Re: [ft-devel] ttfautohint: How to install

[vernon adams]

However, I don't understand where the differences come from.

Nothing in the hinting instructions added by ttfautohint is

specific to ClearType.  It uses a large number of twilight points

which is probably unusual a bit, but this doesn't explain how the

asymmetry can come into existence.

Well i have no technical knowledge of the rendering stuff behind

Cleartype or Freetype, but my eyes tell me that they render the same

TT instructions differently

Mhmm.  Up to now I've *never* seen a font rendered with FreeType which
shows such a large deviation from the Windows font engine.  I believe
that FreeType's output is quite trustworthy.

heh. Really?  Depends what you mean by 'large deviation' i guess.

I only ever seem to see differences between Windows font rendering and the other OS's :)

Maybe there are problems with my bytecode.

Well - your bytecode seems to work fine for hinting under Freetype, but not under Windows GDI.

You should probably look at the newest screenshots at http://code.newtypography.co.uk

I tested Ubuntu Font & Droid Serif with the Windows' 'system font viewer' on XP and Win7, both with GDI-Cleartype.

Some very glitchy stuff happens with the ttfauto hinted fonts at larger sizes - 36pts on Ubuntu Font, 48pts on Droid Serif. I have tested and replicated those glitches on different PC's so they are for real! :)

Must do some full waterfall tests to see what else is happening at other sizes.  More testers and more eyes would be good too.

Perhaps I can activate my contacts to the font people at Microsoft,

asking for help in case the rendering problems you observe are also

present in Win7.

That would be good. Any light shed on how Cleartype utilises TT

instructions would be great.

But the bad rendering happens with and without ClearType, right?

The rendering glitches seem to be specific to the GDI-Cleartype rendering, and absent (as far as i can see) from the new (FireFox4 & IE9) DirectWrite-Cleartype rendering.

-vern