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<title>FreeType Glyph Conventions</title>
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<center>
<h1>
FreeType Glyph Conventions</h1></center>
<h1 align=center>
FreeType Glyph Conventions
</h1>
<center>
<h2>
version 2.1</h2></center>
<center>
<h3>
Copyright 1998-2000 David Turner (<a href="mailto:david@freetype.org">david@freetype.org</a>)<br>
Copyright 2000 The FreeType Development Team (<a href="devel@freetype.org">devel@freetype.org</a>)</h3></center>
<center><table width=650><tr><td>
<center><table width="100%" border=0 cellpadding=5><tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC" valign=center>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-3.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-5.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr></table></center>
<table width="100%" cellpadding=5><tr bgcolor="#CCCCFF" valign=center><td>
<h2>
IV. Kerning
<h2 align=center>
Version&nbsp;2.1
</h2>
</td></tr></table>
<p>The term 'kerning' refers to specific information used to adjust
the relative positions of coincident glyphs in a string of text. This section
describes several types of kerning information, as well as the way to process
them when performing text layout.
</p>
<h3 align=center>
Copyright&nbsp;1998-2000 David Turner (<a
href="mailto:david@freetype.org">david@freetype.org</a>)<br>
Copyright&nbsp;2000 The FreeType Development Team (<a
href="mailto:devel@freetype.org">devel@freetype.org</a>)
</h3>
<h3><a name="section-1">
1. Kerning pairs
</h3><blockquote>
<p>Kerning consists in modifying the spacing between two successive
glyphs according to their outlines. For example, a "T" and a "y" can be
easily moved closer, as the top of the "y" fits nicely under the "T"'s
upper right bar.
</p>
<p>When laying out text with only their standard widths, some consecutive
glyphs sometimes seem a bit too close or too distant. For example, the
space between the 'A' and the 'V' in the following word seems a little
wider than needed.
<center>
<p><img SRC="bravo_unkerned.png" height=37 width=116></center>
<table width="65%">
<tr><td>
<p>Compare this to the same word, when the distance between these two letters
has been slightly reduced :
<center>
<p><img SRC="bravo_kerned.png" height=37 width=107></center>
<center>
<table width="100%"
border=0
cellpadding=5>
<tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC"
valign=center>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-3.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
</td>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-4.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
<p>As you can see, this adjustment can make a great difference. Some font
faces thus include a table containing kerning distances for a set of given
glyph pairs, used during text layout. Note that :
<br>&nbsp;
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>
The pairs are ordered, i.e. the space for pair (A,V) isn't necessarily
the space for pair (V,A). They also index glyphs, and not characters.</li>
</ul>
<p><hr></p>
<ul>
<li>
Kerning distances can be expressed in horizontal or vertical directions,
depending on layout and/or script. For example, some horizontal layouts
like arabic can make use of vertical kerning adjustments between successive
glyphs. A vertical script can have vertical kerning distances.</li>
</ul>
<table width="100%">
<tr bgcolor="#CCCCFF"
valign=center><td>
<h2>
IV. Kerning
</h2>
</td></tr>
</table>
<ul>
<li>
Kerning distances are expressed in grid units. They are usually oriented
in the X axis, which means that a negative value indicates that two glyphs
must be set closer in a horizontal layout.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>The term <em>kerning</em> refers to specific information used to
adjust the relative positions of coincident glyphs in a string of text.
This section describes several types of kerning information, as well as
the way to process them when performing text layout.</p>
<h3><a name="section-2">
2. Applying kerning</h3>
<blockquote>Applying kerning when rendering text is a rather easy process.
It merely consists in adding the scaled kern distance to the pen position
before writing each next glyph. However, the typographically correct renderer
must take a few more details in consideration.
<p>The "sliding dot" problem is a good example : many font faces include
a kerning distance between capital letters like "T" or "F" and a following
dot ("."), in order to slide the latter glyph just right to their main
leg. I.e.
