fonts – and I really don't want to accept any font too
stiff, too thin, etc.)

c) has german Umlaute and other regular "foreign language
characters" (no need for a "large" range of Unicode support)

d) has no technical flaws
(a lot of free fonts I tried do have weird quirks, like improper
rendering in specific font sizes, missing characters when printing,
etc. ("Signika" is an example of this))

I'm close to hiring a font designer to design a font according to my
needs, which – in some way – seems ridiculous to me :-)
(On the other hand I like the idea)

The fonts I tried so far and somewhat suit my needs are "Shanti" and
"Share". Both are a bit too narrow for my taste and Share definitly is
too "stiff".

I hope you have a good recommendation for me.

Thanks,
Christoph

[Andreas Rönnquist]

On Sat, 19 Aug 2023 21:19:48 +0200,
Christoph K.<chri...@kobenetz.de> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I'm unsatisfied with the default sans font in debian for use in the
>graphical user interface (in my case XFCE).
>
>My main concern with the default sans font (I guess it's Bitsream Vera,
>but that doesn't really matter) is the the small 'L' and the capital 'i'
>look the same (mostly).
>
>Everyone who has tried to read unknown characters (e.g. a password
>generated automatically oder base64 encoded data) knows what pain it is to
>distinguish these characters.
>
>Could you please recommend a "suitable" sans-serif font that
>a) has "proper" 'l' and 'I' characters
>

I'm probably not the right person to answer, but doesn't the
_sans_-serif requirement pretty much make this impossible? It means
_without_ serifs, which are (according to wikipedia) "small line or
stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or
symbol within a particular font or family of fonts."

Which to me seems like pretty much only way to separate a small 'l'
from a big 'i',

To me, without the serifs, both those characters are simply a line from
top to bottom.

But I'll admit that I'm far from an expert on the subject.

-- Andreas Rönnquist
mailin...@gusnan.se
and...@ronnquist.net

[Russell L. Harris]

I am a XFCE user with a similar taste in fonts, but I have no need for
umlaut.

I am concerned primarily with the distinction between numeral 1 and
lower case L. And I loathe fonts in which the numerals 3, 5, 6, and 9
are not radically different.

Back in the 1970's, I ran across a detailed study of character shape
with respect to the problem of readability after photographic
reduction (microfilm and microfische) in hand-lettered engineering
drawings (24in x 36in). Reading that study brought about a change in
my own handwriting. The study was by a oil company; perhaps it was
Shell Oil.

For Debian, I searched by opening EDIT > PREFERENCES > APPEARANCE in a
terminal. I currently am using `go mono regular'. But `liberation
mono regular' looks promising.

RLH

--
He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry
ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them
that dwell therein. - Psalm 107:33-34

[Cindy Sue Causey]

My own mind went to the place of thinking sans serif was about those
very lines. I just didn't make it to thinking that would make it hard
to find any alternate in that family.

My long time preference is developer-weary-eye-friendly
fonts-anonymous-pro for whatever applications will accept it. Found it
accidentally a few years ago. Its differences are noticeable enough
that I instantly miss it on new operating system installs.

The "apt-cache show" description for fonts-anonymous-pro specifically
references both 0 v. O and I v. l v. 1:

"Description-en: fixed width font designed for coders
This package contains two Font Families.
- Anonymous Pro
- Anonomous Pro Minus
.
'Anonymous Pro' is a family of four fixed-width fonts designed
especially with coding in mind. Characters that could be mistaken for
one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have distinct shapes to make them
easier to tell apart in the context of source code.

Apparently my Firefox is using sans serif because I just typed that "l
v. I", and I can't tell them apart!

Found a new toy because of this thread. It's a presumably massive
online database that shows how fonts display in elaborate use cases. I
used their search feature to (hopefully) focus on sans serif:

https://fontsinuse.com/search/advanced?v=2&match0=all&keyword0=sans%20serif

Disclaimer: I dropped their categories down to perform CTRL+F for
"sans serif" and came up empty so maybe their search is focusing on
only sans.

