[Devel] Font *boldness* of Serif fonts at 11pt and 12pt

[Vadim Plessky]

Hello,

I am struggling already for some time with  *boldness* problem on some fonts
at 11pt and 12pt (on display), and would like to ask you for help. Here are
test files and pics illustrating problem:

Academy and Newton fonts (PFB, AFM, PFM)
http://kde2.newmail.ru/acadnewt-pfb.zip

PS file which should be viewed in GS View, after installing fonts above
http://kde2.newmail.ru/newt_acad_test.zip
- to install fonts (link above) in GS, I add following entries in Fontmap.GS
(/usr/local/share/ghostscript/7.00/lib/Fontmap.GS )
/AcademyCyr             (acad55v4.pfb)  ;
/Newton-Regular         (newt55v4.pfb)  ;

After installation, compare PS files above with screenshots from KWord.
(I hope you have KWord, right?.. )
Anyway, I prepared screenshots with  
 * AA enabled for all sizes, and 
 * AA enabled only >=14pt
Academy font in KWord 
http://kde2.newmail.ru/academy-ss.zip
Newton font in KWord
http://kde2.newmail.ru/newton-ss.zip

I attach testing files for KWord to this mail, they are pretty small.

My concern is with 11pt and 12pt Newton rendering and 12pt Academy rendering
in KWord. (AA provided by QT, I have QT 2.3.0, FT 2.0.3 and XF 4.1.0)
Screenshot NewtonCTT-Kword-AA_allsizes.png (from newton-ss.zip) shows
original NewtonCTT TrueType font, which was displaying pretty bad without AA
(>8pt and <14pt), but after I enabled AA in XftConfig for these sizes, it
displays ok. (TT bytecode interpreter *enabled*)
From other side, PS Type1 version of this font displays as *bold* both at
11pt and 12pt. And, in PS test file Newton displays as normal.

Academy is displayed ok ("medium/regular" weight) at 11pt, but again bold at
12pt. If you look at PS file displayed in GhostView, you will see that at
12pt it's displayed correctly as well.

I don't know exactly what causes such unpleasant effect. Arial and Pragmatica
(SanSerif fonts) are displayed correctly at 11pt and 12pt, plus Garamond has
no such problem as well.
NimbusRoman (from URW-fonts package) has the same problem - it is *bold* at
11pt and 12pt. Nimbus Sans (also from URW-fonts) is bold at 12pt. For Nimbus
fonts, we can say that they have bad hinting, but I have hinted Academy and
Newton manually, and PDF/PS output shows that hinting is ok.
(see reference to PS files, viewed through GS)

So, it looks like to me that problem begins when those fonts are rasterized 
(FT/Xft).
Either PS Type1 hints are misinterpreted, or it is artefact of using RENDER 
extension in XF.
Can you please look at all this stuff and advise how it can be corrected?

Many thanks in advance!
-- 

Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html
Do you have Arial font installed? Just test it!
http://kde2.newmail.ru/font_test_arial.html

Academy-many-sizes.kwd
Description: Academy - KWord

Newton-many-sizes.kwd
Description: Newton - KWord