iTerm2 vs patched Berkeley Mono

[lowstar]

Requirements

• I have searched the issues for my issue and found nothing related or helpful
• I have searched the FAQ for help
• I have checked the Wiki for help

Experienced Behavior

With the font set to Berkeley Mono Regular (patched) and "Draw bold text in bold font" selected in the iTerm profile's text settings, bold text appears different from the unpatched font:

Original:

Patched:

As shown in the screenshots above, bold text with the original (unpatched) font looks bolder than with the patched version. It seems that iTerm's bold font selection (which basically adds a constant value to the weight of the font selected in the profile) doesn't work properly with the patched version of Berkeley Mono.

The options used to patch the font were: -c --single-width-glyphs --careful

Font Used

Berkeley Mono

Source of Font File

self-patched

Terminal Emulator (and the title of the terminal window)

iTerm2

Operating System and Version

macOS 26.2

[Finii]

Are the font and family names correct? Iirc Berkeley needs --name postscript or something?
And the ttf and otf versions differ, which did you use?
Maybe show the installed fonts in the fontbook as screenshot?

[lowstar]

I used the TTF version. I tried also with --name postscript with the same result. Font family names look ok to me although the Regular variant is placed at the end of the list in case of patched font. Not sure if that means something relevant or not (maybe Font Book sorts the variants by weight?).

I forgot to mention that the issue is visible only when I select Regular as the normal iTerm font. When for example I select Medium or SemiLight, then the bold variant used by iTerm looks good. May this has something with Regular being at the end of the list in Font Book?

[Finii]

From the images, I suspect one of the 'bold's is autogenerated by iTerm.

Ah you already provided more informations, lets digest that...

[Finii]

Can you check the Family Name and the Style Name for both Regular and Bold for both unpatched and patched?

[Finii]

You can also check bold appearance in iTerm versus appearance in the fontbook...

[lowstar]

Here are the screenshots ...

[Finii]

From left to right: Fontbook unpatched, Fontbook patched, iTerm patched, iTerm unpatched

The names look good...

🤔

This looks like semibold or medium. Hmm. What happens if you uninstall all Nerd Fonts versions except Regular and Bold?

[Finii]

How are the names/family of semibold and medium (in fontbook)? They should have a different Family name.

Hmm, and then, why are they grouped in the fontbook 🤔

You use the ttf versions, right ... Maybe they have a different grouping feature builtin. Normally the font-patcher should break the Family grouping apart; something unexpected happening here.

Which fontforge do you use for patching? Where does that fontforge come from?

[Finii]

I'm no MacOS guy, so my experience with fonts on Mac and fontbook etc are rather limited 😬. Plus I can not reproduce because Berkeley is not free.

Maybe you can try the otf version ...

wait, why is it called 'Berkeley Mono' and not 'TX-02' ?!?? Is this not the current Berkeley Mono?

[Finii]

The unique name is TX-02? Hmm, iirc the Family is also TX-02 with the otf version at least?

[Finii]

Ah I'm wrong... someone already did a namedump for me:

# fontforge query_name /ttf/TX-02-6P4KWQXK/BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.ttf
Copyright (c) 2000-2025. See AUTHORS for Contributors.
 License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
 with many parts BSD <http://fontforge.org/license.html>. Please read LICENSE.
 Version: 20230101
 Based on sources from 2025-03-19 15:41 UTC-D.
Core python package 'pkg_resources' not found: Cannot discover plugins
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
======== BerkeleyMono-Black-Oblique.ttf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT Family        ID 1     Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Regular
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    Berkeley Mono
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    Black Oblique
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMono-BlackOblique
PS fullname                 Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
PS familyname               Berkeley Mono Black Oblique
fondname                    None

I see no way how fontbook could group the patched fonts all into one family.
Can you do a query_name on the Regular, Bold, and Medium weights of the patched fonts?

Edit: query_name is bin/scripts/name_parser/query_name

[Finii]

Another idea...
Use 'Pages' and type 4 lines with the 4 fonts (unpatched regular, unpatched bold, patched regular, patched bold).
If it works there, the fonts are 'usually' ok and this is more iTerm related, if it is broken there it is a more general problem.

[lowstar]

% ~/tmp/fonts/fontforge/query_name BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Regular.ttf
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
The glyph named heart is mapped to U+F08D0.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+2665.
======== BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Regular.ttf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
SFNT Family        ID 1     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Regular
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    -
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    -
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMonoNFM-Regular
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMonoNFM-Regular
PS fullname                 BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
PS familyname               BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
fondname                    None

% ~/tmp/fonts/fontforge/query_name BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Bold.ttf
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
The glyph named heart is mapped to U+F08D0.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+2665.
======== BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Bold.ttf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Bold
SFNT Family        ID 1     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Bold
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    -
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    -
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMonoNFM-Bold
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMonoNFM-Bold
PS fullname                 BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Bold
PS familyname               BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
fondname                    None

% ~/tmp/fonts/fontforge/query_name BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Medium.ttf
Examining 1 font files
The glyph named Tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021A.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0162.
The glyph named tcommaaccent is mapped to U+021B.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+0163.
The glyph named mu is mapped to U+03BC.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+00B5.
The glyph named heart is mapped to U+F08D0.
But its name indicates it should be mapped to U+2665.
======== BerkeleyMonoNerdFontMono-Medium.ttf ========
SFNT Fullname      ID 4     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Medium
SFNT Family        ID 1     BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Medium
SFNT SubFamily     ID 2     Regular
SFNT Pref Family   ID 16    BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono
SFNT Pref Styles   ID 17    Medium
SFNT PS Name       ID 6     BerkeleyMonoNFM-Medium
SFNT Compatible    ID 18    -
SFNT CID findfont  ID 20    -
SFNT WWS Family    ID 21    -
SFNT WWS SubFamily ID 22    -
PS fontname                 BerkeleyMonoNFM-Medium
PS fullname                 BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Medium
PS familyname               BerkeleyMono Nerd Font Mono Medium
fondname                    None

[Finii]

Thank you!
Ah, yes, I did the ID16/17 grouping, forgot that 🤦‍♀️

[lowstar]

Another idea... Use 'Pages' and type 4 lines with the 4 fonts (unpatched regular, unpatched bold, patched regular, patched bold). If it works there, the fonts are 'usually' ok and this is more iTerm related, if it is broken there it is a more general problem.

I have other self-patched fonts (SFMono, Menlo) which work great in iTerm.