That reminded me to reinstall font-manager before also mentioning it
(needed to make sure it was the right program). It's developed for
GNOME/Gtk+ but/and is working well on the LXQt desktop environment.

Font-manager is not just a font viewer. It presents a lot of
information that can make it a little overwhelming for a first time
visit into a program like it.

There's an option to install fonts through font-manager's GUI. I don't
have a test case to try first, but I do remember using it successfully
in the past, most likely while focused on typeface in GIMP.

An afterthought just came to mind. Fonts are being created to
specifically aid persons with dyslexia. Maybe a search on that will
land a desired user-friendly font..

Cindy :)
--
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *

[Russell L. Harris]

bumper sticker: DYSLEXICS UNTIE!

[debia...@howorth.org.uk]

Cindy Sue Causey <butterf...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My own mind went to the place of thinking sans serif was about those
> very lines. I just didn't make it to thinking that would make it hard
> to find any alternate in that family.
>
> My long time preference is developer-weary-eye-friendly
> fonts-anonymous-pro for whatever applications will accept it. Found it
> accidentally a few years ago. Its differences are noticeable enough
> that I instantly miss it on new operating system installs.
>
> The "apt-cache show" description for fonts-anonymous-pro specifically
> references both 0 v. O and I v. l v. 1:
>
> "Description-en: fixed width font designed for coders
> This package contains two Font Families.
> - Anonymous Pro
> - Anonomous Pro Minus
> .
> 'Anonymous Pro' is a family of four fixed-width fonts designed
> especially with coding in mind. Characters that could be mistaken for
> one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.) have distinct shapes to make them
> easier to tell apart in the context of source code.

Terminal fonts tend to be fixed width since that's a property of
terminals. Fixed width fonts tend to have serifs because it's easier to
make the spacing look more even between inherently narrow characters
and inherently wide ones using details like serifs.

So finding a sans serif font amongst terminal fonts is likely a
difficult cause.

[Tom Browder]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 16:15 Russell L. Harris <rus...@rlharris.org> wrote:

bumper sticker:  DYSLEXICS UNTIE!

I concur on sans comments. You might take a look at the Free* fonts family (Debian packages “fonts-freefont-ttf” and “fonts-freefont-otf”). 

-Tom

[Nate Bargmann]

For a proportional font, Verdana, Regular seems to come close with, it
seems to me, good differentiation between l, I, and 1. O and 0 are a
bit problematic as 0 is not dotted or slashed but is more of an ellipse.

On this GNOME desktop the interface is set to Cantarell, Regular, and
while it has a small serif at the bottom of l, I is simple vertical
line, and 1 has the customary serif at the top. O and 0 are not well
differentiated except 0 being a slightly narrower oval.

There are times when I've pasted something like a random character
combination password into a terminal just so I could see what the exact
characters are.

In my terminals I have switched to Fira Code, Regular as well as in the
GNOME settings.

- Nate

--
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
Web: https://www.n0nb.us
Projects: https://github.com/N0NB
GPG fingerprint: 82D6 4F6B 0E67 CD41 F689 BBA6 FB2C 5130 D55A 8819

[Karl Vogel]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 03:29:22PM -0400, Christoph K. wrote:
>
> I'm unsatisfied with the default sans font in debian for use in the
> graphical user interface (in my case XFCE).

I use BSD and Linux, and my eyesight sucks. For console work (23" monitor
that's about 2 feet away) I use an Xterm with one of the following fonts
(in order of preference):

* xft:Menlo-Regular:pixelsize=20:bold
* xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=22:bold
* xft:Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:pixelsize=21:bold

For browsing (Firefox), my "prefs.js" file holds:

user_pref("browser.display.use_document_fonts", 0);
user_pref("font.default.x-western", "sans-serif");
user_pref("font.internaluseonly.changed", false);
user_pref("font.minimum-size.x-western", 18);
user_pref("font.name.monospace.x-western", "DejaVu Sans");
user_pref("font.name.sans-serif.x-western", "sans-serif");
user_pref("font.name.serif.x-western", "DejaVu Serif");
user_pref("font.size.fixed.x-western", 18);
user_pref("font.size.variable.x-western", 18);

