Re: [ft] Hinting problem

[Peter Weilbacher]

On 17.06.08 22:45, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> > I'm using FreeType to render text in the OS/2 version of Firefox 3
>
> Aah, since a long time we haven't had any reports of OS/2 users.

Well, I do stick my nose out here with stupid questions every now and
then.

> > The main problem seems to be that the 'e' in the "Times New Roman"
> > font shipping with OS/2 (Type 1 format) displays almost like a 'c'
> > at some font sizes. An example can be seen
> > here:
> >     https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=320335
> > I'm now basically wondering, if there is anything I can do about
> > this.
>
> This is a very good question.  First of all, which FreeType version is
> used on OS/2?  Is it directly part of Firefox?

I created a supporting library that contains both a special version of
FontConfig for OS/2 and much of the code from FreeType 2.3.6 (just
updated yesterday from 2.3.5), with very minor changes that are not
relevant to this problem. I just removed code for font formats that
aren't used on OS/2. That lib is then linked statically into one of the
Firefox DLLs, so that users don't need to download extra libs.

> > I have now reproduced this using
> >     ftstring -m eComStation 16 TNR.PFB
> > on Linux (toggling hinting using the 'h' key shows the problem
> > nicely).  How do I find out if the font is broken?
>
> The very problem is that Type 1 hinting of FreeType is, hmm, not
> optimal.  In many cases, the autohinter produces better results.
>
> Can you send me this font privately for further investigation?

Done. Thanks in advance for anything that you can find out!
   Peter.