Hinting for Display Fonts? — Typophile archive

phrostbyte6412 September 2009 · 09:46

I don't make text fonts. Almost all of my work is POP displays, signs, banners, t-shirts, and posters. The fonts I build are exclusively for these media. To this end, I've never hinted a font. But, Fontlab has auto hinting, which I've never really considered turning off (best to leave sleeping dogs lyso to speak.) Is there any underlying problems with killing the auto hinting and go hintless? The hints are not generally a problem. But, it can be a little distracting to work on a layout with the client looking on and your font looks funky on screen. They also turn crazy if embedded in pdfs. Converting to paths solves the problem, but that can get annoying. So, to hint or not to hint?

James

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...from the Fontry

blank12 September 2009 · 10:06

You should disable the Fontlab auto hinting. Fontlab’s auto hinting is not very good, and can distort outlines when printing on laser printers. Just learn how to set up your blue value and stem weights and hint your fonts with the auto hinter that Adobe so graciously provides us in the AFDKO. It’s easy, only takes a few minutes, makes the fonts look pretty good, and they can even be converted to TrueType hinting with a Fontlab action.