ttfautohint history

11th February 2014

I proudly present the first release candidate for version 1.00! Its main improvement is the use of the HarfBuzz library to handle OpenType features, allowing the hinting of glyphs that don't have an entry in a font's ‘cmap’ table, for example superscripts or small caps. ttfautohint can now hint basically all glyphs of a supported script.

Another improvement is much better GDI ClearType hinting in the range 30-80ppem (approx.), avoiding overly flat tops and bottoms of round glyphs. The list of the remaining changes can be found here.

9th November 2013

Version 0.97 is now available. It comes with new support for the Hebrew script and improved handling of Cyrillic and Greek, which are no longer handled together with Latin. This brings ttfautohint a big step nearer to version 1.0, which is scheduled to be released in the end of this year.

The list of other changes can be found here.

7th August 2013

I'm happy to announce release 0.96. Its main purpose is to fix the ‘exploding outlines’ issue which happens on some printers (see here for more), however, it also contains minor hinting improvements.

The major work on FreeType (integration of a new CFF hinter contributed by Adobe and color support contributed by Google) has been done, so I can now fully return to ttfautohint development. I expect to have the long-awaited support for more scripts implemented until October so that I can announce it during the ATypI conference in Amsterdam.

8th March 2013

Today I've released version 0.95. This is a small maintenance release without major news (see here for more).

Currently, I'm heavily working on FreeType (including payed work) without having much time to continue the development of ttfautohint. I estimate that this dormant phase will end in about two months, so stay tuned!

28th November 2012

This time, I have two issues to talk about:

• Version 0.94 is out. It adds two new options to better control the vertical dimensions of hinted glyphs to avoid clipping on Windows in case the usWinAscent and usWinDescent values from the font's ‘OS/2’ table can't be adjusted (for whatever reasons). As usual, look here for more information.

• In the last twelve months, there was a lot of progress in the development of ttfautohint. However, there is still a large list of improvements I would like to work on so that this tool becomes more versatile and useful. To make this happen I start a new funding drive, and I ask you for financial support!

10th October 2012

Here comes version 0.93, right in time for the talk given by Dave Crossland and Eben Sorkin at the atypi conference in Hong Kong!

On the functionality side, it brings a new option to hint composite glyphs differently, greatly reducing the bytecode size of the created hints. I'm waiting for reports whether this option works for most fonts; in case this is true I'll make it the default. So please test!

The list of other changes can be found here. Among other things, the GUI version of ttfautohint has a new layout (based on suggestions from Frederik Berlaen).

7th August 2012

I've found quite an embarassing bug in the bytecode produced by ttfautohint, causing bad rounding. All users should upgrade to version 0.92.

12th July 2012

Version 0.91 is out! This mainly brings better support for GDI ClearType. For other, minor improvements, please go to this page for more.

7th June 2012

After a long hiatus due to personal reasons, followed by intensive work on the documentation, I'm happy to release version 0.9.

While I was able to significantly reduce the generated bytecode, the GDI issues haven't been solved yet, unfortunately, to be fixed in a forthcoming release. For other, minor improvements, please go to this page for more.

6th April 2012

Thanks to a very generous donation from Extensis WebINK, my pledgie campaign has reached its goal. Kudos to all of you who have donated and supported me!

In a few weeks I'll do a new release; this time with smaller output fonts due to a reduced size of the generated bytecode, and with better support for GDI ClearType.

30th March 2012

This page now uses the Roboto font for display.

Karsten Lücke again provided a static binary of ttfautohint's command line version for OS X.

21st March 2012

Version 0.8 is available.

This release brings various minor improvements; see this page for more.

To whet your appetite: Here is a snapshot of the GUI :-)

5th February 2012

Version 0.7 is available – we have a GUI!

The Qt framework is used to provide a uniform interface for all supported platforms.

Below you can find a link for downloading Windows binaries. If you want to have better installation support (including a package for Mac), please donate!

2nd January 2012

Version 0.6.1 is available.

This release should fix problems with version 0.6; additionally, dropout mode has been activated.

25th December 2011

My Xmas present to you: version 0.6. Thanks to all of you who are still donating!

This version greatly improves handling of composite glyphs. It also implements option -p to pre-hint a font with the original hints before processing it.

19th November 2011

Karsten Lücke provided a static binary for OS X – no need to install FreeType! It was generated under version 10.5.8, but should run with version 10.7 also.

9th November 2011

The Google Web Fonts has contributed an additional $3,000! I have now raised two thirds of my goal!

I hope other corporate font developers, especially those with large font catalogs, who will benefit substantially from this work, will consider making a contribution of a thousand dollars.

I have just released version 0.5, including a Windows binary. You can read the project roadmap here.

18th October 2011

In September we have raised over $2,000 from the public, $7,000 each from Google and FontLab, together with a copy of FontLab 5, and received from Microsoft the Visual TrueType file format specification. This will allow designers to refine ttfautohint's results further using VTT, if I reach my $30,000 goal!

The collected money so far enables me to intensively work on ttfautohint for the next three months. The two main issues I'm going to handle are

• fixing the bytecode to make it work reliably with Apple's TrueType engines (I've already started with that, and I estimate to provide a new release in about two weeks)

• writing a GUI for easier control

In case you have special wishes, now it's the right time to tell me! Please look into the TODO file and check whether your idea is already covered!