[OpenFontLibrary] hinting workflow

[Ben Laenen]

Eric Schrijver wrote:
> For now I agree with Dave that XgridFit would be the most logical format
> to use, since it is already an XML based format and already in use in
> the FOSS toolchain…

But will Fontlab etc really support a whole new hinting language? I can't see 
them being bothered to go any further than supporting plain ttf instructions.


> I do think all this shows hinting is still a bit of a black art. Am I
> correct in thinking that most projects could at first get by using the
> automated hinting of the design programs? Or is that typographic
> blasphemy :)

Well, you can get some results out of the FF autohinter. Question is just 
whether it'll produce anything good... You can improve it by editing the 
parameters for PS hinting, but if you're putting effort in that you can just 
as well put the effort in ttf hinting at once...


> What do you think?
> Fontforge could for example do automatic hinting at the same time it
> generates the (o/t)tf’s from the ufo.

It actually has a setting to generate automatic hinting when generating a 
ttf/otf right now.

Greetings
Ben