1 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.9 and 2.9.1
5 - Type 1 fonts containing flex features were not rendered
6 correctly (bug introduced in version 2.9).
8 - CVE-2018-6942: Older FreeType versions can crash with certain
9 malformed variation fonts.
11 http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2018-6942
16 - Bug fix: Multiple calls to `FT_Get_MM_Var' returned garbage.
18 - The base extensions `ftlcdfil' and `ftfntfmt' are now part of
19 the base module (and thus no longer configurable in file
22 - Emboldening of bitmaps didn't work correctly sometimes, showing
23 various artifacts (bug introduced in version 2.8.1).
25 - Use of the `freetype-config' script to get compilation and
26 linking options is deprecated since it doesn't support
27 cross-compiling, among other deficiencies. Instead, you should
28 use the `pkg-config' interface.
30 The `configure' script no longer installs `freetype-config' by
31 default. For backwards compatibility, a new configure option
32 `--enable-freetype-config' is provided that reverts this
35 - The auto-hinter script ranges have been updated for Unicode 11.
36 No support for new scripts have been added, however, with the
37 exception of Georgian Mtavruli.
39 - Support for cmake has been improved.
41 - The next release will remove support for Position Independent
42 Code as needed by systems that prohibit automatic address
43 fixups, such as BREW. [Compilation with modern compilers that
44 use flags like `-fPIC' or `-fPIE' is not affected.]
47 ======================================================================
49 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.8.1 and 2.9
51 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
53 - Advance width values of variation fonts were often wrong.
55 - More fixes for variation font support; you should update to this
56 version if you want to support them.
61 - As a GSoC project, Ewald Hew extended the new (Adobe) CFF engine
62 to handle Type 1 fonts also, thus greatly improving the
63 rendering of this format. This is the new default. The old
64 engine is still available if the configuration macro
65 `T1_CONFIG_OPTION_OLD_ENGINE' gets defined; using the
66 `hinting-engine' property of the `type1' driver module you can
67 then switch between the two engines.
69 - A new function, `FT_Set_Named_Instance', can be used to set or
70 change the current named instance.
72 - Starting with this FreeType version, resetting variation
73 coordinates will return to the currently selected named
74 instance. Previously, FreeType returned to the base font (i.e.,
80 - The `face_flags' field of the `FT_Face' structure has a new bit,
81 `FT_FACE_FLAG_VARIATION', which is set if a variation font has
82 been altered with `FT_Set_MM_Design_Coordinates',
83 `FT_Set_Var_Design_Coordinates', or
84 `FT_Set_Var_Blend_Coordinates'.
86 - If the current face is a named instance, the new macro
87 `FT_IS_NAMED_INSTANCE' returns true.
89 - `FT_IS_VARIATION' is a new macro that returns true whenever a
90 face object has been altered by `FT_Set_MM_Design_Coordinates',
91 `FT_Set_Var_Design_Coordinates', or
92 `FT_Set_Var_Blend_Coordinates'.
94 - Changing the design coordinates of a variation font with
95 `FT_Set_Var_Design_Coordinates' or
96 `FT_Set_Var_Blend_Coordinates' does not influence the named
97 instance index value (only `FT_Set_Named_Instance' does that).
99 - Special PostScript names for named instances are only returned
100 if the named instance is set with `FT_Set_Named_Instance' (and
101 the font has corresponding entries in its `fvar' table). If
102 `FT_IS_VARIATION' returns true, the algorithmically derived
103 PostScript name is provided, not looking up special entries for
106 - A new function `FT_Done_MM_Var' is provided to free the memory
107 returned in a call to `FT_Get_MM_Var'.
109 - On platforms using the `configure' script, the installed
110 `ftoption.h' file now correctly reflects configuration options
111 like `--with-harfbuzz'.
113 - Better support to build FreeType as a DLL on Windows using
116 - All data specific to driver modules is now collected in a single
117 file, `FT_DRIVER_H'. Consequently, the macros
118 `FT_AUTOHINTER_H', `FT_CFF_DRIVER_H', `FT_TRUETYPE_DRIVER_H',
119 and `FT_PCF_DRIVER_H' still work but are deprecated.
121 - Some fuzzer fixes to better reject malformed fonts.
123 - The `ftbench' demo program has a new test for opening a new face
124 and loading some glyphs.
126 - The `ftbench' demo program has a new option `-j' to specify the
127 last glyph index to be used in the tests.
129 - The `ftgrid' demo program has a new option `-n' to suppress
130 display of named instances of variation fonts.
