Font rendering for Skype in Gnome using .fonts.conf

The Fonts applet in Gnome does not control the rendering of fonts in Skype. To change the font rendering in Skype you can use a ~/.fonts.conf file instead. For example, if you use the Fonts applet to set font rendering to monochrome, no smoothing and full hinting then the following .fonts.conf will do the same for Skype:

toro@moutere:~$ cat .fonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
 <match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
   <const>none</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
   <bool>true</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
   <const>hintfull</const>
  </edit>
 </match>
 <match target="font" >
  <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
   <bool>false</bool>
  </edit>
 </match>
</fontconfig>
toro@moutere:~$

Quit and restart Skype to apply changes made to .fonts.conf.

.fonts.conf settings may apply to other non-native applications also. For example, I found they affected the font rendering in Sunbird.

Sources

• http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/gutsy/man5/fonts-conf.5.html