Re: [ft-devel] merged CFF and Type1 hinting code now in master

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> Unfortunately, it is not possible to recognize this without parsing
>> the whole font, including all glyphs.  We could argue, however,
>> that a Type 1 or CFF font that lacks global blue zone information
>> should be handled by the auto-hinter
>
> No hints should trigger the autohinter, yes.
> 
> Until recently, medium.com served some Utopia CFF font (I think?!)
> with blue zones but without hints (result: no hinting). gov.co.uk
> also serves some font without hints (can't determine what kind right
> now).  Google's Caladea and Carlito fonts ship(ped?) with a hinting
> table stub but no hints, but that triggered the autohinter iirc.

A CFF that triggered the auto-hinter?

> Blue zone/hinting table detection is a first line of defence, but
> you have to check for hints to be sure.

For CFFs this might work, iterating over all glyphs, then looking at a
glyph's first few bytes to check whether there are any hinting
instructions.  For Type1 fonts, however, it would be necessary to
completely parse the font since this font format doesn't have a
`hintmask' operator.  In both cases I think it is too expensive to do
that.

I consider a font broken if it has a blue zone table but no hints –
shall we really take care of that?  We don't do any harm; it's just
that the font stays unhinted.


    Werner