132 - The `ttdebug' demo program can now show a stack trace (key `K')
133 and switch between hexadecimal and decimal display of integers
137 ======================================================================
139 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.8 and 2.8.1
141 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
143 - B/W hinting of TrueType fonts didn't work properly if
144 interpreter version 38 or 40 was selected.
146 - Some severe problems within the handling of TrueType Variation
147 Fonts were found and fixed.
149 - Function `FT_Set_Var_Design_Coordinates' didn't correctly handle
150 the case with less input coordinates than axes.
153 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
155 - By default, FreeType now offers high quality LCD-optimized
156 output without resorting to ClearType techniques of resolution
157 tripling and filtering. In this method, called Harmony, each
158 color channel is generated separately after shifting the glyph
159 outline, capitalizing on the fact that the color grids on LCD
160 panels are shifted by a third of a pixel. This output is
161 indistinguishable from ClearType with a light 3-tap filter.
166 - Using the new function `FT_Get_Var_Axis_Flags', an application
167 can access the `flags' field of a variation axis (introduced in
168 OpenType version 1.8.2)
170 - More sanity checks.
172 - The internal representation of buffers for LCD rendering has
173 changed (to be more precise, the amount of padding gets computed
174 differently). Applications that use the FreeType API are not
177 - To reset all design axis values of a variation font to its
178 default values you can now say
180 error = FT_Set_Var_Design_Coordinates( face, 0, NULL );
182 This also works with functions `FT_Set_MM_Design_Coordinates'
183 and `FT_Set_MM_Blend_Coordinates'.
185 - FreeType now synthesizes a missing Unicode cmap for (older)
186 TrueType fonts also if glyph names are available.
188 - FreeType has improved handling of BDF fonts without the
189 `POINT_SIZE', `RESOLUTION_X', or `RESOLUTION_Y' properties; the
190 library now uses the values of the `SIZE' keyword if they are
191 missing. Previously, `SIZE' was completely ignored, and
192 FreeType used heuristic values instead.
194 - Multiple calls to `FT_Bitmap_Convert' do work now as advertised.
195 Previously, they failed with an assertion error if there was an
196 empty bitmap between non-empty ones.
198 - The warping option has moved from `light' to `normal' hinting
199 where it replaces the original hinting algorithm. The `light'
200 mode is now always void of any hinting in x-direction.
202 - 16bit compiler support is now officially ended. We didn't
203 provide any maintenance since many years, and given that there
204 were no error or problem reports either it seems that it is no
207 - The `ftgrid' demo program can now toggle the display of grid
208 lines with the `G' key.
210 - The `ftgrid' demo program can toggle a different set of colors
211 (suitable to color-blind people) with the `C' key.
213 - The `ftgrid' demo program now supports the `-e' command line
214 option to select a cmap.
216 - The `ftdump' demo program has a new command line option `-t' to
217 output the SFNT table list.
220 ======================================================================
222 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.7.1 and 2.8
226 - Support for OpenType Variation Fonts is now complete. The last
227 missing part was handling the `VVAR' and `MVAR' tables, which is
228 available with this release.
230 - A new function `FT_Face_Properties' allows the control of some
231 module and library properties per font. Currently, the
232 following properties can be handled: stem darkening, LCD filter
233 weights, and the random seed for the `random' CFF operator.
235 - The PCF change to show more `colourful' family names (introduced
236 in version 2.7.1) was too radical; it can now be configured with
237 PCF_CONFIG_OPTION_LONG_FAMILY_NAMES at compile time. If
238 activated, it can be switched off at run time with the new pcf
239 property `no-long-family-names'. If the `FREETYPE_PROPERTIES'
240 environment variable is available, you can say
242 FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=pcf:no-long-family-names=1
244 - Support for the following scripts has been added to the
247 Adlam, Avestan, Bamum, Buhid, Carian, Chakma, Coptic, Cypriot,
248 Deseret, Glagolitic, Gothic, Kayah, Lisu, N'Ko, Ol Chiki, Old
249 Turkic, Osage, Osmanya, Saurashtra, Shavian, Sundanese, Tai
250 Viet, Tifinagh, Unified Canadian Syllabics, Vai
253 II. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
255 - `Light' auto-hinting mode no longer uses TrueType metrics for
256 TrueType fonts. This bug was introduced in version 2.4.6,
257 causing horizontal scaling also. Almost all GNU/Linux
258 distributions (with Fedora as a notable exception) disabled the
259 corresponding patch for good reasons; chances are thus high that
260 you won't notice a difference.
262 If optical backward compatibility for legacy applications is
263 necessary, you might enable the AF_CONFIG_OPTION_TT_SIZE_METRICS
264 configuration option. However, it is strongly recommended to
265 avoid that, adjusting font sizes instead.
