Xft support for GNU Emacs

This article Article description::describes how to enable font anti-aliasing in Emacs using the Xft library.

Installation and setup
First, set the appropriate USE flags – you must have the  flag.

Now it's time to install Emacs:

You can now install some XFT fonts such as :

Try starting Emacs with the desired XFT fonts:

If you're happy with this as your default font, set it in your X resources:

Lucid toolkit
When Emacs was built with the Lucid toolkit (i.e. with the  or   USE flags), the font of the menubar can be set using the following in your :

Motif toolkit
For Emacs built with the Motif toolkit (i.e. with the  USE flag enabled), anti-aliased fonts can be enabled using the XFT font renderer in Motif. Make sure that was built with the   flag, and add for example the following to your, in order to set the font globally:

More specific control of resources is also possible, e.g., the following will set a bold font for the menubar:

Don't forget to load the resources:

External resources
For more details on Emacs with XFT pretty fonts, see:


 * XftGnuEmacs on the Emacs wiki