Re: [ft] problem with "MS Sans Serif" font

[Dave Calkins]

On 1/29/2010 11:14 AM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
>    
> > > Don't mix up pixel size (which is absolute) and point size (which
> > > is relative to the selected DPI value).  11pt for 72dpi means a
> > > glyph height of 11 pixels; 11pt for 96dpi, however, is 15 pixels
> > > (rounded), and this size isn't available in the font.  At 72dpi,
> > > the font contains faces for 11pt, 13pt, 16pt, 19pt, 24pt, and 32pt.
> > > At 96dpi, you get faces for 8pt, 10pt, 12pt, 14pt, 18pt, and 24pt.
> > >        
> > Understood.  So is ftview only able to show the first font face in
> > the file?
> >      
> Well, there is no command line option to directly select the face (you
> are welcome to add it).  Instead, you have to press the `n' key
> repeatedly in the ftview window to walk over all available faces.
>
>    

ah, ok, sorry you mentioned the 'n' key thing before.  Sure enough, 
hitting 'n' got it to the right face and it worked, so my bad.

> > > If you select a font size in WordPad which is not in the font
> > > (e.g. 11pt at 96dpi), you either get glyphs from a different,
> > > scalable font, or Windows does indeed apply scaling to a bitmap
> > > font which should produce horrible optical results.
> > >        
> > Is there any way to tell FreeType to scale if necessary to get the
> > size I'm asking for?
> >      
> No.  FreeType doesn't scale bitmap fonts.
>
>    
> > The bottom line is that we want to allow the user to pick a font and
> > have it work.  If it doesn't look as good, then they can decide to
> > pick something else.  But we want to still be able to render the
> > requested face at the requested size.
> >      
> I suggest to disable bitmap fonts altogether since their use is very
> limited; IMHO they only make sense as console fonts.  Use the
> FT_IS_SCALABLE macro to check for that.
>
>
>      Werner
>
>
>    

ok, maybe thats the best way to go then.  If they pick a font which is 
not scalable, then we just override it and use a "safe" fallback font we 
know to be scalable.

Thanks!