1 Version 1.8.5 (2022-XXX-XX)
2 ---------------------------
4 * Bug fix: `ttfautohint`'s option `--reference` didn't work on Windows
8 Version 1.8.4 (2021-Aug-14)
9 ---------------------------
11 * Support for Hanifi Rohingya, Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong, Medefaidrin, and
14 * Bug fix: Option combination `-f none -S` to suppress hinting of
15 unassigned glyphs was broken.
17 * Parallel builds of the package are now fully supported.
19 * The `configure` option `--with-freetype-config` has been removed;
20 similarly to HarfBuzz, the `pkg-config` interface is now used
21 exclusively for finding FreeType.
24 Version 1.8.3 (2019-Apr-09)
25 ---------------------------
27 * Support for Mongolian. The de-facto standard is to render the glyphs
28 horizontally (left-to-right) line by line, then rotating each line
29 clockwise by 90\ degrees. This allows the usage of ttfautohint.
31 * Bug fix: Glyphs with complicated shapes or a large number of outlines
32 could be distorted if displayed with FreeType (or stay unhinted if
36 Version 1.8.2 (2018-Jul-24)
37 ---------------------------
39 * Support for Georgian Mtavruli.
41 * Bug fix: Compilation of ttfautohintGUI with homebrew on the Mac works
44 * Bug fix: Point deltas didn't work for composite glyphs.
47 Version 1.8.1 (2018-Jan-01)
48 ---------------------------
50 * Bug fix: The `configure` script couldn't recognize Qt 5.10.x.
53 Version 1.8 (2017-Dec-31)
54 -------------------------
56 * A third, 'natural' stem width mode has been added: No adjustments to
57 stem widths, discrete blue zone positioning. This is what FreeType uses
58 for its 'light' (auto-)hinting mode.
60 * A new option `-a` has been implemented to select the stem width mode for
61 the three rendering targets (grayscale, GDI ClearType, DW ClearType).
62 This supersedes option `-g`, which is now deprecated.
64 * Stem widths for the hinting process can now be manually set using the
65 new `width` keyword in a control instructions file. This is especially
66 useful for extra-bold fonts, where the algorithmically derived values
67 are often too large, causing the filling of 'eyes' in 'e' or 'a' glyphs
70 * libttfautohint gets now installed as a DLL or static library (or both,
71 depending on the parameters of the `configure` script), together with
74 * Two functions `TTF_autohint_version` and `TTF_autohint_version_string`
75 have been added to the library, which do the obvious.
77 * Two options to `TTF_autohint` have been added: `alloc-func` and
78 `free-func`. These are necessary on some platforms if ttfautohint is
79 compiled as a shared library, and the application uses a different
80 runtime library. This can happen, for example, on the MS Windows
81 platform if your program is written in Python and communicates via the
82 'ctypes' interface with the ttfautohint DLL.
84 * `TTF_autohint` options
85 `{gray,gdi-cleartype,dw-cleartype}-strong-stem-width` are now superseded
86 by `{gray,gdi-cleartype,dw-cleartype}`-stem-width-mode` to handle the
87 new natural stem width mode also.
89 * Bug fix: Later control instructions now correctly overwrite earlier
90 entries as documented.
93 Version 1.7 (2017-Aug-26)
94 -------------------------
96 * Support for Adlam, Avestan, Bamum, Buhid, Unified Canadian Syllabics,
97 Carian, Chakma, Coptic, Cypriot, Deseret, Glagolitic, Gothic, Kayah Li,
98 Lisu, N'Ko, Ol Chiki, Old Turkic, Osage, Osmanya, Saurashtra, Shavian,
99 Sundanese, Tai Viet, Tifinagh, and Vai scripts.
101 Note that the used blue zone characters might not be optimal. Please
102 report any problems so that I can fix issues!
104 * Option `--fallback-stem-width` now works for non-symbol fonts also, as
107 * TrueType bytecode generated by ttfautohint now correctly supports most
108 recent MS interpreter versions.
110 * A bug with bytecode for composite glyphs with composite subglyphs is now
114 Version 1.6 (2016-Nov-27)
115 -------------------------
117 * A new option `--reference` (and `--reference-index` to select a font
118 within a TTC) makes ttfautohint use the blue zones from another font.
119 This helps synchronize the ascenders and descenders of font families.
121 * Support for Armenian, Cherokee, Ethiopic, Georgian, Gujarati, Gurmukhi,
122 Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, and Tamil scripts.
