Dear Maintainer,

Upgrading libfreetype6 from 2.10.4+dfsg-1 to 2.11.0+dfsg-1 causes
terminal text to be rendered wider than expected.

Terminal application:  rxvt-unicode 9.26-2
Font configuration (~/.Xdefaults line): URxvt*font: xft:Lucida
Console:pixelsize=16:antialias=true:hinting=true

Screenshot of text with 2.10.4+dfsg-1: https://i.imgur.com/GDvjsUu.png
Screenshot of text with 2.11.0+dfsg-1: https://i.imgur.com/plUXnU6.png

As can be seen on the screenshots, there is an extra pixel of
whitespace between every text letter, which was not there before.

A temporary workaround in the form of downgrading and pinning the
libfreetype6 package fixed this.

Thank you for the bug report.

[snip]

I believe this is a long-standing bug in xft. Unfortunately, the
project is inactive, so it's difficult to say if and when this will be
fixed.

I'm attaching a patch adapted from Arch Linux to fix the issue in
rxvt-unicode. Please try it and see how you go.

For a quick workaround, add the following line to your ~/.Xdefaults file:
    URxvt*letterSpace: -1

I have tested the patch and it fixes the problem.

The .Xdefaults workaround with the unpatched rxvt-unicode also works.

Thank you for a quick response and solution.

I discussed the patch with rxvt-unicode's author. It is a variant on a
broken patch that has been circulating for a long time. It works with
some poorly behaved fonts, but breaks the well-behaved ones. The patch
is broken because xOff has nothing to do with the width of the
character: xOff,yOff are the distance from the glyph origin to the next
glyph origin.

I think it is time to close this. Fontconfig's update to 2.14.2 on August 16th
(that is when it reached testing) made urxvt's font spacing return to normal,
so the letterspace parameter in .Xdefaults is no longer needed. In fact, it
makes the text harder to read because it is denser. Removing it made it look
like it used to, so please verify it yourselves.

Ugly screenshots and configs upon request.