How to tell if a .woff font has hinting?

Question

I have a .woff font that is rendering very poorly on Windows platforms. I suspect this may be due to a lack of hinting information but I need to make sure.

Can you recommend a tool that can inspect the font file and tell me if hinting metrics exist within it?

Hardy

Where does PostScript come into this ? – Conquer

It doesn't that I'm aware of. I added the tag because I figured if you’re familiar with Postscript you may also know some good font tools – Hardy

ttfdump for TrueType fonts, t1disasm and cffdisasm for type 1 and CFF fonts. The Microsoft Font Validator tool for TrueType fonts. Note that TrueType fonts don't have hinting in the way you might think of from PostScript fonts. A whole slew of other tools from Microsoft microsoft.com/typography/DevToolsOverview.mspx – Conquer

Thanks! Do you know anything for woff? – Hardy

No, but I was under the impression those were compressed TT/OT fonts,so if you decompress it you should be able to use an appropriate tool on it. – Conquer

"I was under the impression those were compressed TT/OT fonts" I’ve read that also, all of the tools I’ve found that offer to convert woff to another format make no mention of a way to "unzip" or "decompress" the woff file to see what format it was before compression. – Hardy

My concern is by just converting woff to TT the converter might introduce hinting that wasn't there before. – Hardy

As I said,as far as I'm aware a WOFF font is a compressed TT/OT font. So decompressing it is not 'converting' it to TT, its just decompressing what is already there. The compression used isn't zip or anything though, so you'll need to read the spec and find out what compression is used (there are at least 2, one for 1.0 and a different one for 2.0). You may need to write a decompresser too, though I'd expect one is around 'somewhere'. – Conquer

See this post #9018422 – Conquer

Answer 1

TTX/Fonttools can decompress and dump OpenType fonts. Check the TTGlyph entries in glyf table. If these contain an instructions element: this contains the hinting info. If it's not there, the glyphs don't have hinting.

Regine

Thanks! This tool worked and your instructions on where to look for the hinting was super useful. Additionally I found scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/… to confirm that the hinting information is stored where you said it is. – Hardy