our fontconfig setup

on our computer, we have the following fonts set as defaults:

• besley for serif,
• inria sans for sans-serif, and
• fantasque sans mono for monospaced text.

this guide will focus on linux systems, since that is what we're familiar with. we do know, however, that you can set the default fonts firefox uses regardless of your operating system.

on a system with fontconfig installed (most will have it installed by default), you can either:

• edit the file /etc/fonts/local.conf to set the default fonts for every user account on your computer, or
• edit the file ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf to set the default fonts for your current user account only.

our config file (download) looks as follows:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="pattern">
    <test qual="any" name="family">
      <string>serif</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="same">
      <string>Besley</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>Linux Libertine</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>DejaVu Serif</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="pattern">
    <test qual="any" name="family">
      <string>sans-serif</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="same">
      <string>Inria Sans</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>Linux Biolinum</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>DejaVu Sans</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
  <match target="pattern">
    <test qual="any" name="family">
      <string>monospace</string>
    </test>
    <edit name="family" mode="prepend" binding="same">
      <string>Fantasque Sans Mono</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>Linux Libertine Mono</string>
    </edit>
    <edit name="family" mode="append" binding="same">
      <string>DejaVu Sans Mono</string>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

the font family marked with mode="prepend" should be your preferred font. families with mode="append" will be used in case a certain character is not available in your preferred font. this is optional--if there are any fonts installed on your system that contain the needed character, most software will notice. this just lets you choose which fonts you want to be checked first.

for more information, see these font configuration examples.