267 - Global size metrics values in the `FT_Size_Metrics' structure
268 can be different for TrueType fonts. Reason is that in older
269 FreeType versions the metrics were rounded differently to
270 integer pixels compared to all other font formats, yielding an
271 inconsistent behaviour if you used non-native hinting. Starting
272 with this version, global size metrics for TrueType fonts are
273 handled the same as other font formats: `ascender' gets rounded
274 up, `descender' gets rounded down, `height' gets normally
275 rounded, and `max_advance' gets normally rounded, too.
277 If you need more precise values of (global) ascender, descender,
278 height, or `max_advance', please take the corresponding values
279 from the `FT_Face' structure and scale them manually.
281 - If a TrueType font gets loaded with FT_LOAD_NO_HINTING, FreeType
282 now scales the font linearly again (bug introduced in version
285 - CVE-2017-8105, CVE-2017-8287: Older FreeType versions have
286 out-of-bounds writes caused by heap-based buffer overflows
287 related to Type 1 fonts.
289 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-8105
290 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-8287
295 - A new function `FT_Set_Default_Properties' has been added to
296 parse the `FREETYPE_PROPERTIES' environment variable
297 (previously, it was internal only). `FT_Init_FreeType' always
298 call this function, but `FT_New_Library' does not (similar to
299 `FT_Add_Default_Modules').
301 - To be in sync with OpenType version 1.7 and newer, macros
303 FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_PREFERRED_FAMILY,
304 FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_PREFERRED_SUBFAMILY,
305 TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_FAMILY
306 TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_SUBFAMILY
310 FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_TYPOGRAPHIC_FAMILY,
311 FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_TYPOGRAPHIC_SUBFAMILY,
312 TT_NAME_ID_TYPOGRAPHIC_FAMILY
313 TT_NAME_ID_TYPOGRAPHIC_SUBFAMILY
315 The old macro names are deprecated (but still available).
317 - Support for SFNT `name' tables has been improved.
319 . Format 1 `name' tables are now supported. Use new function
320 `FT_Get_Sfnt_LangTag' to access associated language tags.
322 . Language, encoding, and name IDs have been updated to OpenType
325 - The new CFF engine now handles the `random' operator. All CFF
326 opcodes are now supported.
328 - The CFF module has a new property `random-seed' to control the
329 pseudo-random number generation for the `random' operator.
331 - The `freetype-config' script is now a wrapper of `pkg-config' if
332 this program is available in the path.
334 - FT_LOAD_TARGET_LCD is now a variant of FT_LOAD_TARGET_LIGHT;
335 this should provide better rendering results.
337 - A mode to display light auto-hinting with subpixel positioning
338 has been added to `ftdiff'.
341 ======================================================================
343 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.7 and 2.7.1
347 - Support for the new CFF2 font format as introduced with OpenType
348 1.8 has been contributed by Dave Arnolds from Adobe.
350 - Preliminary support for variation fonts as specified in OpenType
351 1.8 (in addition to the already existing support for Adobe's MM
352 and Apple's GX formats). Dave Arnolds contributed handling of
353 advance width change variation; more will come in the next
357 II. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
359 - Handling of raw CID fonts was partially broken (bug introduced
362 - CVE-2016-10328: Older FreeType versions had an out-of-bounds
363 write caused by a heap-based buffer overflow related to the CFF
366 https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2016-10328
371 - Some limits for TrueType bytecode execution have been tightened
372 to speed up FreeType's handling of malformed fonts, in
373 particular to quickly abort endless loops.
375 - The number of twilight points can no longer be set to an
376 arbitrarily large value.
378 - The total number of jump opcode instructions (like JMPR) with
379 negative arguments is dynamically restricted; the same holds
380 for the total number of iterations in LOOPCALL opcodes.
382 The dynamic limits are based on the number of points in a glyph
383 and the number of CVT entries. Please report if you encounter a
384 font where the selected values are not adequate.
386 - PCF family names are made more `colourful'; they now include the
387 foundry and information whether they contain wide characters.
388 For example, you no longer get `Fixed' but rather `Sony Fixed'
389 or `Misc Fixed Wide'.
391 - A new function `FT_Get_Var_Blend_Coordinates' (with its alias
392 name `FT_Get_MM_Blend_Coordinates') to retrieve the normalized
393 blend coordinates of the currently selected variation instance
394 has been added to the Multiple Masters interface.
396 - A new function `FT_Get_Var_Design_Coordinates' to retrieve the
397 design coordinates of the currently selected variation instance
398 has been added to the Multiple Masters interface.
400 - A new load flag `FT_LOAD_BITMAP_METRICS_ONLY' to retrieve bitmap
401 information without loading the (embedded) bitmap itself.
