Make a suggestion. Include your distro and exact version of wine you are running. It is not one wine. distros have theirs, and winehq has theirs.

For Me, Fedora version is very dated, and there are bugs I and other found, and they have fixed in the devel version. Might be you are running older wine that doesn't have those patches/fixes.

Linux 7.2.9-100.fc43.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Oct 3 18:35:12 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux
wine-devel-11.19-1.1.x86_64
winehq-devel-11.19-1.1.x86_64

winehq shows.

Latest Releases
Stable: Wine 11.0
Development: Wine 11.19

The default Fedora repository provides Wine version 11.0 so it is older.

Sometime find a new development version has issues, but can just downgrade and report the problem. They have generally found issue, and fix shortly.

So, the problem might not be with 4.91, but with an issue in the wine others are running. But I've found 4.91 solid. with devel winehq.

I do have my winecfg set to 120dpi.

Can just say what works for me.

Under fedora winehq shows 3 options.

Stable branch sudo dnf install winehq-stable
Development branch sudo dnf install winehq-devel
Staging branch sudo dnf install winehq-staging

Don't recall exactly what staging is?

Good Luck to others.

I don't know. I thought it might have been posted somewhere in an old post here or on the LISTSERV support list during discussions about the higher DPI support in 4.80 but my searches of both did not find it.

Hello:

S.

Hello:

Best,

S.

Hello:

S.

Pegasus Mail's standard font for its dialogs (taken from the dialog resources) is MS Shell Dlg 2 which is mapped to lokal fonts in the Registry key <HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\FontSubstitutes>. It actually is Tahoma up to Windows 7, Windows 10 & 11 are using Segoe UI. For details on the former please go to learn.microsoft.com and this for the current one. But this font doesn't matter for the text in TER editor and reader windows which are at stake here and can use any font picked from the list of available Windows fonts for text rendering.

On my system this is what I have showing for wine packages

rpm -qa | grep -i wine
wine-filesystem-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-tahoma-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-times-new-roman-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-wingdings-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-webdings-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-system-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-symbol-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-small-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-ms-sans-serif-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-marlett-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-fixedsys-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-courier-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-arial-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-winefonts-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-wingdings-fonts-system-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-times-new-roman-fonts-system-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-tahoma-fonts-system-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-mono-10.4.1-1.fc43.noarch
wine-systemd-11.0-2.fc43.noarch
wine-devel-11.19-1.1.x86_64
winehq-devel-11.19-1.1.x86_64

Again. I use the winehq.org version. Not sure what distros others are using. Currently running on main machine with Fedora 43, but have also setup test on Fedora 44, and have seen no issues. Fedora uses rpm, but your distro may use a different package manager, but should show similar info.

I think there is no point insisting on fonts and DPI since they are clearly the wrong track: As I said previously and Michael pointed out above, the problem happens on parts which use user-defined fonts and sizes.
(Besides, why would 4.73 work but the subsequent versions not? Font requirements would remain the same.)

- To resume: -
Problem happens on both Devuan and Ubuntu, both on Wine 8.0 (Devuan) and Wine-stable 11.0 (WineHQ).
It doesn't happen on Fedora using Wine-devel (11.19).

Now the question is, is this indeed a Wine bug, fixed somewhere between 11.0 and 11.19, or is this just a coincidence?
Wine-devel releases a new version every two weeks and may contain regressions, so it's not really safe for a production computer (unless you're an IT expert and can handle things suddenly not working), so I'm reticent about using it. I can't possibly tell a client I didn't get his emailed documents because of a Wine problem... :-D
Hmmm...

Hello:
You have a point:

It will remain annoying albeit not critical as long as my eyesight can manage and my memory can reliably tell me what I am (not) seeing properly. 8^°

The problem at hand is the critical one, basically because it cripples affected PMail installations to the point of making them unusable.
Like you point out:

S.

Correct, but adjusting screen resolution (lowering it) will improve the display. Prior to 4.80 I ran my 1920x1200 monitor at 1366x76. I was able to return to 1920x1200 with 4.80. Your font problem starts with 4.80 so it is logical to look at something that changed between 4.73 and 4.80 that affected fonts.

I will leave it at that.

Hello:

Thanks for your input.

Best,

S.

Could we please stay on topic?
I have started this thread about one specific problem, the totally garbled display of text boxes on Linux since 4.80. Which is not a cosmetic problem but a total show stopper, blocking us Linux users on 4.73 forever*. :-(

• It happens on Wine (Linux), apparently on all Wine versions and Linux distributions except one, but unfortunately the sample is to small to draw any useful conclusions.
• We know this is due to something which was changed in Pegasus Mail between versions 4.73 and 4.80.
• We also know it hasn't been subsequently fixed (probably because it only happens in Wine...), since it's still there many years later in 4.91.
• We know for sure it's unrelated to HTML-rendering, since the issue already shows before even installing Pegasus, in the Pegasus Mail installer.
• If you look at sawbona's screenshots further up, you'll notice this isn't a font rendering problem as much as it is a kerning one: All characters of a row are rendered on the same spot, one over the other, which doesn't promote legibility. It's very obvious when trying to write a message: Each new letter you type first appears normally, then jumps on the heap.