Others I've liked:

* xft:Edlo:pixelsize=21:bold
* xft:FiraMono-Regular:pixelsize=22:bold
* xft:Inconsolata-Bold:pixelsize=25:bold
* xft:Meslo LG S:pixelsize=20:bold
* xft:Meslo LG S:pixelsize=21:bold
* xft:UbuntuMono-B:pixelsize=25:bold

If you get your FONT setting from the environment, it's easy to experiment:

me% echo $FONT
xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=20:bold

This script starts a new xterm with some tweaks to make it a little nicer:

#!/bin/sh
#<xtest: start a new monitor session.
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin

#---------------------------------------------------------
# Start xterms -- options:
#
# -b 10 size of the inner border (not rxvt)
# -bd black black border
# -bg white white background
# -cr blue blue cursor
# -fa 'xft:...' font size and weight
# -j jump scrolling
# -ls start as a login shell
# -sb use a scroll-bar
# -sl 4000 4000 lines of history
# -u8 UTF-8 support for graphics characters
#
# -si output to a window should not automatically
# reposition the screen at the bottom of the
# scroll region.
#
# -sk pressing a key while using the scrollbar to
# review previous lines of text should cause the
# window to be repositioned automatically at the
# bottom of the scroll region.

XTERM=/usr/local/bin/xterm
topts="-j -b 10 -sb -si -sk -ls -cr blue -sl 4000 -bd black -bg white -u8"

# Get the font from the environment if possible.
case "$FONT" in
"") FONT='xft:Menlo-Regular:pixelsize=20:bold' ;;
*) ;;
esac

COLUMNS=80
LINES=40

# 21 pixels makes a nice default size.
case "$FONT" in
*:*) ;;
*) FONT="xft:$FONT:pixelsize=21:bold" ;;
esac

export COLUMNS LINES
geo="-geometry ${COLUMNS}x${LINES}-0+0"
( $XTERM $geo $topts -fa "$FONT" -title "Remote" ) &

If you use xterm a lot, building from source is worth it.
Get the source and GPG key here:

https://invisible-island.net/archives/xterm/xterm-384.tgz
https://invisible-island.net/archives/xterm/xterm-384.tgz.asc

To build, unpack the source:

dest=/usr/local
export TERMINFO=/usr/local/share/terminfo

./configure \
--disable-setgid \
--disable-setuid \
--enable-256-color \
--enable-narrowproto \
--mandir=$dest/man \
--with-x \
--with-own-terminfo=$TERMINFO
make
make check
make install

It comes with a nice terminfo file. I've had problems with "tic" for
ncurses >= version 6, so I use the ncurses-5.9 version to compile it:

root# tic59 -V
ncurses 5.9.20110404

root# tic59 -s -o $TERMINFO terminfo

Hope this gives you some ideas.

--
Karl Vogel / vogelke AT pobox DOT com / I don't speak for anyone but myself

The Beatles: "I Get By with a Little Help From Depends"
--Re-released hits for an aging audience

[Frank]

Op 19-08-2023 om 21:19 schreef Christoph K.:

> I'm unsatisfied with the default sans font in debian for use in the
> graphical user interface (in my case XFCE).

To be honest, I've long since forgotten what the default is. I've used
Liberation Mono Regular everywhere in my Xfce DE for ages and I have
never mistaken an l for an I or vice versa.

Regards,
Frank

[James H. H. Lampert]

What Herr Rönnquist said.

And given that I actually *do* set type with some regularity, I can say
from experience that, with the exception of some monospaced examples
that are only *nominally* sans-serif (e.g., Bitstream Swiss Monospaced),
sans-serif fonts in which uppercase I and lowercase l are readily
distinguishable are about as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth,
whether you're talking digital, photo, hot metal, foundry, or wood.

