Re: [ft] Hinting

[Werner LEMBERG]

> What about hinting without antialiasing, or antialiasing without
> hinting?  And what about using both?

FreeType's autohinter works only well with AA.  The native TT hinting
engine originally supports both (depending on some flags within the
font); recently Microsoft extended it to handle ClearType (those
extensions are not supported by FreeType).  Type 1 hints work with
both AA and non-AA; however, there are some bugs in FreeType which
nobody has ironed out yet.

> Is there something you would recommend?

AA + FreeType's autohinter.

> I meant: what way to go for pictures, that are likely to be rescaled
> by the person who views it?

You get ugly results in any case.

> Are there best ways to go, so that - when rescaling for viewing the
> picture - the text is of good readability?

For such cases I suggest to directly use a pixel font.

> Should one use different options for a picture that is likely to be
> rescaled for viewing?  Can one assume "best viewing" from the image
> size and typical monitors to be in use?

I don't know.  This is empirical stuff based on user feedback, I
think.

> For small pictures it looks ugly; to less pixels there;
> possibly hinting and anti-aliasing would help here.

Use a pixel font.

> But in general the problem might be always there?

Of course.

> > Try the `ftview', `ftview', or `ftdiff' demo programs.  Press the
> > `?'  key to see the available options, then compare the source
> > code with the one you are writing.
> 
> I didn't got them running in the first place.  I may try it again to
> compile them.

Hmm.  Where are the problems?


    Werner