403 - Retrieving advance widths from bitmap strikes (using
404 `FT_Get_Advance' and `FT_Get_Advances') have been sped up.
406 - The usual round of fuzzer fixes to better reject malformed
409 - The `ftmulti' demo program can now switch engines with key `H'.
411 - The `ftstring' demo program can now show some built-in,
412 non-latin sample strings (to be selected with the TAB key).
414 - The `ftview' demo program can now switch between a font's
415 charmaps using the TAB key.
418 ======================================================================
420 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6.5 and 2.7
424 - As announced earlier, the 2.7.x series now uses the new subpixel
425 hinting mode as the default, emulating a modern version of
428 This change inevitably leads to different rendering results, and
429 you might change the `TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING'
430 configuration option to adapt it to your taste (or use the new
431 `FREETYPE_PROPERTIES' environment variable). See the
432 corresponding entry below for version 2.6.4, which gives more
435 - A new option `FT_CONFIG_OPTION_ENVIRONMENT_PROPERTIES' has been
436 introduced. If set (which is the default), an environment
437 variable `FREETYPE_PROPERTIES' can be used to control driver
440 FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35 \
441 cff:no-stem-darkening=1 \
444 This allows to select, say, the subpixel hinting mode at runtime
445 for a given application. See file `ftoption.h' for more.
448 II. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
450 - After loading a named instance of a GX variation font, the
451 `face_index' value in the returned `FT_Face' structure now
452 correctly holds the named instance index in the upper 16bits as
458 - A new macro `FT_IS_NAMED_INSTANCE' to test whether a given face
461 - More fixes to GX font handling.
463 - Apple's `GETVARIATION' bytecode operator (needed for GX
464 variation font support) has been implemented.
466 - Another round of fuzzer fixes, mainly to reject invalid fonts
469 - Handling of raw CID fonts was broken (bug introduced in version
472 - The smooth rasterizer has been streamlined to make it faster by
475 - The `ftgrid' demo program now understands command line option
476 `-d' to give start-up design coordinates.
478 - The `ftdump' demo program has a new command line option `-p' to
479 dump TrueType bytecode instructions.
482 ======================================================================
484 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6.4 and 2.6.5
486 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
488 - Compilation works again on Mac OS X (bug introduced in version
492 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
494 - The new subpixel hinting mode is now disabled by default; it
495 will be enabled by default in the forthcoming 2.7.x series.
496 Main reason for reverting this feature is the principle of least
497 surprise: a sudden change in appearance of all fonts (even if
498 the rendering improves for almost all recent fonts) should not
499 be expected in a new micro version of a series.
502 ======================================================================
504 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6.3 and 2.6.4
508 - A new subpixel hinting mode has been contributed by Nikolaus
509 Waxweiler, which is now the default rendering mode for TrueType
510 fonts. It implements (almost everything of) version 40 of the
513 The existing code base in FreeType (the `Infinality code') was
514 stripped to the bare minimum and all configurability removed in
515 the name of speed and simplicity. The configurability was
516 mainly aimed at legacy fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, or
517 Courier. [Legacy fonts are fonts that modify vertical stems to
518 achieve clean black-and-white bitmaps.] The new mode focuses on
519 applying a minimal set of rules to all fonts indiscriminately so
520 that modern and web fonts render well while legacy fonts render
523 Activation of the subpixel hinting support can be controlled
524 with the `TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING' configuration
525 option at compile time: If set to value 1, you get the old
526 Infinality mode (which was never the default due to its
527 slowness). Value 2 activates the new subpixel hinting mode, and
528 value 3 activates both. The default is value 2.
530 At run time, you can select the subpixel hinting mode with the
531 `interpreter-version' property (provided you have compiled in
532 the corresponding hinting mode); see `ftttdrv.h' for more.
534 - Support for the following scripts has been added to the
537 Armenian, Cherokee, Ethiopic, Georgian, Gujarati, Gurmukhi,
538 Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil
543 - Type 42 fonts as created by LilyPond are now supported.
545 - Minor rendering improvements in the auto-hinter.
547 - For experimental reasons, the old CFF engine now supports all
548 CFF operators except `random', including the deprecated Multiple
549 Masters instructions. This allows the display of fonts like
550 `ITCGaramondMM-It.otf' (without font variations, though).
552 - Another round of fixes to improve handling of invalid fonts.
554 - The `ftgrid' demo program now displays the rendered pixels also;
555 this can be switched off with the `b' key. Selection of various
556 LCD filtering modes can be done with the `L' key.
558 - The demo programs have been extended to allow selection of all
559 available TrueType bytecode engines.