124 * New option `--ttfa-info` to display a font's `TTFA` table (if present).
126 * Glyphs covered by the fallback script are now hinted by default.
127 Previously, they were scaled only. The default fallback script `none`
128 now implies hinting without script-specific blue zones (but still
129 aligning stems to the grid if possible).
131 * The new option `--fallback-scaling` changes the behaviour of the
132 fallback script from hinting to scaling (as implemented in previous
135 * ttfautohint (but not ttfautohintGUI) now honours the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
136 environment variable for reproducible builds. This corresponds to the
137 new library option `epoch`.
139 * Bug fix: Allow dehinting of fonts that contain a `.ttfautohint` glyph.
142 Version 1.5 (2016-Jan-24)
143 -------------------------
145 * Support for Khmer, Myanmar, and Bengali scripts.
147 * Improved Devanagari hinting.
149 * ttfautohintGUI can now be compiled with Qt5.
151 * Bug fix: Too many delta control instructions for a single glyph caused a
152 bytecode stack overflow, making the MS rasterizer ignore all hinting
153 instructions for this glyph.
155 * Bug fix: Don't create multiple `TTFA` tables in font.
157 * Bug fix: Under certain circumstances, glyph indices used in Indic
158 features were incorrectly assigned to the default script.
161 Version 1.4.1 (2015-Oct-17)
162 ---------------------------
164 * A bug in handling control instruction files could cause severe glyph
165 shape distortions of accent-like glyphs. All users should update.
168 Version 1.4 (2015-Oct-04)
169 -------------------------
171 * Support for Thai and Lao scripts.
173 * Support for the Arabic script.
175 * Better support for scripts that contain superscript-like and
176 subscript-like glyphs, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
178 * Accents and other `non-base' glyphs are now hinted without snapping to
181 * A new control instruction syntax form was added to adjust the mapping
182 between glyphs and styles. Right now, its usage is quite limited; a
183 forthcoming version will give much more flexibility.
185 * The `touch` keyword in a control instructions file was buggy: If used
186 for a point\ `P` at a ppem value\ `s`, it sometimes led to unwanted
187 movements of\ `P` for ppem values unequal to\ `s`, thus causing outline
191 Version 1.3 (2015-Jan-06)
192 -------------------------
194 * Keywords in control instruction files can be more verbose to increase
195 readability. You can now use `left`, `right`, `nodir`, `point`,
196 `touch`, `xshift`, and `yshift` for `l`, `r`, `n`, `p`, `t, `x`, and
199 * A new control instruction keyword `touch` was added to apply delta
200 instructions before the final IUP bytecode commands, also `touching' the
201 affected points (to use the TrueType instructions terminology). Such
202 deltas *do* work even with ClearType if applied to the non-ClearType
205 * Support for the Telugu script.
207 * The amount of information about ttfautohint and its parameters that gets
208 added to the `name` table by default has been reduced. A new option
209 `--detailed-info` restores the previous behaviour.
211 * ttfautohintGUI crashed if not used with a control instruction file.
213 * ttfautohintGUI now correctly switches to a horizontal two-column layout
214 if the standard one-column layout would exceed the screen height.
216 * A new option `--family-suffix` makes it possible to append a suffix to a
217 font's family name in the `name` table. This can be useful during the
218 development process: It helps the operating system to simultaneously
219 display several instances of a font that are processed with different
220 ttfautohint parameters.
222 * The new library option `info-post-callback` helps in processing data
223 from the `name` table.
226 Version 1.2 (2014-Oct-06)
227 -------------------------
229 * It is now possible to control the hinting process at a very low level
230 using a 'control instructions' file. Right now, two modes are
233 - Adding segments and changing segment directions.
235 - Applying delta exceptions. Note that this doesn't really work in
238 Please see the documentation for a description and a small tutorial.
240 In the command-line front-end, use option `--control-file` to load such
243 * Support for input file watching in ttfautohintGUI: If the 'Watch Input
244 File' box is checked, the program automatically regenerates the output
245 file as soon as the input font or control instructions file gets
248 The idea is to dock ttfautohintGUI to your favourite font and text
249 editor instead of adding a cheap text editor to ttfautohintGUI itself.
251 * With the new option `--fallback-stem-width` it is now possible to set a
252 default stem width for all scripts that lack proper standard characters
255 * Add alias `--adjust-subglyphs` for option `--pre-hinting` to better
256 describe its functionality. The short form `-p` stays unchanged.