<center>
<p><img SRC="twlewis1.png" height=38 width=314></center>
<a name="section-1">
<h3>
1. Kerning pairs
</h3>
<p>However, this sometimes requires additional adjustments between the
dot and the letter following it, depending on the shapes of the enclosing
letters. When applying "standard" kerning adjustments, the previous sentence
would become :
<center>
<p><img SRC="twlewis2.png" height=36 width=115></center>
<p>Kerning consists in modifying the spacing between two successive
glyphs according to their outlines. For example, a "T" and a "y" can be
easily moved closer, as the top of the "y" fits nicely under the upper
right bar of the "T".</p>
<p>Which clearly is too contracted. The solution here, as exhibited in
the first example is to only slide the dots when possible. Of course, this
requires a certain knowledge of the text's meaning. The above adjustments
would not necessarily be welcomed if we were rendering the final dot of
a given paragraph.
<p>This is only one example, and there are many others showing that a real
typographer is needed to layout text properly. If not available, some kind
of user interaction or tagging of the text could be used to specify some
adjustments, but in all cases, this requires some support in applications
and text libraries.
<p>For more mundane and common uses, however, we can have a very simple
algorithm, which&nbsp; avoids the sliding dot problem, and others, though
not producing optimal results. It can be seen as :
<br>&nbsp;
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>
place the first glyph on the baseline</li>
<p>When laying out text with only their standard widths, some
consecutive glyphs seem a bit too close or too distant. For example,
the space between the "A" and the "V" in the following word seems a
little wider than needed.</p>
<li>
save the location of the pen position/origin in pen1</li>
<center><p>
<img src="bravo_unkerned.png"
height=37 width=116
alt="the word 'bravo' unkerned">
</p></center>
<li>
adjust the pen position with the kerning distance between the first and
second glyph</li>
<p>Compare this to the same word, where the distance between these two
letters has been slightly reduced:</p>
<li>
place the second glyph and compute the next pen position/origin in pen2.</li>
<center><p>
<img src="bravo_kerned.png"
height=37 width=107
alt="the word 'bravo' with kerning">
</p></center>
<li>
use pen1 as the next pen position if it is beyond pen2, use pen2 otherwise.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>As you can see, this adjustment can make a great difference. Some
font faces thus include a table containing kerning distances for a set
of given glyph pairs for text layout.</p>
<center><table width="100%" border=0 cellpadding=5><tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC" valign=center>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-3.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-5.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr></table></center>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The pairs are ordered, i.e., the space for pair (A,V) isn't
necessarily the space for pair (V,A). They also index glyphs, and
not characters.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Kerning distances can be expressed in horizontal or vertical
directions, depending on layout and/or script. For example, some
horizontal layouts like Arabic can make use of vertical kerning
adjustments between successive glyphs. A vertical script can have
vertical kerning distances.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Kerning distances are expressed in grid units. They are usually
oriented in the <i>X</i>&nbsp;axis, which means that a negative
value indicates that two glyphs must be set closer in a horizontal
layout.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</td></tr></table></center>
<a name="section-2">
<h3>
2. Applying kerning
</h3>
<p>Applying kerning when rendering text is a rather easy process. It
merely consists in adding the scaled kern distance to the pen position
before writing each next glyph. However, the typographically correct
renderer must take a few more details in consideration.</p>
<p>The "sliding dot" problem is a good example: Many font faces include
a kerning distance between capital letters like "T" or "F" and a
following dot ("."), in order to slide the latter glyph just right to
their main leg:</p>
<center><p>
<img src="twlewis1.png"
height=38 width=314
alt="example for sliding dots">
</p></center>
<p>This sometimes requires additional adjustments between the dot and
the letter following it, depending on the shapes of the enclosing
letters. When applying "standard" kerning adjustments, the previous
sentence would become:</p>
<center><p>
<img src="twlewis2.png"
height=36 width=115
alt="example for too much kerning">
</p></center>
<p>This is clearly too contracted. The solution here, as exhibited in
the first example, is to only slide the dots when possible. Of course,
this requires a certain knowledge of the text's meaning. The above
adjustments would not necessarily be welcome if we were rendering the
final dot of a given paragraph.</p.
