Quality & Legibility

The quality of fonts on screen depends on many factors: font format, quality of font engineering, application, and Operating System. With the addition of extra instructions, the quality of fonts on screen can be greatly improved.

Why hinting?

If a font is used extensively at text sizes within office applications its usability is compromised if it's not hinted. Characters may break up and display unevenly leading the user to believe that it may be corrupted, or your users may complain that it is difficult to read or even completely illegible. Hinting alleviates this problem by ensuring that pixels are carefully placed to deliver good legibility and usability. Hinting will not affect the quality of print output on all but the lowest resolution of printers.

Depending on the font format being used, the hinting is more or less elaborate, but we always recommend the use of TrueType (TT) or TrueType-based OpenType (OT) fonts because of the full control over pixel placement given to the font engineer.

Where does hinting apply?

The most reliable appearance of hinting is experienced on Windows systems in office applications. Some design programs also respect the settings by the font engineer but, unfortunately, many professional design programs simply ignore hinting and screen display settings altogether, aiming to deliver a good approximation of print design at the cost of screen clarity.

Discussing your needs

Our team of engineers is experienced in providing high quality screen display and can help you identify where hinting is of most benefit to you. If you want to discuss your requirements in more detail please contact us.