From Fedora Project Wiki


Use Noto fonts for Indic (Indian language) scripts

Summary

Google Noto fonts for Indic (Indian) languages replace the default Lohit fonts


Owner

  • Name: Jens Petersen
  • Email: <petersen@redhat.com>
  • Name: Sudip Shill
  • Email: <sshil@redhat.com>
  • Name: Akira Tagoh
  • Email: <tagoh@redhat.com>

Current status

Detailed Description

Currently the Lohit fonts are installed and used by default for Indian languages (Indic scripts). However the Lohit project is essentially inactive and at best in maintenance mode now. So we will change the default to Google's Noto Indic fonts, which are available in both Sans and Serif faces with multiple weights and as variable fonts. This should provide a more flexible modern maintained set of fonts for Indic language scripts.

Default Indic fonts changes
Language script Old default New default Serif font
Devanagari lohit-devanagari-fonts google-noto-sans-devanagari-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-devanagari-vf-fonts
Bengali lohit-bengali-fonts google-noto-sans-bengali-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-bengali-vf-fonts
Gujrati lohit-gujarati-fonts google-noto-sans-gujarati-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-gujarati-vf-fonts
Kannada lohit-kannada-fonts google-noto-sans-kannada-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-kannada-vf-fonts
Odia lohit-odia-fonts google-noto-sans-oriya-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-oriya-vf-fonts
Tamil lohit-tamil-fonts google-noto-sans-tamil-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-tamil-vf-fonts
Telugu lohit-telugu-fonts google-noto-sans-telugu-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-telugu-vf-fonts
Assamese lohit-assamese-fonts google-noto-sans-bengali-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-bengali-vf-fonts
Marathi lohit-marathi-fonts google-noto-sans-devanagari-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-devanagari-vf-fonts
Maithili lohit-devanagari-fonts google-noto-sans-devanagari-vf-fonts google-noto-serif-devanagari-vf-fonts

(Note that Noto is already default for Punjabi (Gurmukhi) and Sinhala, as well as Divehi, whereas Malayalam defaults to RIT fonts)

Feedback

There was some initial discussion on fonts list, etc, which was generally positive.

This started with:


Benefit to Fedora

Wider range of Indic (Indian) fonts will be available by default as variable fonts in both sans and serif faces with various weight styles.

Scope

  • Proposal owners:
    • update Indic langpacks (default-fonts) to use Noto fonts [draft PR]
    • update the Noto and Lohit fonts packages so that Noto Indic fonts have higher priority
    • change comps @fonts (through default-fonts) from Lohit to the corresponding Noto Indic fonts
    • update ostree desktops to use Noto Indic
    • update lorax to use Noto for Indic fonts
  • Other developers: N/A
  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Alignment with Community Initiatives:

Upgrade/compatibility impact

Lohit fonts will continue to be available, but assuming the default-fonts Change is implemented users will be moved to use Noto Indic fonts by default on upgrade.

Nevertheless advanced users can use fonts-tweak-tool to change the priority of one or more Lohit fonts to be higher than Noto if they so wish.


How To Test

  • install/test default/Noto fonts on various desktops and their applications
  • test Noto Indic with and without Lohit fonts installed
  • test rendering of Indic scripts in applications/websites
  • test upgrades from Fedora 38
  • test if removing Noto Indic (and (re-)installing Lohit) still allows using Lohit as a second default.
  • (advanced) revert the font priorities using the user fonts-tweak-tool.
  • Compare default font installed for mr_IN language

On Fedora 38 you will see

$ LANG=mr_IN fc-match
Lohit-Marathi.ttf: "Lohit Marathi" "Regular"

On Fedora 39 you will see

$ LANG=mr_IN fc-match
NotoSansDevanagari[wght].ttf: "Noto Sans Devanagari" "Regular"
 

User Experience

Dependencies

Not really a direct dependency, but we currently plan to implement this using the new default-fonts metapackages.


Contingency Plan

  • Contingency mechanism: Change owners will revert the changes back to using Lohit by default
  • Contingency deadline: before final freeze
  • Blocks release? Yes

Documentation

https://sshil.fedorapeople.org/lohit-vs-noto-comparison.html

Release Notes

Google Noto fonts are now installed and used for Indic scripts (Indian language) by default instead of Lohit fonts.