<p>This is only one example, and there are many others showing that a
real typographer is needed to layout text properly. If not available,
some kind of user interaction or tagging of the text could be used to
specify some adjustments, but in all cases, this requires some support
in applications and text libraries.</p>
<p>For more mundane and common uses, however, we can have a very simple
algorithm, which avoids the sliding dot problem, and others, though not
producing optimal results. It can be seen as</p>
<ol>
<li>
Place the first glyph on the baseline.
</li>
<li>
Save the location of the pen position/origin in <tt>pen1</tt>.
</li>
<li>
Adjust the pen position with the kerning distance between the first
and second glyph.
</li>
<li>
Place the second glyph and compute the next pen position/origin in
<tt>pen2</tt>.
</li>
<li>
Use <tt>pen1</tt> as the next pen position if it is beyond
<tt>pen2</tt>, use <tt>pen2</tt> otherwise.
</li>
</ol>
<p><hr></p>
<center>
<table width="100%"
border=0
cellpadding=5>
<tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC"
valign=center>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-3.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
</td>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-5.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</td></tr>
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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="Author" content="blob">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.5 [fr] (Win98; I) [Netscape]">
<title>FreeType Glyph Conventions</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="Author"
content="David Turner">
<title>FreeType Glyph Conventions</title>
</head>
<body>
<body text="#000000"
bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
@ -14,262 +15,470 @@
vlink="#51188E"
alink="#FF0000">
<center><h1>
FreeType Glyph Conventions
</h1></center>
<h1 align=center>
FreeType Glyph Conventions
</h1>
<center><h2>
version 2.1
</h2></center>
<h2 align=center>
Version&nbsp;2.1
</h2>
<center><h3>
Copyright 1998-2000 David Turner (<a href="mailto:david@freetype.org">david@freetype.org</a>)<br>
Copyright 2000 The FreeType Development Team (<a href="devel@freetype.org">devel@freetype.org</a>)
</h3></center>
<h3 align=center>
Copyright&nbsp;1998-2000 David Turner (<a
href="mailto:david@freetype.org">david@freetype.org</a>)<br>
Copyright&nbsp;2000 The FreeType Development Team (<a
href="mailto:devel@freetype.org">devel@freetype.org</a>)
</h3>
<center><table width=650><tr><td>
<center>
<table width="65%">
<tr><td>
<center><table width="100%" border=0 cellpadding=5><tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC" valign=center>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-4.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
</td>
<td align=center width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-6.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr></table></center>
<center>
<table width="100%"
border=0
cellpadding=5>
<tr bgcolor="#CCFFCC"
valign=center>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-4.html">Previous</a>
</td>
<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="index.html">Contents</a>
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<td align=center
width="30%">
<a href="glyphs-6.html">Next</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
<table width="100%"><tr valign=center bgcolor="#CCCCFF"><td><h2>
V. Text processing
</h2></td></tr></table>
<p><hr></p>
<p>This section demonstrates how to use the concepts previously
defined to render text, whatever the layout you use.
