CJK hinting [was: Autohinting concerns]

[Tom Kacvinsky]

Hi Werner,

The hints to which you are referring are called counter control hints.
They are not global, but do have some restraints (based on alignment
zones, which are global).  The spec. for these is in the same spec.
that outlines the changes made to the Type 1 spec. for MM fonts.
Can't remember the number of the tech. note off the top of my head.

Tom


On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

> 
> > > My concern has to do with global hints.  Glyph hints can probably
> > > be safely ignored, but global hints turn on/off overshhoot
> > > supression, in addition to giving some information about standard
> > > stem widths.
> > 
> > All I can say for now is that it is, for now, possible to use the
> > global hints defined in a Type 1 font and pass them to the
> > auto-hinter (instead of asking it to recompute them).  This is
> > limited to the standard width/height + stem snap widths/heights
> 
> My interest is (of course) CJK fonts -- Adobe has introduced special
> hints (I don't know the names, sorry) to adjust distances and widths
> of horizontal stems for such CJK glyphs.  Example:
> 
> 
>         ';,,  ,;,,,,,,
>              '' ,;, ,'
>         ,,;' ,,;' ';, 
>        '' ,,,,,,,,,,'''     < it is of greatest importance that
>           ;,,,,,,,,;        < the widths of these horizontal strokes
>           ;,,,,,,,,;        < are equal; similarly, the distances
>           ;,,,,,,,,;        < must be equal
>         ,,,'      ',,,
> 
> 
> I don't know whether this is a global property, but I'm quite sure
> that the auto-hinter module will often fail to properly handle this
> without hints due to the complexity of CJK glyphs.
> 
> 
>     Werner
>