*Since it only affects a dwindling small number of people one can expect this issue won't be ever fixed, which means that after over a quarter of a century I'll have to abandon my trusted Pegasus Mail. I can't decently express how sad and annoyed I am.

Hello:

... the source of a different problem altogether, by no means critical but quite annoying. It has been present (?) in PMail versions at least as of v4.73 and is related to PMail's own UI's font sizes, rendering and anti-aliasing.
Changing DPI settings will not fix it.

... specific problem, the totally garbled display of text boxes ...
... total show stopper, blocking us Linux users on 4.73 forever*. :-(

Renders it, to all intents and purposes, unusable.

Version 4.80 is a major release and most likely the last one in the 4.x series
The most important changes are:
Major editor update
The program's editor module has received a major update: it should now be able to edit a much wider range of HTML data, and handle it much more reliably.

Could this be the origin of the problems we are seeing?
Thank you for your input.
Best,

A.

Well it appears to be so. although this isn't quite the whole truth: Using an application designed for the Windows OS on a different OS with a Windows emulator is the real reason and not the developer's task to solve. I (as the author of several PM extensions) ran into a simular situation and contacted the Wine developers, which then told me explicitely not to figure out a workaround but leave it to them. Unfortunately I don't remember anymore what it was about, so I can't provide any more details, but this is definitely an issue the Wine developers need to fix! And according to @msetzerii they were esponsive at least in the cases he submitted.

Well it appears to be so. although this isn't quite the whole truth: Using an application designed for the Windows OS on a different OS with a Windows emulator is the real reason and not the developer's task to solve. I (as the author of several PM extensions) ran into a simular situation and contacted the Wine developers, which then told me explicitely not to figure out a workaround but leave it to them. Unfortunately I don't remember anymore what it was about, so I can't provide any more details, but this is definitely an issue the Wine developers need to fix! And according to @msetzerii they were pretty responsive at least in the cases he submitted.

Just to clarify. Ran into issues with latest 11.x development cycle. Had issues and filed bug reports. The bugs were confirmed, and also effected some other programs, and were fixed in the next few updates.

Search on Pegasus in bugzilla shows these.

ID Product Comp Assignee▲ Status▲ Resolution Summary Changed
48283 Wine -unknown wine-bugs UNCO --- Pegasus Mail 4.73 crashes after install 2025-06-25
58304 Wine -unknown wine-bugs UNCO --- Question on programs that use files with $ in file names? 2026-05-06
14797 Wine -unknown wine-bugs NEW --- Pegasus Mail 4.4 to 4.6 SSL enabled POP3 and SMTP doesn't work 2022-07-31
25870 Wine -unknown wine-bugs NEW --- Pegasus Mail: Column headers don't resize to fit text when double-clicked 2024-04-22
31151 Wine -unknown wine-bugs NEW --- Pegasus Mail v4.63 stack overflow on start unless IERenderer.dll is disabled 2018-03-17
52629 Wine -unknown wine-bugs NEW --- Pegasus Mail 4.80 crashes on start on certain systems 2024-04-21
6 bugs found.

So, if there are issues, they have responded.

With IERenderer, the issue is that it is using older IE8 code that wine doesn't support and is scheduled to be removed from windows. So putting work in to fixing support for it doesn't seem to be a good use of resources. Believe IERenderer is working on a newer option to handle this.

Know a lot of work has gone into IERenderer and it looks great on Windows 11 machine, but for me 99% of my work is on linux. So If I get messages that don't display well in Pegasus the the TER and HTS, I open in browser.

So, time will tell. Some of the development version caused issues, and downgraded to the previous one, and then tested each new one till issue was fixed. Good Luck to all.

Hello:

What changed?
The Pegasus Mail version.

Not the Linux version, not the Wine version.
The Pegasus Mail version.
ie: whatever changed between v4.73 and v4.80/v4.81/v4.91.
Best,
S.

WINE 8?? It is running a version 11??

Available Wine Versions for Devuan Daedalus

Wine Stable (winehq-stable): Version 11.0.x (or latest stable release built for Bookworm).
Wine Development (winehq-devel): Version 11.x (bi-weekly bleeding-edge updates, such as 11.10–11.19).
Wine Staging (winehq-staging): Version 11.x with experimental patches.
Devuan Default Repository (apt install wine):

Hello:

If that is so, I'll be happy to continue using v4.73.

That said, whatever is eventually decided will not obscure the evidence at hand: the only variable that changed in the combinations I have gone through (see my previous post) is Pegasus Mail.
Nothing else, at least as far as I can see.
Not being a developer/programmer, I could well be wrong.
But 2+2 is always 4.

That being so, I don't see why it should be up to the Wine developers to solve a problem that surfaced four years ago with the changes in v4.80, remained in v4.81 and is still there in v4.91.

Thank you for your input.

Best,

S.