</p>
<table width="100%">
<tr bgcolor="#CCCCFF"
valign=center><td>
<h2>
V. Text processing
</h2>
</td></tr>
</table>
<p>This section demonstrates how to use the concepts previously defined
to render text, whatever the layout you use.</p>
<h3><a name="section-1">
1. Writing simple text strings :
</h3><blockquote>
<a name="section-1">
<h3>
1. Writing simple text strings
</h3>
<p>In this first example, we'll generate a simple string of Roman
text, i.e. with a horizontal left-to-right layout. Using exclusively pixel
metrics, the process looks like :
<blockquote><tt>1) convert the character string into a series of glyph
indexes.</tt>
<br><tt>2) place the pen to the cursor position.</tt>
<br><tt>3) get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4) translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the pen position</tt>
<br><tt>5) render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>6) increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels</tt>
<br><tt>7) start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt>
<br><tt>8) when all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position</tt></blockquote>
Note that kerning isn't part of this algorithm.</blockquote>
<p>In this first example, we will generate a simple string of Roman
text, i.e. with a horizontal left-to-right layout. Using exclusively
pixel metrics, the process looks like:
<h3><a name="section-2">
2. Sub-pixel positioning :</h3>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the pen position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
<li>
When all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<blockquote>It is somewhat useful to use sub-pixel positioning when rendering
text. This is crucial, for example, to provide semi-WYSIWYG text layouts.
Text rendering is very similar to the algorithm described in sub-section
1, with the following few differences :
<ul>
<li>
The pen position is expressed in fractional pixels.</li>
<p>Note that kerning isn't part of this algorithm.</p>
<li>
Because translating a hinted outline by a non-integer distance will ruin
its grid-fitting, the position of the glyph origin must be rounded before
rendering the character image.</li>
<li>
The advance width is expressed in fractional pixels, and isn't necessarily
an integer.</li>
</ul>
<a name="section-2">
<h3>
2. Sub-pixel positioning
</h3>
<p><br>Which finally looks like :
<blockquote><tt>1. convert the character string into a series of glyph
indexes.</tt>
<br><tt>2. place the pen to the cursor position. This can be a non-integer
point.</tt>
<br><tt>3. get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4. translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the rounded
pen position.</tt>
<br><tt>5. render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>6. increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in fractional
pixels.</tt>
<br><tt>7. start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt>
<br><tt>8. when all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position</tt></blockquote>
Note that with fractional pixel positioning, the space between two given
letters isn't fixed, but determined by the accumulation of previous rounding
errors in glyph positioning.</blockquote>
<p>It is somewhat useful to use sub-pixel positioning when rendering
text. This is crucial, for example, to provide semi-WYSIWYG text
layouts. Text rendering is very similar to the algorithm described in
subsection&nbsp;1, with the following few differences:</p>
<h3><a name="section-3">
3.&nbsp; Simple kerning :</h3>
<ul>
<li>
The pen position is expressed in fractional pixels.
</li>
<li>
Because translating a hinted outline by a non-integer distance will
ruin its grid-fitting, the position of the glyph origin must be
rounded before rendering the character image.
</li>
<li>
The advance width is expressed in fractional pixels, and isn't
necessarily an integer.
</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>Adding kerning to the basic text rendering algorithm is easy
: when a kerning pair is found, simply add the scaled kerning distance
to the pen position before step 4. Of course, the distance should be rounded
in the case of algorithm 1, though it doesn't need to for algorithm 2.
This gives us :
<p>Algorithm 1 with kerning:
<blockquote><tt>3) get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4) Add the rounded scaled kerning distance, if any, to the pen
position</tt>
<br><tt>5) translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the pen position</tt>
<br><tt>6) render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>7) increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels</tt>
<br><tt>8) start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt></blockquote>
<p>Here an improved version of the algorithm:</p>
<p><br>Algorithm 2 with kerning:
<blockquote><tt>3) get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4) Add the scaled unrounded kerning distance, if any, to the pen
position.</tt>
<br><tt>5) translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the rounded
pen position.</tt>
<br><tt>6) render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>7) increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in fractional
pixels.</tt>
<br><tt>8) start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt></blockquote>
Of course, the algorithm described in section IV can also be applied to
prevent the sliding dot problem if one wants to..</blockquote>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position. This can be a non-integer
point.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its "origin" matches the rounded pen
position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in
fractional pixels.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp;3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
<li>
When all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<h3><a name="section-4">
4. Right-To-Left Layout :</h3>
<p>Note that with fractional pixel positioning, the space between two
given letters isn't fixed, but determined by the accumulation of
previous rounding errors in glyph positioning.</p>
<blockquote>The process of laying out arabic or hebrew text is extremely
similar. The only difference is that the pen position must be decremented
before the glyph rendering (remember : the advance width is always positive,
even for arabic glyphs). Thus, algorithm 1 becomes :
<p>Right-to-left Algorithm 1:
<blockquote><tt>3) get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4) Decrement the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels</tt>
<br><tt>5) translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the pen position</tt>
<br><tt>6) render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>7) start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt></blockquote>
<p><br>The changes to Algorithm 2, as well as the inclusion of kerning
are left as an exercise to the reader.