561 - A very early beta version of a new, Qt based demo program called
562 `ftinspect' is part of the source code bundle; it will
563 eventually supersede the other demo programs. Currently, you
564 have to compile it manually with `qmake; make'; note that many
565 features are still missing.
568 ======================================================================
570 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6.2 and 2.6.3
574 - Khmer, Myanmar, Bengali, and Kannada script support has been
575 added to the auto-hinter.
580 - Better support of Indic scripts like Devanagari by using a
581 top-to-bottom hinting flow.
583 - All FreeType macros starting with two underscores have been
584 renamed to avoid a violation of both the C and C++ standards.
585 Example: Header macros of the form `__FOO_H__' are now called
586 `FOO_H_'. In most cases, this should be completely transparent
587 to the user. The exception to this is `__FTERRORS_H__', which
588 must be sometimes undefined by the user to get FreeType error
589 strings: Both this form and the new `FTERRORS_H_' macro are
590 accepted for backward compatibility.
592 - Minor improvements mainly to the Type 1 driver.
594 - The new CFF engine now supports all Type 2 operators except
597 - The macro `_STANDALONE_', used for compiling the B/W and smooth
598 rasterizers as stand-alone modules, has been renamed to
599 `STANDALONE_', since macro names starting with an underscore and
600 followed by an uppercase letter are reserved in both C and C++.
602 - Function `FT_Library_SetLcdFilterWeights' now also activates
603 custom LCD filter weights (instead of just adjusting them).
605 - Support for `unpatented hinting' has been completely removed:
606 Consequently, the two functions `FT_Face_CheckTrueTypePatents'
607 and `FT_Face_SetUnpatentedHinting' now return always false,
610 - The `ftgamma' demo program has been modernized; the gamma grid
611 display has been moved from `ftview' to this program.
613 - In `ftview', it is now possible to cycle through the available
617 ======================================================================
619 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6.1 and 2.6.2
623 - The auto-hinter now supports stem darkening, to be controlled by
624 the new `no-stem-darkening' and `darkening-parameters'
625 properties. This is an experimental feature contributed by
626 Nikolaus Waxweiler, and the interface might change in a future
629 - By default, stem darkening is now switched off (for both the CFF
630 engine and the auto-hinter). The main reason is that you need
631 linear alpha blending and gamma correction to get correct
632 rendering results, and the latter is not yet available in most
633 freely available rendering stacks like X11. Applying stem
634 darkening without proper gamma correction leads to far too dark
637 - The meaning of `FT_RENDER_MODE_LIGHT' has been slightly
638 modified. It now essentially means `no hinting along the
639 horizontal axis'; in particular, no change of glyph advance
640 widths. Consequently, the auto-hinter is used for all scalable
641 font formats except for CFF. It is planned that other
642 font-specific rendering engines (TrueType, Type 1) will follow.
647 - The default LCD filter has been changed to be normalized and
650 - For better compatibility with FontConfig, function
651 `FT_Library_SetLcdFilter' accepts a new enumeration value
652 `FT_LCD_FILTER_LEGACY1' (which has the same meaning as
653 `FT_LCD_FILTER_LEGACY').
655 - A large number of bugs have been detected by using the libFuzzer
656 framework, which should further improve handling of invalid
657 fonts. Thanks again to Kostya Serebryany and Bungeman!
659 - `TT_CONFIG_OPTION_MAX_RUNNABLE_OPCODES', a new configuration
660 option, controls the maximum number of executed opcodes within a
661 bytecode program. You don't want to change this except for very
662 special situations (e.g., making a library fuzzer spend less
663 time to handle broken fonts).
665 - The smooth renderer has been made faster.
667 - The `ftstring' demo program now supports subpixel rendering; use
668 key `l' to cycle through the LCD modes.
670 - The `ftstring' demo program now supports colour rendering; use
671 the `space' key to cycle through various colour combinations.
673 - The graphical demo programs now use a default gamma value of 1.8
677 ======================================================================
679 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.6 and 2.6.1
681 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
683 - It turned out that for CFFs only the advance widths should be
684 taken from the `htmx' table, not the side bearings. This bug,
685 introduced in version 2.6.0, makes it necessary to upgrade if
686 you are using CFFs; otherwise, you get cropped glyphs with GUI
687 interfaces like GTK or Qt.
689 - Accessing Type 42 fonts returned incorrect results if the glyph
690 order of the embedded TrueType font differs from the glyph order
691 of the Type 42 charstrings table.
694 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
696 - The header file layout has been changed (again), moving all
697 header files except `ft2build.h' into a subdirectory tree.
