Re: [Freetype] Help with font improvement

[Vadim Plessky]

On Wednesday 18 December 2002 23:11, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
|  VP> TrueType fonts are nightmare, and they Should Die, IMHO.
|
|  I don't wish to polemize on this point.
|
|  I'd like to point out, though, that OpenType/CFF fonts (``OTF'')
|  contain Type 1 outlines[1] in a sfnt wrapper.  Thus, all hinting
|  techniques applicable to Type 1 apply to them, but they also have all
|  the advantages of the sfnt wrapper:

I like OpenType fonts, too.
And file sizes for OpenType fonts is smaller than for PS Type1 (in case you 
coded outlines correctly ;-))

But there are few problems, though.
Qt 3.0 and Qt 3.1 do not support embeddeding for OpenType fonts, so you can't 
print from KWord or Konqueror (KDE 3.1) using OpenType font.
I have requested from TrollTech support for OpenType fonts, but replies was 
that "this wouldn't happen in nearest future"

|
|    - single file for both outlines and metrics (no AFM files);
|    - efficient random access (no need to read the whole thing into
|      memory) even for very large fonts;
|    - possibility to include OpenType Layout tables;
|    - possibility to included embedded bitmaps (sbits).

AFAIK you can include embedded bitmaps into TrueType fonts, too.

|
|  They are fully supported by FreeType 2, and therefore XFree86 CVS (and
|  therefore XFree86 4.3 [3], unless something goes wrong), and I would
|  tend to recommend them for free font projects[2].

BTW: when we would get rid of .pcf and .bdf fonts in X?
>From latest XFree86 snapshot (67MB, from Rawhide SRPM), about 30MB are pcf/bdf 
fonts (misc, 75dpi, 100dpi)
When unpacked, that stuff is installed at hard disk and requires 198MB!..
This is not very friendly (both to developers and end-users), and contributes 
to "bloatness" myth of XFree86. :-(
Let's sort all "step by step", and replace bdf/pcf fonts with TT/OT fonts with 
embedded bitmaps (first), so at least size of XFree86 snapshot would be 
smaller.
What's progress with your work on this?

Than we can thinbk about moving all (scalable) fonts in XFree86 CVS to 
OpenType (Adobe CFF/Type 2)  format :-))

|
|                                          Juliusz
|
|  [1] Type 2, actually, but that's irrelevant for the discussion at
|      hand.
|
|  [2] And what for people whose hardware still isn't supported by
|      XFree86 4?  Simply use the font server and the Xft library from
|      XFree86 4.3.
|
|  [3] I'm in a footnote mood tonight.  As far as I can tell, XFree86 4.3
|      is basically feature-complete; this is the right time to test CVS
|      if you've got the time and inclination.

I am on XFree86 CVS ;-)
// I needed latest RENDER ext. and X server with RENDER support in order to 
test Xr/Xc/xsvg.


|
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Vadim Plessky
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