Typophile

Font looks distorted on Adobe Reader

RSWihananto

Hi everybody! This is my first post in this forum.

I am creating a font for my native Javanese script recently added to Unicode. The script is a complex Indic-type script.
My font was autohinted in FontForge using steps explained in here.
With FontForge's autohinting, my font looks decent and readable on-screen.

Unfortunately the font looks very distorted on Adobe Reader. I've noticed the distortion only happened to my font. Other fonts used in the PDF document look fine.

Strangely, it looks not distorted on Foxit Reader.

Please help me how to properly autohint in FontForge so the result will not looks distorted on Adobe Reader. Thanks.

Thomas Phinney

Can you explain more about the distortion? What problems you are seeing?

When you say "With FontForge's autohinting, my font looks decent and readable on-screen." what "on screen" environment(s) are you testing? What version(s) of Windows and what applications? Is ClearType on at the system level?

RSWihananto

The problem I am seeing? Look at the screenshots above. Why the font looks ugly in Adobe Reader, but looks good on OS and other applications? Is there something missing or wrong in this autohinting steps in FontForge?

  • In Settings -> PS Hinting, turn diagonal hinting on.
  • Autohint (NOT Auto Instruct) the font.
  • In Element -> FontInfo -> PS Private, add these entries (FF will provide default values): BlueValues, OtherBlues, StemSnapH, StdHW, StemSnapV and StdVW.
  • Now the font can be auto-instructed.

Here's how the font looks on OpenOffice in Windows XP with ClearType turned on.


And here's how it looks on Adobe Reader in Windows XP. Spaces between stems sometimes too wide and sometimes too narrow or missing.

Captured from web.archive.org on 15 Oct 2013. view this capture