Font Hint Information

"Hints" are information included in a font program to aid the rasterizer in scaling character outlines to various sizes.

The hint mechanism for Type 1 fonts consists of mostly declaritive statements that specify the location of key features of a character. The intelligence of what to do with the features is built into the rasterizer (Adobe Type Manager software). This approach makes font development much easier; allows much greater uniformity across a wide range of output devices; and results in more compact font files.

Most font creation products allow the user to edit the hints in a Type 1 font program. Knowledge of the basic rules of Type 1 hinting will allow the font developer the chance to edit the hints that are generated automatically in a font editor.

The Type 1 font format book describes the basic mechanism for Type 1 font hints:
The Adobe Type 1 Font Format book (PDF: 445 KB).

Font Level hints are described in chapter 5, and character level hints are described in chapter 6. In addition, chapter 4, Technical Design Considerations, explain some basics of point placement that are necessary for the hints to be effective.

Additional information on Counter Control hints (mainly for complex characters such as those in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language fonts) can be found in Adobe Technical Note #5015, Type 1 Font Format Supplement (PDF: 187 KB).

Information on hinting for CJK fonts is discussed in the Q & A section of CID-Keyed Fonts.