--
James H. H. Lampert

(And for the record, my "go-to fonts" are all versions of Garamond.)

[Christoph K.]

Am Sat, 19 Aug 2023 20:16:25 +0000
schrieb "Russell L. Harris" <rus...@rlharris.org>:

> I am concerned primarily with the distinction between numeral 1 and
> lower case L.

Of course, 'l' and 'I' was just the most prominent example.
Usually I look at 1lI|
(numeral one, small 'L' capital 'L', Pipe)

> And I loathe fonts in which the numerals 3, 5, 6, and 9
> are not radically different.

Interesting point. Didn't pay much attention to these numerals, yet.

> Back in the 1970's, I ran across a detailed study of character shape
> with respect to the problem of readability after photographic
> reduction (microfilm and microfische) in hand-lettered engineering
> drawings (24in x 36in). Reading that study brought about a change in
> my own handwriting. The study was by a oil company; perhaps it was
> Shell Oil.

That would be really interesting to read. Do you have any (more) hints on
how to find that study? Do you remember what change you did in your
handwriting?

> For Debian, I searched by opening EDIT > PREFERENCES > APPEARANCE in a
> terminal. I currently am using `go mono regular'. But `liberation
> mono regular' looks promising.

I do admit that I wasn't specific enough in my first question.
When I wrote "sans serif", I meant "a not serif font".
Actually I wasn't looking for a monospace font either
(but didn't state that explicitly).

For now "IBM Plex" seems to do a good job.

Thanks,
Christoph

[Russell L. Harris]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 10:14:20PM +0200, Christoph K. wrote:
>> And I loathe fonts in which the numerals 3, 5, 6, and 9
>> are not radically different.
>
>Interesting point. Didn't pay much attention to these numerals, yet.
>
>> Back in the 1970's, I ran across a detailed study of character shape
>> with respect to the problem of readability after photographic
>> reduction (microfilm and microfische) in hand-lettered engineering
>> drawings (24in x 36in). Reading that study brought about a change in
>> my own handwriting. The study was by a oil company; perhaps it was
>> Shell Oil.
>
>That would be really interesting to read. Do you have any (more) hints on
>how to find that study? Do you remember what change you did in your
>handwriting?

If we (Texas, near Austin) end up with an Autumn with moderate
temperatures, I should have a copy in the boxes of papers stored in
the garage. I need to sort and cull, anyway. But within a few years
(circa A.D. 1980), computerized drafting was introduced and quickly
became dominant. I think I was in the very last generation which
learned to letter by hand.

On the 3, 5, 6, and 9, open the end of the loops, and shorten the
horizontal stroke on top of the 5 so the 5 is not mistaken for an S.
Always put horizontal strokes on I. Make the 1 with a flag on the
upper end and put a horizontal stroke on the 7, German-style. My
handwriting is a odd mixture of cursive script and printing.

Years ago, in the days when you used pencil to write computer code on
a paper form, for conversion to punched cards by a keypunch operator,
I got used to writing zeros with a slash. But if most of your writing
is numerals (as in spreadsheets), then you may prefer to slash the
alphabetic O.

The keypunch operators used ``double-entry'' -- the code was typed a
second time by a different operator, to guard against error. I read
somewhere that the double-entry scheme is used for obtaining an
accurate digital version of material which originally was typeset by
hand. And, that better accuracy is obtained if the language of the
document is foreign to the typists.

RLH

[Tom Browder]

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 15:45 James H. H. Lampert <jam...@touchtonecorp.com> wrote:

What Herr Rönnquist said.
And given that I actually *do* set type with some regularity,

...

(And for the record, my "go-to fonts" are all versions of Garamond.)

Wow, another Garamond lover! I do, too, love it (and bought a copy of Adobe's version). I think Dr. Donald Knuth was the first person I may have heard mention it.

How do you "set type" now? I have been "setting type" with Perl and raw PostScript (then converting it to PDF) for many years.  I am now using Raku PDF modules to "set type" directly in PDF documents. All CLI products.

