Clarification on Hinting

Glyphs
1

A couple question about hinting in Glyphs:

  1. When exporting a woff(2), does autohinting apply when selecting OpenType/CFF? Because it looks like it is only for TrueType. If it is only for TrueType, are they automatic TrueType hints made with ttfautohint? … or is it automatic Type 1 hints?..

  2. What is manual hinting actually doing, is it PS Type 1 hints? Hinting looks like it’s changed since “TrueType Instructor” was introduced in G2.

2

About 2:

The TT instructor gives you TrueType instructions, make sure you update to the latest beta, because there were some significant changes in the latest builds.

The hints you add with the normal Select tool (V), are PS hints.

3

I see, thanks. So what about here when you mentioned:

The person was trying to add PS hints, these are overrated? Would that comment still apply to TT hints? I understand that manual TT hints are not really good value for the time it takes and the amount of improvement over using ttfautohint these days?
4

Also how should I handle the fact that my ascenders get slightly shorter as the MM typeface gets bolder… should I change the ascender height in the font info? If I do that then won’t that mess up line-heights/leading in some programs due to having differing heights?

5

For PS hints, Autohinting works very well:

Hinting Comparison

I always autohint (2nd line), then check in InD if there is one glyph that needs special attention, and add my manual hints there (3rd line). But I wonder if you can spot the differences between the second and third line.

Ultimately, it depends on the font and the platform(s) it is supposed to work on.

6
I recommend setting the ascender and descender to the real values of the font. And if that don't fit with the line spacing, add custom parameters.
7
A 20 second look at both I couldn't see a difference. Will do, I believe you're referring to this link?

Still wondering:

Clarification: I mean in the export window it looks like the auothinting check mark applies only to TrueType as it is under it and indented.

Edit: Ok I just checked each export file size and they are different. I’m still curious about what autohinting software is being used?

8
For CFF based OpenType it uses the Adobe autohinter and for TTF it uses ttfAutohint.
9
If you are fine with the results of ttfAutohint (and the chances are good) you are fine. But if not you need to start from scratch and do everything manually because it gives you more control.
10

I see, if anyone is interested for reference here are screenshots of a font autohinted (CFF woff with Autohinting on Windows 7, Firefox 35), in this first screenshot notice the jaggedness of the x-height, the next one I just reduced the number of stems after re-reading the tutorial – I averaged a few out since I had 5 for each v and h.

Also Is there anything I can read about what causes the following difference between PostScript and TrueType (Chrome 39 screenshots) hinting i.e. Why is it that at 14px and 16px that there are differences in the cap-height and ascender.

In the example in the previous paragraph for Chrome I find the TrueType version better. But in Firefox (where I understand DirectWrite is disabled), I prefer the way the PS rendering looks (TrueType autohinted version). However when I look at an autohinted CFF version, at even px sizes (especially 18px and 20px), all the glyphs seemed to have been stretched compared to the unhinted version. How can I fix this?

Just a couple of things that I don't like in the TT version , like the horizontal stem position, diagonal strokes, and heavy connections like Q, G. Is it better off to try different options with the ttfa program?
11

Also, If I’m doing manual PS hints via the cursor tool, how does that translate to if I export a TTF font?

Excited to see how the TrueType tool works!

12
In the latest revisions, it shouldn't at all.