Re: [Devel] pmingliu.ttf and hints

[Werner LEMBERG]

> The remarkable thing is that in that font hints are used to alter
> shapes of individual components of composite glyphs.

Well, it's not that remarkable -- it was one of the very reasons for
the introduction of the hinting language.

> I checked some other CJK fonts shipped with Windows, MacOS X and
> Solaris, and could not find any other example of using hints to
> alter contours.

kaiu.ttf, coming with Taiwanese Windows 98, is also such a font.  And
a lot of other Chinese fonts.

> 1. Fonts designed in such a way are "protected" against use in
>    TrueType scalers that do not use hints, like the license-free
>    version of FreeType.

Hmm, yes and no.  AFAIK, David has implemented some test code (either
in FT 1.x or FT2) to circumvent the `patented' algorithm.  I don't
know how well it works, and whether David has finished it.  Maybe he
can comment on it.

> 2. They can not be viewed in any scaler that performs auto-hinting
>    instead of interpreting font hints either.

Yes, the hinting program must be executed first to scale the subglyphs
properly.


    Werner