Smoothing in FontCreator 6.0

[kenproulx]

I just purchase fontcrator version 6.0. i took a font that had passed ms font validator test previously under fontcreator 5.6 and decided to use the new SMOOTHING command for CLEARTYPE available in fontcreator 6.0.

my settings under SMOOTHING > PREFERRED RASTERIZATION TECHNIQUES > STANDARD are: 8 gray, 17, grid, 65535 grid & gray.

1. What should my CLEARTYPE settings be?

2. also, when i check any boxes under the CLEARTYPE dialog, ms font validator returns an error code. why?

[Erwin Denissen]

1. What should my CLEARTYPE settings be?

There is not enough information availabe about the ClearType flags, so I suggest you either leave them empty, or set them more or less equal to the Standard values.

2. also, when i check any boxes under the CLEARTYPE dialog, ms font validator returns an error code. why?

Because Microsoft FontValidator is outdated. It can only be used for testing TrueType and OpenType fonts against version 1.4 of the OpenType Font Specification. The current version of the specs is 1.6. See also: Contents and Layout: Version 4 produces errors.

[Erwin Denissen]

I'm glad to see, the new features are being used already. Actually I think your font is one of the first with this new setting, so congrats!

[kenproulx]

what are the standard values for cleartype?

1. What should my CLEARTYPE settings be?

There is not enough information availabe about the ClearType flags, so I suggest you either leave them empty, or set them more or less equal to the Standard values.

2. also, when i check any boxes under the CLEARTYPE dialog, ms font validator returns an error code. why?

Because Microsoft FontValidator is outdated. It can only be used for testing TrueType and OpenType fonts against version 1.4 of the OpenType Font Specification. The current version of the specs is 1.6. See also: Contents and Layout: Version 4 produces errors.

[Erwin Denissen]

what are the standard values for cleartype?

Set them equal to the values you define for Standard smoothing. E.g. Standard Gridfitting and ClearType Gridfitting, or Standard Grayscale rendering and ClearType Smoothing.

At very small sizes, the best appearance on grayscale devices can usually be achieved by rendering the glyphs in grayscale without gridfitting. At intermediate sizes, gridfitting (also known as hinting) and monochrome rendering will usually produce the best appearance. At large sizes, the combination of gridfitting and grayscale rendering will typically produce the best appearance.