Re: [Freefont-bugs] Poor rendering in Windows

[Steve White]

Denis & al,

Well, I did some experiments.

Hinting is involved, but it isn't the problem or the solution.

I auto-hinted all of FreeMono and FreeSerif, copied them over to
Windows, and installed them.

Tried FreeMono in PuTTY.  No improvement.  Still looks like
badly-scaled bitmaps.
Likewise FreeSerif in WordPad.

But...what's this?  There is a checkbox in PuTTY near the font selection button.
Anti-alias, Default, or (some other options).
By default, its value is "Default".
I click Anti-Alias and

BEAUTIFUL

Now, most programs, including WordPad, don't have such an Anti-Alias checkbox.

It would seem, that Windows thinks that FreeFonts are not be be
Anti-Aliased, by default.

But why?  Is there a switch I'm missing?

I built some .otf files, and installed those.  The result was:  they
were anti-aliased by default.

Now, FreeSerif still isn't wonderful, but because its horizontal
spacing is completely out of whack.
The glyphs look pretty good.

Does anybody understand this phenomenon?


On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Denis Jacquerye <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> On 15/02/2008, Steve White <address@hidden> wrote:
>  > One of the most important outstanding bugs is the very old
>  >     bug #5553: Characters deformed in Windows apps
>  >     https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?5553
>  >
>  >  (Please, refrain from emotional and jingoistic reactions.)
>  >
>  >  FreeFont TrueType fonts look just awful in Windows applications:  I
>  >  tried several.
>  >  They look like badly scaled bitmaps.
>  >  I intend to address this issue for the next release.
>  >
>  >  Does anybody know why this happens, and what can be done about it?
>  >  Is it hinting?  Some switch in the font info I don't know about?
>  >
>
>  It is due to the lack of hinting indeed.
>
>  Cheers,
>  ---
>  Denis Moyogo Jacquerye
>