699 Doing so reduces the possibility of header file name clashes
700 (e.g., FTGL's `FTGlyph.h' with FreeType's `ftglyph.h') on case
701 insensitive file systems like Mac OS X or Windows.
703 Applications that use (a) the `freetype-config' script or
704 FreeType's `freetype2.pc' file for pkg-config to get the include
705 directory for the compiler, and (b) the documented way for
706 header inclusion like
708 #include <ft2build.h>
709 #include FT_FREETYPE_H
712 don't need any change to the source code.
714 - Simple access to named instances in GX variation fonts is now
715 available (in addition to the previous method via FreeType's MM
716 interface). In the `FT_Face' structure, bits 16-30 of the
717 `face_index' field hold the current named instance index for the
718 given face index, and bits 16-30 of `style_flags' contain the
719 number of instances for the given face index. `FT_Open_Face'
720 and friends also understand the extended bits of the face index
723 You need to enable TT_CONFIG_OPTION_GX_VAR_SUPPORT for this new
724 feature. Otherwise, bits 16-30 of the two fields are zero (or
727 - Lao script support has been added to the auto-hinter.
732 - The auto-hinter's Arabic script support has been enhanced.
734 - Superscript-like and subscript-like glyphs as used by various
735 phonetic alphabets like the IPA are now better supported by the
738 - The TrueType bytecode interpreter now runs slightly faster.
740 - Improved support for builds with cmake.
742 - The function `FT_CeilFix' now always rounds towards plus
745 - The function `FT_FloorFix' now always rounds towards minus
748 - A new load flag `FT_LOAD_COMPUTE_METRICS' has been added; it
749 makes FreeType ignore pre-computed metrics, as needed by font
750 validating or font editing programs. Right now, only the
751 TrueType module supports it to ignore data from the `hdmx'
754 - Another round of bug fixes to better handle broken fonts, found
755 by Kostya Serebryany <kcc@google.com>.
758 ======================================================================
760 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.5 and 2.6
764 - Behdad Esfahbod contributed code for improved thread-safety,
765 which results in the following model.
767 * An `FT_Face' object can only be safely used from one thread at
770 * An `FT_Library' object can now be used without modification
771 from multiple threads at the same time.
773 * `FT_Face' creation and destruction with the same `FT_Library'
774 object can only be done from one thread at a time.
776 One can use a single `FT_Library' object across threads as long
777 as a mutex lock is used around `FT_New_Face' and `FT_Done_Face'.
778 Any calls to `FT_Load_Glyph' and similar API are safe and do not
779 need the lock to be held as long as the same `FT_Face' is not
780 used from multiple threads at the same time.
782 - Thai script support has been added to the auto-hinter.
784 - Arabic script support has been added to the auto-hinter.
786 - Following OpenType version 1.7, advance widths and side bearing
787 values in CFFs (wrapped in an SFNT structure) are now always
788 taken from the `hmtx' table.
790 - Following OpenType version 1.7, the PostScript font name of a
791 CFF font (wrapped in an SFNT structure) is now always taken from
792 the `name' table. This is also true for OpenType Collections
793 (i.e., TTCs using CFFs subfonts instead of TTFs), where it may
794 have a significant difference.
796 - Fonts natively hinted for ClearType are now supported, properly
797 handling selector index 3 of the INSTCTRL bytecode instruction.
799 - Major improvements to the GX TrueType variation font handling.
804 - A new auto-hinter property `warping' can switch on and off the
805 warping code if this experimental feature is compiled in (by
806 defining the AF_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_WARPER configuration option;
807 by default this option is now enabled but warping is switched
810 The AF_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_WARPER option itself is an old feature,
811 available since 2006. Warping only works in `light'
812 auto-hinting mode. The idea of the code is to slightly scale
813 and shift a glyph along the non-hinted dimension (which is
814 usually the horizontal axis) so that as much of its segments are
815 aligned (more or less) to the grid. To find out a glyph's
816 optimal scaling and shifting value, various parameter
817 combinations are tried and scored.
819 See file `ftautoh.h' for more; the demo programs `ftdiff',
820 `ftview', and `ftgrid' can toggle warping with key `w'.
822 - Some fields in the `FTC_ImageTypeRec' structure have been
823 changed from signed to unsigned type, which better reflects the
824 actual usage. It is also an additional means to protect against
827 This change doesn't break the ABI; however, it might cause
830 - Function `FT_Bitmap_New' has been renamed to `FT_Bitmap_Init',
831 since this name better reflects its function. For backward
832 compatibility, the old function name is still available.
834 - Function `FT_Get_X11_Font_Format' has been renamed to
835 `FT_Get_Font_Format', since this name better reflects its
836 function. For backward compatibility, the old function name is
839 Additionally, the header file macro for this function has been
840 renamed to `FT_FONT_FORMATS_H' (the old name `FT_XFREE86_H' is
841 retained for backward compatibility).