258 * New option `--ttfa-table` to add an SFNT table `TTFA` to the output
259 font, containing an ASCII dump of all used ttfautohint parameters
260 (including control instructions). Right now, this is mainly for
261 archiving purposes. Forthcoming versions of ttfautohint will be able to
262 re-use this data if a font gets re-processed.
264 * A harmless buglet was fixed that made the `glyf` table too large by one
265 byte under some circumstances.
267 * A bug fix taken from FreeType, correcting a crash for unusual outlines.
269 * Better handling of TTC files.
271 * New library options `error-callback` and `error-callback-data` for
272 improved diagnostics. [No change in the front-ends except better error
275 * Many other, minor fixes and improvements.
278 Version 1.1 (2014-May-05)
279 -------------------------
281 * Support for the Devanagari script.
283 * Bug fixes in the computation of strong stem widths. GDI hinting now
284 gives much more consistent results.
286 * Better recognition of script coverage: ttfautohint now properly scans
287 composite glyphs to cover components also.
289 * Improved glyph shape analysis: Non-flat local extrema are now recognized
290 more reliably, and stem detection works better.
293 Version 1.00 (2014-Mar-20)
294 --------------------------
296 * Much less memory consumption while handling fonts with complicated
299 * Option `-s` was partially broken.
302 Version 1.00rc1 (2014-Feb-07)
303 -----------------------------
305 * OpenType feature support. ttfautohint now uses the HarfBuzz library to
306 analyze data from the `GSUB` table. This allows the hinting of glyphs
307 that don't have an entry in a font's `cmap` table, for example
308 superscripts or small caps.
310 Related to this, the new option `--default-script` controls the default
311 (fallback) script used for OpenType features.
313 * More than a single standard character is used. For example, the 'latin'
314 script uses characters 'o', 'O', and digit '0'. This improves the
315 hinting of fonts (and features) that have only a partial coverage of a
316 script's character repertoire.
318 * Much better GDI ClearType hinting in the range 30-80ppem (approx.),
319 avoiding overly flat tops and bottoms of round glyphs.
321 * Better handling of non-square pixels (this is, horizontal and vertical
322 resolutions differ) in the created TrueType bytecode.
325 Version 0.97 (2013-Nov-09)
326 --------------------------
328 * Improved script support. Besides Cyrillic and Greek, which are now
329 handled separately from Latin, ttfautohint can handle Hebrew.
331 * Option `-f` now takes a parameter to specify the fallback script. The
332 corresponding long option name has been renamed from `--latin-fallback`
333 to `--fallback-script`.
335 * Work around a bug in display environments that use FreeType 2.5.0 and
336 earlier for rendering: Sometimes, the 'strong' stem width routine was
337 used for DW ClearType (this is, subpixel hinting in FreeType is enabled)
338 even if 'smooth' was selected while generating the font with
342 Version 0.96 (2013-Aug-06)
343 --------------------------
345 * Option `--components` has been replaced with `--composites`: By default,
346 the components of a composite glyph are now hinted separately, since
347 tests has shown that this gives good results in most cases. If this
348 option is set, however, the composite glyph itself gets hinted (and the
349 hints of the components are ignored).
351 An unfortunate side effect is that ttfautohint's option `-c` (which
352 stays as a shorthand for `--composites`) now does exactly the opposite
353 as in previous releases.
355 * Older versions of Monotype's 'iType' bytecode interpreter have a serious
356 bug: The DIV instruction rounds the result, while the correct operation
357 is truncation. This caused 'exploding characters' with fonts hinted by
358 ttfautohint. Since many printers contain this rasterizer without any
359 possibility to update to a non-buggy version, ttfautohint now contains
360 work-arounds to circumvent the problem.
362 * Better support for glyphs where some points have almost the same
363 position (for example glyph 'Oslash' in font 'Roboto-Thin').
365 * Better support for glyphs that use explicit 'on' points around round
369 Version 0.95 (2013-Mar-07)
370 --------------------------
372 * New option `--dehint` to strip off all hints without generating new
373 hints. This option is intended for testing purposes.
375 * Minor fixes to the created bytecode for compatibility.
377 * Minor GUI improvements.
