>> This is B/W monochrome rendering with full hinting. As can be >> seen, the result is just fine. I'm quite confident that the >> problem is *not* with FreeType. > > This is a regression from 22.10 to 23.04 and Ubuntu(-mono) has seen > some changes since 22.10, so let's compare the same font, because I > do suspect weird (libfreetype?) behaviour on Ubuntu 23.04 which I > can't explain. > > Attached is a screenshot of OpenSans-VariableFont_wdth,wght.ttf > using the same commandline.
Well, all variation fonts I'm aware of have *zero* TrueType hints for B/W rendering! In case you are using Ubuntu VF (I've seen the demo on https://design.ubuntu.com/font but didn't find the place where to download it), I'm very confident that the same is true for this font. In other words, if you want good B/W rendering of the Ubuntu font, don't use the VF incarnation of it. > Attached is a screenshot of OpenSans-VariableFont_wdth,wght.ttf > using the same commandline. It clearly shows bad hinting and I'm > convinced this looked better hinted on 22.04 [...] I think you misremember, for the reason mentioned above – just to be sure I've checked now that this variation font has no B/W hinting instructions. Its hinting was certainly equally bad with an older version of FreeType. You might try to enforce auto-hinting in B/W mode, which should improve things slightly. However, be warned that the results are *far* from good in many cases; we actually don't support auto-hinting in B/W mode. Werner
