375889 - Text looks jagged and less readable when using textPath especially with smaller fonts

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: SVG, defect)

Description

[Duncan Loveday]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a3pre) Gecko/20070316 Minefield/3.0a3pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a3pre) Gecko/20070316 Minefield/3.0a3pre

Unless large fonts are used (at least 16), text placed on a textPath is much less readable and more jagged looking than the same text without using textPath. By comparison, the combination of IE6 and ASV renders text with and without textPath with much the same level of readability.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the attached textpath.svg in Firefox
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
The test case displays text in a selection of font sizes both with and without textPath. The textPaths are simple 45 degree downward slopes. For the smaller font sizes, the text on the textPath looks much less good than the same text in the same font size without textPath.

Expected Results:  
For any given font size, the text should look the same whether textPath is used or not.

Comment 1

[Duncan Loveday]

Attachment: test SVG source

Comment 2

[Robert Longson [:longsonr]]

Duplicate of bug 311534 I think

Comment 3

[Duncan Loveday]

....except that comment #7 in that bug says specifically that it doesn't apply to textpath.

Comment 4

[Andriy]

This effect can be visible in the following example with textPath on Bezier curve, as i think:

http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/SVGOpen2008/textPath1.svg

Note: text below affected by animation above and flicker

Comment 5

[Bas Schouten (:bas.schouten)]

Both cases are fixed using DirectWrite shaping. See bug 517642.

Comment 6

[Robert Longson [:longsonr]]

Fixed on trunk provided you have Vista or Windows 7 and direct write is enabled (gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled = true)