The FreeType Project Files

ttfautohint 0.92
----------------

by Werner Lemberg <wl@gnu.org>


This project provides a library which takes a TrueType font as the input,
removes its bytecode instructions (if any), and returns a new font where all
glyphs are bytecode hinted using the information given by FreeType's
autohinting module.  The idea is to provide the excellent quality of the
autohinter on platforms which don't use FreeType.

The library has a single API function, `TTF_autohint'; see
`lib/ttfautohint.h' for a detailed description.  Note that the library
itself won't get installed currently.

A command-line interface to the library is the `ttfautohint' program; after
compilation and installation, say

  ttfautohint --help

for usage information, or say

  man ttfautohint

to read its manual page.

A GUI to the library is `ttfautohintGUI'; it uses the Qt4 framework.  The
compilation of this application can be disabled with the `--without-qt'
configuration option.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

New in 0.92:

* A serious bug in the created bytecode has been fixed, causing incorrect
  rounding.


New in 0.91:

* A new, `strong' routine to handle stem widths and positions has been
  added, to be selected with the `--strong-stem-width' command line option.
  If it is active, stem widths and positions are snapped to the grid as much
  as possible.  This algorithm is useful for GDI ClearType support.

* A new command line option `--debug' (not available for ttfautohintGUI) to
  print very detailed debugging information.


New in 0.9:

* The created bytecode has been reduced in size, making it approx. 20%
  smaller.

* New option `--symbol' to use standard stem height and width values instead
  of using character `o' (which may be missing).  Use this option for symbol
  fonts or math glyphs.

* More documentation (in text, HTML, and PDF format).  It's still
  incomplete, though.

* Option `--ignore-permissions' has been renamed to `--ignore-restrictions'.
  The short form is still `-i'.

* Defaults for various parameters have been set to more sensible values:

    hinting-range-max: 50 (was 1000)
    hinting-limit: 200 (was 1000)

* Option `--increase-x-height' now has a mandatory argument (in the range
  6-20 or value 0 to disable it, default value is 14).


New in 0.8:

* Implement option `-x' to increase the x height of the font for small PPEM
  values by rounding up far more often then rounding down.

* Add option `-G N' to switch off hinting completely above value N.

* ttfautohint now appends version information and the used parameters to the
  `Version' field(s) in the `name' table.  This can be suppressed with
  option `-n'.


New in 0.7:

* A GUI has been added, using the Qt framework.  The binary is called
  `ttfautohintGUI'.


New in 0.6.1:

* The improved handling of composite glyphs in 0.6 was buggy under certain
  circumstances, making ttfautohint crash and FontValidator complain.

* Dropout handling has been activated.


New in 0.6:

* Improved handling of composite glyphs.

* Implement option `-p' to pre-hint glyphs with original hints before
  conversion takes place.

* Don't add a DSIG table if there is none in the input font.

* Human-readable error messages instead of hexadecimal error codes.

* Better tests (both at runtime and compile time) to reject too old FreeType
  versions.


New in 0.5:

* Rendering on iOS is now expected to give good results.

* No bad rendering at very large PPEM values.


New in 0.4:

* The bytecode has been changed to `create' twilight points.  This should
  avoid rendering artifacts on some platforms.


New in 0.3:

* Fix font generation; sometimes the `glyf' table was one byte too short,
  making the font invalid.


New in 0.2:

* Fix bytecode bugs which prevented correct rendering on some platforms.


New in 0.1:

* First release.

EOF