Bug 107480 - The upper i (U+0049) should have serifs so as not to be confused with lower l (U+006C) in all Sans fonts
Summary: The upper i (U+0049) should have serifs so as not to be confused with lower l...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: DejaVu
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Sans (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Deja Vu bugs
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2018-08-04 07:52 UTC by Chris
Modified: 2018-08-04 07:54 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments
Suggestion Bahnschrift code U+006C (178 bytes, image/png)
2018-08-04 07:52 UTC, Chris
Details

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


Use of freedesktop.org services, including Bugzilla, is subject to our Code of Conduct. How we collect and use information is described in our Privacy Policy.