-Tom

[Max Nikulin]

On 20/08/2023 14:55, Karl Vogel wrote:
> #!/bin/sh
...

> # -fa 'xft:...' font size and weight

...

> ( $XTERM $geo $topts -fa "$FONT" -title "Remote" ) &

Xterm configuration options may be put to ~/.Xresources, e.g.

xterm*VT100.faceName: ...

I am curious if there are actual advantages of usage a wrapper script
instead of xresources.

[Karl Vogel]

For me, being able to select or change a font based on an environment
variable is very convenient.

The script I included is simplified because I didn't want the post to
get too long. My production version has other conveniences:

# Don't override COLUMNS and LINES if already set; when my eyes are
# tired, I use an xterm with characters two pixels larger:
## FONT=xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=22:bold LINES=35 xt

: ${COLUMNS=80}
: ${LINES=40}

I can check a font and set LINES, COLUMNS, or geometry on the fly without
having to mess with any configuration options.

--
Karl Vogel I don't speak for the USAF or my company

Tent poles are not for pole dancing. Please find
alternative ways to disappoint your father. --seen on boredpanda.com

[Christoph K.]

Am Sun, 20 Aug 2023 21:41:04 +0000

schrieb "Russell L. Harris" <rus...@rlharris.org>:

> On the 3, 5, 6, and 9, open the end of the loops, and shorten the
> horizontal stroke on top of the 5 so the 5 is not mistaken for an S.
> Always put horizontal strokes on I. Make the 1 with a flag on the
> upper end and put a horizontal stroke on the 7, German-style. My
> handwriting is a odd mixture of cursive script and printing.

Thanks for sharing!

Really interesting ... I'm already implementing all of these "rules".
I learnt to write the 7 in German style because I live in Germany ;-)
We also learned to put a "flag" on the 1 in school. I was surprised to see
other people don't. To me it's quite confusing to see 1 just as a straight
line.

I don't remember when I startet to put bars on the 'I', probably during
my studies of electrical engineering when we used lots of formulas.

I also have a "mixed handwriting" with some ligatures (for example on the
double 'l'). For the small 's' I use two different glyphs (not on
purpose) that usually depend on my mood. For a long time I wasn't even
aware I was doing this :-)

Best regards,
Christoph

[Richmond]

The font I have in Gnome terminal is called 'Monospace'. It doesn't have
serifs generally, but there is on I and l, and on J. And the 0 has a dot
in it.

The Gnome Tweaks program has a font selector which shows 'The quick
brown fox jumps over the lazy dog', searching for 'sans' I found only
'Noto Sans Mono Regular' which distinguished the I and l.

[Max Nikulin]

On 21/08/2023 16:16, Karl Vogel wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 10:38:34PM -0400, Max Nikulin wrote:
>> Xterm configuration options may be put to ~/.Xresources, e.g.
>>
>> xterm*VT100.faceName: ...
>>
>> I am curious if there are actual advantages of usage a wrapper script
>> instead of xresources.

...

> # Don't override COLUMNS and LINES if already set; when my eyes are
> # tired, I use an xterm with characters two pixels larger:
> ## FONT=xft:Cascadia:pixelsize=22:bold LINES=35 xt
>
> : ${COLUMNS=80}
> : ${LINES=40}

Thank you for clarification. Certainly it is aside from my use cases.
Terminal applications usually occupy either the whole screen or its
half, so I do not care concerning precise values of COLUMNS and LINES.
Font size may be changed for a running instance of xterm through menu. I
have not bothered to define keyboard shortcuts for that.

xterm*VT100.faceSize2: 7
xterm*VT100.faceSize3: 9
xterm*VT100.faceSize: 11
xterm*VT100.faceSize4: 11
xterm*VT100.faceSize5: 14
xterm*VT100.faceSize6: 18

There is another degree of freedom: -class. I still do not see
advantages of $FONT over xterm*VT100.faceName as the default and -fa for
ad-hoc override, but I admit it may be convenient for you.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On Mon Aug 21 16:23:25 2023 "Christoph K." <chri...@kobenetz.de> wrote:

