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Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

fontcombiner.com

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Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#21
post #9

On my Mac+Google Chrome the difference is barely noticeable.

Not on my rMBP. The "enhanced" versions are noticeably better spaced and easier on the eyes.

wow. on my macbook air, it's the opposite - the "enhanced" versions have letter smushed together and is overall a little harder to read.

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#22

From the explanation beneath "How is this possible": > The Font Combiner application uses a couple of different techniques to overhaul fonts. All glyph forms are extracted from vectors present in the original fonts and scaled to size where appropriate, the vertical metrics are recalculated from scratch, and spacing and fresh automated hinting are applied to the result. Now, I don't know a lot about the gory details o…

I can't imagine that it would do better than carefully designed and hinted font. But I doubt such care is given to all fonts.

This is really the problem. Many fonts are poorly hinted and not designed with small sizes on a screen in mind.

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine that it would do better than carefully designed and hinted font. But I doubt such care is given to all fonts.

This is really the problem. Many fonts are poorly hinted and not designed with small sizes on a screen in mind.

That I will agree with. I highly doubt that Font Combiner could beat a font manually hinted by a trained fontographer though.

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#25
post #5

Some rendering screenshots would help. I'm viewing this on my iPad and the only difference I see is bad kerning in the examples on the right.

I agree. For me (OS X, Chrome, rMBP @ 1920x1200) the kerning is much worse for Font Combiner. The letter "l" in Varela Round, for example, has far too little space after it.

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#26
Definitely worse for me under FF25/linux with the autohinter. Kerning also seems to be worse in certain common cases ("ow").

Fortunately, I enforce my own fonts on web pages, as I cannot stand the incredibly poor quality of most "web fonts". Proper hinting makes a world of difference for reading on a screen. If you really care for typography on your website, you should pay for a decent font, or use a common system font.

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#27
Can't see a difference, other than a slight change in spacing between letters. Maybe the site should explain what I'm supposed to be looking for since it's not obvious? As it stands, there's no explanation about what changes, and there's no real visible difference. Why would I use this?

Re: Font Combiner – improvements to free web fonts

#29

From the explanation beneath "How is this possible": > The Font Combiner application uses a couple of different techniques to overhaul fonts. All glyph forms are extracted from vectors present in the original fonts and scaled to size where appropriate, the vertical metrics are recalculated from scratch, and spacing and fresh automated hinting are applied to the result. Now, I don't know a lot about the gory details o…

> I do know that type designers spend a lot of time thinking about things like "appropriate size and scale" and other metrics. Can these really be automatically recalculated from scratch and how can this possibly lead to a better result?

Do most people really see any difference?

(http://youtu.be/cISYzA36-ZY?t=1m25s)

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