Ubuntu 17.04 - Malayalam fonts are too small

Question

Particularly in Facebook and Gmail, Malayalam fonts are tiny and not readable.
Also, combination of letters is not working.

What can I do about this?

Answer 1

I assume this is an issue with the default font used to render malayalam, 'Meera' in my case. You can check with LANG=ml_IN fc-match in the terminal. To change the default font used system-wide:

1. Create a file : ~.config/fontconfig/conf.d/50-my-malayalam.conf

2. Add the following in the contents:

   <?xml version="1.0"?>
   <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
   <fontconfig>
   <!-- Malayalam (ml) -->
   <match target="font">
           <test name="lang" compare="contains">
                   <string>ml</string>
           </test>
           <alias>
                   <family>sans-serif</family>
                   <prefer>
                           <family>Noto Sans Malayalam</family>
                   </prefer>
           </alias>
   </match>
   
   <match target="font">
           <test name="lang" compare="contains">
                   <string>ml</string>
           </test>
           <alias>
                   <family>serif</family>
                   <prefer>
                           <family>Rachana</family>
                   </prefer>
           </alias>
   </match>
   <!-- Malayalam (ml) ends -->
   </fontconfig>
   

I used 'Noto Sans Malayalam' and 'rachana' here, replace it with a font you like.

source: https://thottingal.in/blog/2018/08/10/how-to-customize-malayalam-fonts-in-linux/

How i fixed this in Firefox only: Preferences > Fonts & Colors > Set default font as 'Noto Sans Malayalam' (This one increased the font size in my case; Tested on Facebook and YouTube comments).

Answer 2

I tried to change the fonts in chrome settings to various malayalam language options available there. And some fonts (Anjaliold, Lohit etc..) solved the problem for me in Chrome in Ubuntu 18.04. Now the malayalam and english letters are looking almost same font size in websites like youtube etc.