Bug 107480

Summary: The upper i (U+0049) should have serifs so as not to be confused with lower l (U+006C) in all Sans fonts
Product: DejaVu Reporter: Chris <developer>
Component: SansAssignee: Deja Vu bugs <dejavu-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: medium CC: developer
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments: Suggestion Bahnschrift code U+006C

Description Chris 2018-08-04 07:52:29 UTC 
Created attachment 140961 [details]
Suggestion Bahnschrift code U+006C

In the DejaVu Sans fonts (except Mono), the upper i (U+0049) glyph is too similar to the lower l (U+006C).

They are confusing.
For example in French, a good proportion of sentences start by "Il" ("He" in French). When displayed by DejaVu Sans fonts, they seem to start with two vertical lines (similar to U+007C by the way). Additionaly you can easily confuse them with the Roman number 2 at first sight. That makes reading harder and slower.
In English, a good test is this name: "Illinois". Discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/6vpv8w/microsofts_new_bahnschrift_font_vs_segoe/

My suggestions:

1. Add serifs to the upper i (U+0049)
You can note that the Verdana font does that, although it is a Sans Serif font.

2. Why not style a bit the lower l (U+006C) to not be a pure vertical line any more, and avoid confusion with U+007C ?
A good example is in the (Sans Serif) font Bahnschrift code U+006C.

Affected fonts:
DejaVu Sans
DejaVu Sans Condensed
DejaVu Sans Light

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