Hello Serando,
> Attached are some examples. [...] I can confirm both the problem with letter 'z' at 15ppem, and the issue with letter 'a' at 16ppem. > How can I get the same hinting for Tahoma "a" and "z" like it is in > windows? Right now, you can't. Please file a bug report at https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=freetype so that the rendering difference is not forgotten. Note that it isn't always possible to get exactly the same rendering as with Windows: The TrueType specification is often too vague, and we have to find out the the hard way using trial and error how Windows is doing things. Werner