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Adobe Open-Sources CFF Rasterizer For FreeType

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  • Adobe Open-Sources CFF Rasterizer For FreeType

    Phoronix: Adobe Open-Sources CFF Rasterizer For FreeType

    Adobe has open-sourced their advanced CFF rasterizer for the FreeType project. This Adobe contribution, along with the support of Google, will improve FreeType font rendering on Linux and other platforms...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    That's nice, considering this is one of those things many people seem to gripe about when it comes to linux. Personally I think linux renders fonts just fine, in fact on my 1080p TV, text is far more legible and less glitchy looking on linux (and mac for that matter) than it is on windows.

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    • #3
      Also my thought, I find Linux font rendering is better than windows or OSX.

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      • #4
        Lcdfilter

        These are the settings I currently use (as shown by xrdb -query), and the fonts looks very good:

        Xft.antialias: 1
        Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
        Xft.rgba: rgb
        Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault

        For those who (like me) use XFCE, there is no way to turn on the lcdfilter (which I've found improves font appearance) from the configuration, so you have to type the following command in a terminal:

        xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Xft/Lcdfilter -n -t string -s lcddefault

        More info: http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-settings/appearance

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        • #5
          Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
          That's nice, considering this is one of those things many people seem to gripe about when it comes to linux.
          This contribution has absolutely nothing to do with TrueType fonts normal users normally encounter.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Awesomeness View Post
            This contribution has absolutely nothing to do with TrueType fonts normal users normally encounter.
            What are you talking about? Of course it's a benefit for every user because postscript fonts can be rendered nicely.
            This is a great move by Adobe.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Nuc!eoN View Post
              What are you talking about?
              You should read the part that you quoted. I was replying to a post that claimed that ?many people? complain about Linux font rendering and ?many people? usually encounter TrueType fonts. PostScript fonts are usually used for print. Therefore ?many people? are not affected by that contribution.

              Originally posted by Nuc!eoN View Post
              This is a great move by Adobe.
              I wasn't discrediting the contribution. I so far didn't comment even on the quality of the contribution at all.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Awesomeness View Post
                This contribution has absolutely nothing to do with TrueType fonts normal users normally encounter.
                Intersting observation. I spend a lot of time writing [fiction and technical] and read constantly. I'm not running into many well published TrueType Font works.

                Of course, in a Display Postscript world of NeXT I was spoiled by the quality of display output. Tradeoffs were then made with OS X due to changing the Display engine to Display PDF and how the world became obsessed with the Web and thus cheap TrueType fonts. Yet I imagine a lot of industries will be thrilled to have quality output in the likes of Linux/FreeBSD and not be beholden to either OS X or Windows.

                Fonts are far better quality in OS X, though Freetype is an excellent engine. I'm sure all the crap they've been going through working around legal issues with CFF/TrueType patents is a big sigh of relief. Application developers will be thrilled.

                We will soon once again come into another Internet lull period.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Awesomeness View Post
                  This contribution has absolutely nothing to do with TrueType fonts normal users normally encounter.
                  Yes, this rasterizer 'only' supports .otf fonts, however as far as I know pretty much all new fonts, including pretty much all the Google webfonts are available in .otf format. Also you can convert between the formats, chances are something is lost in the translation, that I am unsure of.

                  Overall from what I've read, otf (cff) is a superior format for font creators as it effectively passes on much of the difficulty of hinting to the rasterizer rather than having to manually embed the hinting information into the font. This new (CFF) rasterizer is already implemented in Windows font rendering engines (WPF, DirectWrite) and is afaik the rasterizer which is used in Windows phones and tablets when rendering text.

                  As I'm not using the Windows fonts on my machine but rather those from Webfonts including Droid Sans (my 'standard' font), Source Code Pro (my coding font) etc, and that these are all available in .otf format, I'm happy to see an improved rasterizer. Of course just because it says 'improved' doesn't mean that I will find it preferable as font rendering quality is a very subjective thing.

                  For example I find the Apple OSX font rendering to be 'fuzzy' but I'm certain that if I used it for a relatively long time it would look fine to me, just as nowadays if I sit down on a Windows box I think the font rendering looks off, while back when I was using Windows I thought the font rendering looked nice.

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                  • #10
                    what does this mean for the libertine fonts?

                    I really like the linux libertine fonts.
                    What does this new rasterizer mean for these fonts?

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