Re: [Devel] Help me understand this... I'm losing my sanity. Please.

[Rogier van Dalen]

> 1. TTF files have both a data part and a code part. The code part is
> made of bytecode, which describes how to deform the font in order to
> render them better with low-resolutions. The byte-code interpreter can
> be used with both antialiased and unantialiased fonts.

True, but most fonts, including the popular Microsoft ones, are tuned for
aliased display and don't look too good when anti-aliased. However, the
FreeType bytecode interpreter will always pretend it does *not* do
anti-aliasing, so even if fonts provide code for both cases (as I think
Cleartype-enabled fonts do in some way), anti-aliased rendering will be
inferior. Especially for sans-serif fonts, using the auto-hinting module may
yield better results when anti-aliasing.

> 2. For patents problems, freetype2 introduces an auto-hinting module,
> which IGNORES the bytecode BUT tries to achieve a decent hinting
> effect nevertheless. This auto-hinting module can also be used BOTH in
> antialiased and unantialiased fonts.

True, but here the specific TrueType tuning is not used. This is not much of
a problem when using anti-aliasing but otherwise quite a few artifacts may
become visible.

(The rest of the questions I'll leave to others)

Rogier