<br>&nbsp;
<br>&nbsp;</blockquote>
<a name="section-3">
<h3>
3. Simple kerning
</h3>
<h3><a name="section-5">
5. Vertical layouts :</h3>
<p>Adding kerning to the basic text rendering algorithm is easy: When a
kerning pair is found, simply add the scaled kerning distance to the pen
position before step&nbsp;4. Of course, the distance should be rounded
in the case of algorithm&nbsp;1, though it doesn't need to for
algorithm&nbsp;2. This gives us:</p>
<blockquote>Laying out vertical text uses exactly the same processes, with
the following significant differences :
<br>&nbsp;
<blockquote>
<li>
The baseline is vertical, and the vertical metrics must be used instead
of the horizontal one.</li>
<p>Algorithm&nbsp;1 with kerning:</p>
<li>
The left bearing is usually negative, but this doesn't change the fact
that the glyph origin must be located on the baseline.</li>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Add the rounded scaled kerning distance, if any, to the pen
position.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its "origin" matches the pen position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp;3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<li>
The advance height is always positive, so the pen position must be decremented
if one wants to write top to bottom (assuming the Y axis is oriented upwards).</li>
</blockquote>
Through the following algorithm :
<blockquote><tt>1) convert the character string into a series of glyph
indexes.</tt>
<br><tt>2) place the pen to the cursor position.</tt>
<br><tt>3) get or load the glyph image.</tt>
<br><tt>4) translate the glyph so that its 'origin' matches the pen position</tt>
<br><tt>5) render the glyph to the target device</tt>
<br><tt>6) decrement the vertical pen position by the glyph's advance height
in pixels</tt>
<br><tt>7) start over at step 3 for each of the remaining glyphs</tt>
<br><tt>8) when all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position</tt></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Algorithm&nbsp;2 with kerning:</p>
<h3><a name="section-6">
6. WYSIWYG text layouts :</h3>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Add the scaled unrounded kerning distance, if any, to the pen
position.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its "origin" matches the rounded pen
position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Increment the pen position by the glyph's advance width in
fractional pixels.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp;3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<blockquote>As you probably know, the acronym WYSIWYG stands for '<i>What
You See Is What You Get</i>'. Basically, this means that the output of
a document on the screen should match "perfectly" its printed version.
A <b><i>true</i></b> wysiwyg system requires two things :
<p><b>device-independent text layout</b>
<blockquote>Which means that the document's formatting is the same on the
screen than on any printed output, including line breaks, justification,
ligatures, fonts, position of inline images, etc..</blockquote>
Of course, the algorithm described in section&nbsp;IV can also be
applied to prevent the sliding dot problem if one wants to.
<p><br><b>matching display and print character sizes</b>
<blockquote>Which means that the displayed size of a given character should
match its dimensions when printed. For example, a text string which is
exactly 1 inch tall when printed should also appear 1 inch tall on the
screen (when using a scale of 100%).</blockquote>
<p><br>It is clear that matching sizes cannot be possible if the computer
has no knowledge of the physical resolutions of the display device(s) it
is using. And of course, this is the most common case ! That's not too
unfortunate, however&nbsp; because most users really don't care about this
feature. Legibility is much more important.
