Abstract: A method of displaying characters on a pixel oriented grayscale display device having a predetermined pixel resolution employing parametric, geometric glyph descriptors is disclosed. The process supports a client process that passes a request for a particular font and a physical character height for the displayed characters as well as the physical resolution expressed in pixels for unit length. A character space height value in pixels is determined and compared to selected values to determine whether the character space height in physical pixels falls into one of three distinct ranges. If within the smallest range, no hinting or grid fitting is performed and the physical pixel coordinates of a scaled glyph descriptor are scan converted using subpixel coordinates. The on subpixels within each pixel are counted to provide a grayscale value for illuminating that particular pixel.

Abstract: A method of hinting a font to provide improved stem width and intercharacter spacing control in automatic typography systems. The method is adapted to make the transition smoothly and gradually from the smallest font sizes to the largest font sizes. The stem widths and sidebearings of the font are measured and then clustered within a predetermined cluster tolerance parameter. Next, the clustered measurements are partitioned into a plurality of contiguous blocks and then hinted to one of a plurality of integer number of pixels. The number of blocks in the partition will vary depending on the given scaling factor, which is a function of the font size and the resolution of the output device on which the font is to be rendered.