True Type Fonts look terrible on screen!

[aaronkneile]

I am trying to convert an open type font to true type, but have noticed, that when the true type font is viewed on screen in PowerPoint or Illustrator that it looks HORRIBLE, particularly when using a smaller font size.

Here is what I’ve tried so far:

1.   Tried turning auto-hinting off
2.   Tried turning auto-hinting on
3.   Tried changing the common stems and alignment zones to auto
4.   Tried generating PC only, or cross platform
5.   Checked to make sure that all the points (cap height, etc) are consistent on letters.

What I’m finding is that the open type source font looks great on screen, but the converted true type does not. The cap height is consistent in Fontographer, but the True Type Font, when generated, seems to vary slightly on screen- especially when using a smaller font size. Some letters look fatter than others, and some appear to be taller or shorter, or positioned higher or lower. The tops of lowercase u and v, for example seem to not be lined up, even though I know they are. Lowercase h seems lower than lowercase i, even though the baseline doesn’t shift. The problem is mostly on the light weight fonts; heavy ones look ok. And zoomed in, everything looks cool. But at regular zoom, smaller fonts look terrible.

Anyone know what area I should be focusing my research? How do you make True Type look good on screen?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[aaronkneile]

OK, one change to my previous post. The bold fonts look bad too. The smaller fonts on screen just do not look good.

[Daniel Reeve]

I think you'll find that the answer is to Convert all Curves to TrueType and Contour Direction to TrueType.  Both commands are available in the Tools/Actions dialog - be sure to check "Apply to Entire Font" option.

As your font stands now, some contour directions are TT and some are PS (depending on how they were imported, modified, etc, you've ended up with a mixture), and on some platforms this makes a difference to how the glyphs render.  I always run both of those actions before generating a font, every time, to make sure everything is uniform.  Try it!  :-)

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