<p>When the Mac appeared, Apple decided to choose a resolution of 72 dpi
to describe the Macintosh screen to the font sub-system (whatever the monitor
used). This choice was most probably driven by the fact that, at this resolution,
1 point = 1 pixel. However; it neglected one crucial fact : as most users
tend to choose a document character size between 10 and 14 points, the
resultant displayed text was rather small and not too legible without scaling.
Microsoft engineers took notice of this problem and chose a resolution
of 96 dpi on Windows, which resulted in slightly larger, and more legible,
displayed characters (for the same printed text size).
<p>These distinct resolutions explain some differences when displaying
text at the same character size on a Mac and a Windows machine. Moreover,
it is not unusual to find some TrueType fonts with enhanced hinting (tech
note: through delta-hinting) for the sizes of 10, 12, 14 and 16 points
at 96 dpi.
<br>&nbsp;
<p>As for device-independent text, it is a notion that is, unfortunately,
often abused. For example, many word processors, including MS Word, do
not really use device-independent glyph positioning algorithms when laying
out text. Rather, they use the target printer's resolution to compute <i>hinted</i>
glyph metrics for the layout. Though it guarantees that the printed version
is always the "nicest" it can be, especially for very low resolution printers
(like dot-matrix), it has a very sad effect : changing the printer can
have dramatic effects on the <i>whole</i> document layout, especially if
it makes strong use of justification, uses few page breaks, etc..
<p>Because the glyph metrics vary slightly when the resolution changes
(due to hinting), line breaks can change enormously, when these differences
accumulate over long runs of text. Try for example printing a very long
document (with no page breaks) on a 300 dpi ink-jet printer, then the same
one on a 3000 dpi laser printer : you'll be extremely lucky if your final
page count didn't change between the prints ! Of course, we can still call
this WYSIWYG, as long as the printer resolution is fixed !!
<p>Some applications, like Adobe Acrobat, which targeted device-independent
placement from the start, do not suffer from this problem. There are two
ways to achieve this : either use the scaled and unhinted glyph metrics
when laying out text both in the rendering and printing processes, or simply
use wathever metrics you want and store them with the text in order to
get sure they're printed the same on all devices (the latter being probably
the best solution, as it also enables font substitution without breaking
text layouts).
<p>Just like matching sizes, device-independent placement isn't necessarily
a feature that most users want. However, it is pretty clear that for any
kind of professional document processing work, it <b><i>is</i></b> a requirement.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<a name="section-4">
<h3>
4. Right-to-left layout
</h3>
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<p>The process of laying out Arabic or Hebrew text is extremely similar.
The only difference is that the pen position must be decremented before
the glyph rendering (remember: the advance width is always positive,
even for Arabic glyphs).</p>
</td></tr></table></center>
<p>Right-to-left algorithm&nbsp;1:</p>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Decrement the pen position by the glyph's advance width in pixels.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its "origin" matches the pen position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp;3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<p>The changes to algorithm&nbsp;2, as well as the inclusion of kerning
are left as an exercise to the reader.</p>
<a name="section-5">
<h3>
5. Vertical layouts
</h3>
<p>Laying out vertical text uses exactly the same processes, with the
following significant differences:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The baseline is vertical, and the vertical metrics must be used
instead of the horizontal one.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The left bearing is usually negative, but this doesn't change the
fact that the glyph origin must be located on the baseline.</p>
</li>
<li>
The advance height is always positive, so the pen position must be
decremented if one wants to write top to bottom (assuming the
<i>Y</i>&nbsp;axis is oriented upwards).
</li>
</ul>
<p>Here the algorithm:</p>
<tt>
<ol>
<li>
Convert the character string into a series of glyph
indices.
</li>
<li>
Place the pen to the cursor position.
</li>
<li>
Get or load the glyph image.
</li>
<li>
Translate the glyph so that its "origin" matches the pen position.
