Font problem in Xfig on Fedora 7

[QuantumKnot]

There seems to be a font problem on Xfig in Fedora 7. Whenever I try to add some text (or open up my previous xfig files that had text), I get the following error message.

Can't find -*-times-medium-r-normal--13-*-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*, using 6x13

Instead of using the specified font, it uses some default one that is very small. I've verified this on two different F7 machines and I get the same error.

Anybody else got the same problem? More important, is there a way of fixing this?

[QuantumKnot]

I've found a workaround this problem by installing the Xfig that came with FC6.

[mpdavig]

The issue is with a change in xfig 3.2.5 over 3.2.4 and how scalablefonts are handled. In order to use the new FC7 package xfig-3.2.5-1.fc7 and not receive the font errors you speak of you must use the xfig -noscalablefonts option.

To be more specific here is an xfig patch to make 3.2.5 behave like 3.2.4 in regards to scalablefonts:

--- xfig.3.2.5/w_drawprim.c     2007-01-14 19:51:46.000000000 -0500
+++ xfig.3.2.5.scalablefonts/w_drawprim.c       2007-10-04 16:59:20.000000000 -0400
@@ -142,7 +142,8 @@
                    strcat(template,"ISO8859-*");
            else
                strcat(template,"*-*");
-           fontlist = XListFonts(tool_d, template, 1, &count);
+           if ((fontlist = XListFonts(tool_d, template, 1, &count))==0)
+               appres.scalablefonts = False;   /* none, turn off request for them */
        }
        XFreeFontNames(fontlist);
     }

This code change allows xfig to continue to look for fonts beyond scalablefonts, instead of stopping the search and posting the error messages you describe.

I use xfig frequently and these errors bothered me as well.

Probably the simplest solution is to add an alias (tcsh):
alias xfig 'xfig -noscalablefonts'

[ajorgensen]

This is now and old thread, but I have found a font problem in Fedora 9 also. My solution finally was to go the software install too and install the package xfig-plain. Don't ask me why it works, but it appears to.

[ironluke]

This is now and old thread, but I have found a font problem in Fedora 9 also. My solution finally was to go the software install too and install the package xfig-plain. Don't ask me why it works, but it appears to.

Issuing the following commands seems to solve the problem with Xfig from the standard package (a little bit nicer than xfig-plain):

# mkfontscale /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/
# mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/