[Openfontlibrary] new release of the Ubuntu titling font

[Dave Crossland]

On 13 Jan 2008 11:24:48 -0800, George Williams <gww at silcom.com> wrote:
>
> Feature files can also be recreated from the font. I don't think the
> results are any more cryptic than the original.

I understand that they can be recreated; but can the original state be
recreated in full?

What I mean is, a XGF file describing the hints can be recreated from
a font binary (afaik, not sure if there are tools today to do this)
but it will not be the same as the original XGF source file.

Lossless compression is fine, but lossy compression isn't.

> > What you may be missing are things like guidelines (usually
> > easily extrapolated)
>
> Or we can extend the format to hold them. But I tend to agree that if
> your guideline is off by one em unit you aren't going to make serious
> errors in font design.

I agree that a guideline off by one em unit isn't a problem; the
problem is that if you are unaware of a guideline (say there are 3 x
height lines in a design, but you only guess at 2) then you may make
serious errors in the design of new glyphs meant to fit in with the
existing ones.

By "easily extrapolate" I suppose Chris thinks he can guess at where
guidelines might be based on the shapes we can see in the final
binary, and do so with accuracy "easily."

Maybe I am a type design novice and that skill will soon develop, but
I doubt that will happen and I kindly doubt anyone else can do it
either :-) Right now I can't hope to guess at where the guides should
be, or where the original type designer placed them.

People can downplay how important they are and dodge the issue, but
for me, guidelines are of first order importance.

-- 
Regards,
Dave