VF generating with unexpected hinting tables?

Glyphs
1

A ttf variable font that I am generating with Glyphs 3.5 (3530) is being compiled with hinting tables: fpgm, prep, cvt, gasp, cvar.

I don’t have any hinting data/instructions in the source (that I know about?) and wasn’t expecting a hinted font. I thought ttfautohint couldn’t handle variable hinting. The roman-vf gets the tables; the separate italic-vf does not.

I only noticed because Fontspector is kicking up a FAIL lacks-smart-dropout : “The ‘prep’ table does not contain TrueType instructions enabling smart dropout control.” It outlines the missing instructions.

I wasn’t looking to have a hinted font. But I can’t figure out how to turn off any autohinting at generation. Adding customer parameter Autohint: false to the VF instance doesn’t do anything.

Any thoughts?

Could I have accidentally added some kind of hint instruction somewhere in my source that is triggering this? If so, how/where could I find this?

2

Did you import the file from some other format into Glyphs at some point?

But if there are binary tables from importing a font into Glyphs, those should be visible as Custom Parameters.

3

I don’t think so. I believe I started from scratch with this design (it’s been more than a year in development, so my memory of the start is hazy). I may have copied in some outlines from a previous UFO along the way, but I don’t think I imported it wholesale.

4

You most likely have added some hints on some point. Check with ttx what glyphs have instructions and inspect those glyphs with the TT-tool.

5

Thanks for confirming that suspicion and providing a “hint” on how to track this down. Sure enough, I found instructions on two related glyphs. I’ve removed all those hints in the source and the VF generates unhinted now. Thanks.

All I can think of is that perhaps at some point I accidentally hit the Cmd-Ctrl-Opt-Shift-I shortcut while trying to do something else, like show Info box or access Glyph Info window. :man_shrugging:

Thanks again. :slightly_smiling_face:

6

There are mekkablue scripts for removing ps/tt hints more comfortably. They report in the scripting window.

7

Oh, look at that. Huh, didn’t even think to look in the mekkablue scripts. Fortunately this was only two glyphs, and easy enough to find in ttx file by searching for “”.

But good tip for next time. Thanks.

8

Yes. You don’t even have to go hunting for which glyphs it was. It just removes what it finds and reports in the Scripting Window.

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