otfautohint: Use case of --reference-font?

Open madig opened this issue 7 years ago • 3 comments

I'm a bit mystified by this. Family information is already present in the PS private dictionary and the references to the reference stop at https://github.com/adobe-type-tools/psautohint/blob/8d3738b986a31e7fa17dc26f2e1db80895eab74a/python/psautohint/autohint.py#L585... What's it good for?

Oct 18 '18 23:10 madig

It is for compatible hinting (AKA MM hinting), the reference font is hinted first and its hints are then copied (and adopted) to all other masters (they must be compatible of course, and the code will error if it thinks they are not).

Oct 18 '18 23:10 khaledhosny

Ah! The MM thing was the missing part in my head. Maybe I can think up something to add to the docs about this.

Oct 19 '18 09:10 madig

The instructions for otfautohint make this a bit more clear but I'll leave it open.

Aug 14 '23 21:08 skef