380 Version 0.94 (2012-Nov-29)
381 --------------------------
383 * New option `--windows-compatibility` that adds two artificial blue zones
384 at vertical positions given by 'usWinAscent' and 'usWinDescent'. This
385 helps ttfautohint's hinting algorithm reduce the possibility of clipping
386 if those two values are very tight.
388 * Implement option `--x-height-snapping-exceptions`, making ttfautohint
389 avoid x-height snapping for selected PPEM values. Useful in combination
390 with `--windows-compatibility`.
392 * Minor fixes to the created bytecode for compatibility and robustness.
395 Version 0.93 (2012-Oct-09)
396 --------------------------
398 * New option `--components` to treat components of composite glyphs
399 separately. This greatly reduces the bytecode size.
401 I'm waiting for reports whether this option works for most fonts; in
402 case this is true I'm inverting the option, making it the default (and
403 the old behaviour optional).
405 * Full support of TTCs, this is, all subfonts get auto-hinted now.
407 * The upper limit of the `--increase-x-height` option has been removed.
409 * Drag-and-drop support in the GUI.
411 * The command-line version of ttfautohint now acts like a (Unix) filter,
412 this is, it accepts stdin and stdout as input and output, respectively.
414 * Less memory consumption.
417 Version 0.92 (2012-Aug-07)
418 --------------------------
420 * A serious bug in the created bytecode has been fixed, causing incorrect
424 Version 0.91 (2012-Jul-12)
425 --------------------------
427 * A new, 'strong' routine to handle stem widths and positions has been
428 added, to be selected with the `--strong-stem-width` command line
429 option. If it is active, stem widths and positions are snapped to the
430 grid as much as possible. This algorithm is useful for GDI ClearType
433 * A new command line option `--debug` (not available for ttfautohintGUI)
434 to print very detailed debugging information.
437 Version 0.9 (2012-Jun-06)
438 -------------------------
440 * The created bytecode has been reduced in size, making it approx. 20%
443 * New option `--symbol` to use standard stem height and width values
444 instead of using character 'o' (which may be missing). Use this option
445 for symbol fonts or math glyphs.
447 * More documentation (in text, HTML, and PDF format). It's still
450 * Option `--ignore-permissions` has been renamed to
451 `--ignore-restrictions`. The short form is still `-i`.
453 * Defaults for various parameters have been set to more sensible values:
455 - hinting-range-max: 50 (was 1000)
456 - hinting-limit: 200 (was 1000)
458 * Option `--increase-x-height` now has a mandatory argument (in the range
459 6-20 or value\ 0 to disable it, default value is 14).
462 Version 0.8 (2012-Mar-21)
463 -------------------------
465 * Implement option `-x` to increase the x height of the font for small
466 PPEM values by rounding up far more often then rounding down.
468 * Add option '`-G n`' to switch off hinting completely above value\ `n`.
470 * ttfautohint now appends version information and the used parameters to
471 the 'Version' field(s) in the 'name' table. This can be suppressed with
475 Version 0.7 (2012-Feb-05)
476 -------------------------
478 * A GUI has been added, using the Qt framework. The binary is called
482 Version 0.6.1 (2012-Jan-02)
483 ---------------------------
485 * The improved handling of composite glyphs in 0.6 was buggy under certain
486 circumstances, making ttfautohint crash and FontValidator complain.
488 * Dropout handling has been activated.
491 Version 0.6 (2011-Dec-25)
492 -------------------------
494 * Improved handling of composite glyphs.
496 * Implement option `-p` to pre-hint glyphs with original hints before
497 conversion takes place.
499 * Don't add a `DSIG` table if there is none in the input font.
501 * Human-readable error messages instead of hexadecimal error codes.
503 * Better tests (both at runtime and compile time) to reject too old
507 Version 0.5 (2011-Nov-06)
508 -------------------------
510 * Rendering on iOS is now expected to give good results.
512 * No bad rendering at very large PPEM values.
515 Version 0.4 (2011-Oct-27)
516 -------------------------
518 * The bytecode has been changed to 'create' twilight points. This should
519 avoid rendering artifacts on some platforms.
522 Version 0.3 (2011-Sep-09)
523 -------------------------
525 * Fix font generation; sometimes the `glyf` table was one byte too short,
526 making the font invalid.
529 Version 0.2 (2011-Jul-19)
530 -------------------------
532 * Fix bytecode bugs that prevented correct rendering on some platforms.
535 Version 0.1 (2011-Jun-30)
536 -------------------------