843 - Various improvements to the `ftgrid' demo program.
845 . It can now display GX and MM fonts while interactively
846 manipulating the axes (with keys F2, F3, and F4).
848 . Anti-aliasing rendering modes can now be selected (with keys
851 . The display of point numbers can be toggled with key `D'.
853 - Various improvements to the `ftdump' demo program.
855 . It now displays information on MM and GX variation axes.
857 . New command line option `-u' makes it output data in utf-8
860 - The `ftmulti' demo program can now handle up to six MM or GX
864 ======================================================================
866 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.4 and 2.5.5
868 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
870 - Handling of uncompressed PCF files works again (bug introduced
874 ======================================================================
876 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.3 and 2.5.4
878 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
880 - A variant of vulnerability CVE-2014-2240 was identified
881 (cf. https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?43661) and fixed in the
882 new CFF driver. All users should upgrade.
884 - The new auto-hinter code using HarfBuzz crashed for some invalid
887 - Many fixes to better protect against malformed input.
890 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
892 - Full auto-hinter support of the Devanagari script.
894 - Experimental auto-hinter support of the Telugu script.
896 - CFF stem darkening behaviour can now be controlled at build time
897 using the eight macros
899 CFF_CONFIG_OPTION_DARKENING_PARAMETER_{X,Y}{1,2,3,4} .
901 - Some fields in the `FT_Bitmap' structure have been changed from
902 signed to unsigned type, which better reflects the actual usage.
903 It is also an additional means to protect against malformed
906 This change doesn't break the ABI; however, it might cause
912 - Improvements to the auto-hinter's algorithm to recognize stems
915 - Function `FT_Get_SubGlyph_Info' always returned an error even in
918 - Version 2.5.1 introduced major bugs in the cjk part of the
919 auto-hinter, which are now fixed.
921 - The `FT_Sfnt_Tag' enumeration values have been changed to
922 uppercase, e.g. `FT_SFNT_HEAD'. The lowercase variants are
923 deprecated. This is for orthogonality with all other
924 enumeration (and enumeration-like) values in FreeType.
926 - `cmake' now supports builds of FreeType as an OS X framework and
929 - Improved project files for vc2010, introducing a property file.
931 - The documentation generator for the API reference has been
932 updated to produce better HTML code (with proper CSS). At the
933 same time, the documentation got a better structure.
935 - The FT_LOAD_BITMAP_CROP flag is obsolete; it is not used by any
938 - The TrueType DELTAP[123] bytecode instructions now work in
939 subpixel hinting mode as described in the ClearType whitepaper
940 (i.e., for touched points in the non-subpixel direction).
942 - Many small improvements to the internal arithmetic routines.
945 ======================================================================
947 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.2 and 2.5.3
949 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
951 - A vulnerability (CVE-2014-2240) was identified and fixed in the
952 new CFF driver (cf. https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?41697).
953 All users should upgrade.
955 - More bug fixes related to correct positioning of composite
958 - Many fixes to better protect against malformed input.
961 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
963 - FreeType can now use the HarfBuzz library to greatly improve the
964 auto-hinting of fonts that use OpenType features: Many glyphs
965 that are part of such features but don't have cmap entries are
966 now handled properly, for example small caps or superscripts.
967 Define the configuration macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ to
968 activate HarfBuzz support.
970 You need HarfBuzz version 0.9.19 or newer.
972 Note that HarfBuzz depends on FreeType; this currently causes a
973 chicken-and-egg problem that can be solved as follows in case
974 HarfBuzz is not yet installed on your system.
976 1. Compile and install FreeType without the configuration
977 macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ.
979 2. Compile and install HarfBuzz.
981 3. Define macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ, then compile
982 and install FreeType again.
984 With FreeType's `configure' script the procedure boils down to
985 configure, build, and install FreeType, then configure, compile,
986 and install HarfBuzz, then configure, compile, and install
987 FreeType again (after executing `make distclean').
989 - All libraries FreeType depends on are now checked using the
990 `pkg-config' configuration files first, followed by alternative
993 - The new value `auto' for the various `--with-XXX' library
994 options (for example `--with-harfbuzz=auto') makes the
995 `configure' script automatically link to the libraries it finds.
996 This is now the default.
998 - In case FreeType's `configure' script can't find a library, you
999 can pass environment variables to circumvent pkg-config, and
1000 those variables have been harmonized as a consequence of the
1001 changes mentioned above:
1003 LIBZ -> removed; use LIBZ_CFLAGS and LIBZ_LIBS
1004 LIBBZ2 -> removed; use BZIP2_CFLAGS and BZIP2_LIBS
1005 LIBPNG_LDFLAGS -> LIBPNG_LIBS
1007 `./configure --help' shows all available environment variables.
