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Google and Adobe Contribute Open Source Rasterizer to FreeType

Posted by timothy on from the fonts-matter dept.

alancronin writes with this excerpt from a PC World article: "Users of Android, Chrome OS, Linux, and iOS devices may not realize it, but FreeType open source software is used to render fonts on more than a billion such devices. Not only that, but the FreeType project this week got a significant update from none other than Adobe and Google. Specifically, Google and Adobe on Wednesday released into beta the Adobe CFF engine, an advanced Compact Font Format (CFF) rasterizer that 'paves the way for FreeType-based platforms to provide users with richer and more beautiful reading experiences,' as Google put it in an online announcement on the Google Open Source Blog. The new rasterizer is now included in FreeType version 2.4.12. Though it's currently off by default, the technology is 'vastly superior' to the old CFF engine and will replace it in the next FreeType release, the project says." The article features examples of how the new engine improves font rendering; for more explanation of the CFF, see this blog post from Adobe.

3 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. I wrote a CFF renderer in C# by anss123 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The big headache with rendering CFF is the hinting. I just ignored the hints, which gave okay result with 12+ font sizes. But without proper hinting small font sizes quickly become unclear.

    CFF is very similar to Type1 fonts, so presumably this will also result in better looking Type1 fonts. Basically CFF is a compact way of storing Type1 fonts. I particularly liked how the CFF container format works. It almost parses itself, type1 fonts take more effort to parse, and true type fonts take a lot more effort to parse (but non-hinted true type rendering is OTOH super easy.)

  2. Re:I hope it is not... by dosius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I thought most of the important patents would be held by either Apple or Adobe...

    Well, Apple could troll, but wouldn't that ruin whatever deal they have in place with Adobe re Quartz?

    --
    What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
  3. Re:Great! Now fix TrueType! by Psychotria · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I do believe that the patches from http://www.infinality.net/blog/infinality-freetype-patches/ are being slowly merged into freetype. In the meantime, use the infinality patches. They make a huge, huge difference.