> Am Sun, 20 Aug 2023 21:41:04 +0000
> schrieb "Russell L. Harris" <rus...@rlharris.org>:
>
>> On the 3, 5, 6, and 9, open the end of the loops, and shorten the
>> horizontal stroke on top of the 5 so the 5 is not mistaken for an S.
>> Always put horizontal strokes on I. Make the 1 with a flag on the
>> upper end and put a horizontal stroke on the 7, German-style. My
>> handwriting is a odd mixture of cursive script and printing.
>
> Thanks for sharing!
>
> Really interesting ... I'm already implementing all of these "rules".
> I learnt to write the 7 in German style because I live in Germany ;-)

Here on the west coast of Canada the stroke through the 7 isn't too
common, although I do see it from time to time. I avoid it because
it makes a 7 look like certain script forms of the letter F (see the
Fender guitar logo, for instance).

> We also learned to put a "flag" on the 1 in school. I was surprised to
> see other people don't. To me it's quite confusing to see 1 just as a
> straight line.

When I was 8 years old I started writing the numeral 1 with the "flag".
I quickly stopped, because everyone confused it with 7.

This leaves the lower-case L. It was a long time before this became
a problem, either because I didn't use them frequently or because
readers could figure it out from context. (This was in my pre-computer
days.) Now if there's a potential problem I'll put a little hook on
the bottom, similar to many computer fonts. The vertical bar... well,
I'll either make it noticeably taller than other characters on the line,
or I'll write nearby 1s with both a flag and a bottom line. It's a
bit of a compromise that I deal with on an individual basis.

> I don't remember when I startet to put bars on the 'I', probably
> during my studies of electrical engineering when we used lots of
> formulas.

I think I used them right from the beginning, so that wasn't a problem.

> I also have a "mixed handwriting" with some ligatures (for example on
> the double 'l'). For the small 's' I use two different glyphs (not on
> purpose) that usually depend on my mood. For a long time I wasn't even
> aware I was doing this :-)

Interesting. I went through something like that when I started cursive
writing. When writing a contraction I'd write the whole word and then
go back and place the apostrophe between the appropriate two letters -
except when writing "o'clock", where for some reason I would leave a
break after the "o". Go figure.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

[Michael Stone]

On Sat, Aug 19, 2023 at 09:19:48PM +0200, Christoph K. wrote:
>Could you please recommend a "suitable" sans-serif font that

A lot of your criteria are rather subjective. For packaged fonts you
might look at "hack"
(https://source-foundry.github.io/Hack/font-specimen.html)
or "go"
(https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts)

There's also the not-packaged https://github.com/intel/intel-one-mono

But you'd have to be the judge of what you like the look of.

[Marco Möller]

On 19.08.23 21:19, Christoph K. wrote:
> Could you please recommend a "suitable" sans-serif font that

> a) (...)
> b) (...)
> c) (...)
> d) (...)
> Thanks,
> Christoph

Having had the same problem to solve for myself I ended up to use:
Noto sans for all my GUI
Liberation Mono for coding

Especially the "Liberation Mono" font is nicely readable for avoiding
any letter misunderstanding when coding, and I tested much more
problematic cases than only T71Iil15So0QOUuwWMNmn (this are just the
ones I spontaneously remember). There are more Liberation fonts, but I
didn't check them out. "Noto sans", which I selected already before for
the GUI decorations, was already clear enough for that purpose.
Good luck!
Marco

[Christoph K.]

Hi Marco,
thanks for taking the time to reply.

Am Tue, 22 Aug 2023 20:24:39 +0200
schrieb Marco Möller <ta...@debianlists.mobilxpress.net>:

> Having had the same problem to solve for myself I ended up to use:
> Noto sans for all my GUI
> Liberation Mono for coding

The "Noto Sans" has an almost identical glyph for the capital 'i' and the
small 'L'. It's just a straight line and as such doesn't solve my problem.

Christoph