</li>
<li>
Render the glyph to the target device.
</li>
<li>
Decrement the vertical pen position by the glyph's advance height
in pixels.
</li>
<li>
Start over at step&nbsp;3 for each of the remaining glyphs.
</li>
<li>
When all glyphs are done, set the text cursor to the new pen
position.
</li>
</ol>
</tt>
<a name="section-6">
<h3>
6. WYSIWYG text layouts
</h3>
<p>As you probably know, the acronym WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is
What You Get". Basically, this means that the output of a document on
the screen should match "perfectly" its printed version. A
<em>true</em> WYSIWYG system requires two things:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>device-independent text layout</em></p>
<p>This means that the document's formatting is the same on the
screen than on any printed output, including line breaks,
justification, ligatures, fonts, position of inline images, etc.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>matching display and print character sizes</em></p>
<p>The displayed size of a given character should match its
dimensions when printed. For example, a text string which is
exactly 1&nbsp;inch tall when printed should also appear 1&nbsp;inch
tall on the screen (when using a scale of 100%).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>It is clear that matching sizes cannot be possible if the computer
has no knowledge of the physical resolutions of the display device(s) it
is using. And of course, this is the most common case! That is not too
unfortunate, however, because most users really don't care about this
feature. Legibility is much more important.</p>
<p>When the Mac appeared, Apple decided to choose a resolution of
72&nbsp;dpi to describe the Macintosh screen to the font sub-system
(whatever the monitor used). This choice was most probably driven by
the fact that, at this resolution, 1&nbsp;point equals exactly
1&nbsp;pixel. However, it neglected one crucial fact: As most users
tend to choose a document character size between 10 and 14&nbsp;points,
the resultant displayed text was rather small and not too legible
without scaling. Microsoft engineers took notice of this problem and
chose a resolution of 96&nbsp;dpi on Windows, which resulted in slightly
larger, and more legible, displayed characters (for the same printed
text size).</p>
<p>These distinct resolutions explain some differences when displaying
text at the same character size on a Mac and a Windows machine.
Moreover, it is not unusual to find some TrueType fonts with enhanced
hinting (technical note: through delta-hinting) for the sizes of 10, 12,
14 and 16&nbsp;points at 96&nbsp;dpi.</p>
<p>The term <em>device-independent text</em> is, unfortunately, often
abused. For example, many word processors, including MS&nbsp;Word, do
not really use device-independent glyph positioning algorithms when
laying out text. Rather, they use the target printer's resolution to
compute <em>hinted</em> glyph metrics for the layout. Though it
guarantees that the printed version is always the "nicest" it can be,
especially for very low resolution printers (like dot-matrix), it has a
very sad effect: Changing the printer can have dramatic effects on the
<em>whole</em> document layout, especially if it makes strong use of
justification, uses few page breaks, etc.</p>
<p>Because glyph metrics vary slightly when the resolution changes (due
to hinting), line breaks can change enormously, when these differences
accumulate over long runs of text. Try for example printing a very long
document (with no page breaks) on a 300&nbsp;dpi ink-jet printer, then
the same one on a 3000&nbsp;dpi laser printer: You will be extremely
lucky if your final page count didn't change between the prints! Of
course, we can still call this WYSIWYG, as long as the printer
resolution is fixed.</p>
<p>Some applications, like Adobe Acrobat, which targeted
device-independent placement from the start, do not suffer from this
problem. There are two ways to achieve this: either use the scaled and
unhinted glyph metrics when laying out text both in the rendering and
printing processes, or simply use whatever metrics you want and store
them with the text in order to get sure they are printed the same on all
devices (the latter being probably the best solution, as it also enables
font substitution without breaking text layouts).</p>
<p>Just like matching sizes, device-independent placement isn't
necessarily a feature that most users want. However, it is pretty clear
that for any kind of professional document processing work, it
<em>is</em> a requirement.</p>
<p><hr></p>
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