1009 - The `freetype-config' script now understands option `--static'
1010 to emit static linking information.
1013 ======================================================================
1015 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.1 and 2.5.2
1017 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1019 - Improving the display of some broken TrueType fonts introduced a
1020 bug that made FreeType crash on some popular (but not fully
1021 conformant) fonts like `ahronbd.ttf'.
1023 - Another round of improvements to correct positioning and hinting
1024 of composite glyphs in TrueType fonts.
1029 - Version 2.5.1 introduced a bug in handling embedded bitmap
1030 strikes of TrueType fonts, causing garbage display under some
1033 - The `ftgrid' demo program couldn't be compiled in
1034 non-development builds.
1037 ======================================================================
1039 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5 and 2.5.1
1041 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1043 - For some WinFNT files, the last glyph wasn't displayed but
1044 incorrectly marked as invalid.
1046 - The vertical size of glyphs was incorrectly set after a call to
1047 `FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden', resulting in clipped glyphs.
1049 - Many fields of the `PCLT' table in SFNT based fonts (if accessed
1050 with `FT_Get_Sfnt_Table') were computed incorrectly.
1052 - In TrueType fonts, hinting of composite glyphs could sometimes
1053 deliver incorrect positions of components or even distorted
1057 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1059 - WOFF font format support has been added.
1061 - The auto-hinter now supports Hebrew. Greek and Cyrillic support
1064 - Support for the forthcoming `OS/2' SFNT table version 5, as can
1065 be found e.g. in the `Sitka' font family for Windows 8.1.
1067 - The header file layout has been changed. After installation,
1068 all files are now located in `<prefix>/include/freetype2'.
1070 Applications that use (a) `freetype-config' or FreeType's
1071 `pkg-config' file to get the include directory for the compiler,
1072 and (b) the documented way for header inclusion like
1074 #include <ft2build.h>
1075 #include FT_FREETYPE_H
1078 don't need any change to the source code.
1083 - The stem darkening feature of the new CFF engine can now be
1084 fine-tuned with the new `darkening-parameters' property.
1086 - `ftgrid' has been updated to toggle various engines with the `H'
1087 key, similar to `ftview' and `ftdiff'.
1089 - The functionality of `ttdebug' has been greatly enhanced.
1091 . It now displays twilight, storage, and control value data; key
1092 `T' shows the twilight point table, key `S' the storage data,
1093 and key `C' the control value table.
1095 . Some keys have been reassigned from lowercase to their
1096 uppercase equivalents; for example `q' to quit the program is
1099 . Key `f' finishes the current function.
1101 . Key `R' restarts the debugger.
1103 . Keys `b' and `p' set a breakpoint.
1105 . Key `B' provides a function call backtrace.
1107 - Better support of ARMv7 and x86_64 processors.
1109 - Apple's `sbix' color bitmap format is now supported.
1111 - Improved auto-hinter rendering for many TrueType fonts,
1112 especially in the range 20-40ppem.
1114 - A new face flag `FT_FACE_FLAG_COLOR' has been added (to be
1115 accessed with the macro `FT_HAS_COLOR').
1117 - `FT_Gzip_Uncompress' (modeled after zlib's `uncompress'
1118 function) has been added; this is a by-product of the newly
1121 - Support for a build with `cmake' has been contributed by John
1122 Cary <cary@txcorp.com>.
1124 - Support for x64 builds with Visual C++ has been contributed by
1125 Kenneth Miller <kennethadammiller@yahoo.com>
1127 - Manual pages for most demo programs have been added.
1129 - The GETINFO bytecode instruction for TrueType fonts was buggy if
1130 used to retrieve subpixel hinting information. It was necessary
1131 to set selector bit 6 to get results for selector bits 7-10,
1134 - Improved computation of emulated vertical metrics for TrueType
1137 - Fixed horizontal start-up position of vertical phantom points in
1141 ======================================================================
1143 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.12 and 2.5
1145 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1147 - The cache manager function `FTC_Manager_Reset' didn't flush the
1151 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1153 - Behdad Esfahbod (on behalf of Google) contributed support for
1154 color embedded bitmaps (eg. color emoji).
1156 A new load flag, FT_LOAD_COLOR, makes FreeType load color
1157 embedded-bitmaps, following this draft specification
1159 https://color-emoji.googlecode.com/git/specification/v1.html
1161 which defines two new SFNT tables, `CBDT' and `CBLC' (named and
1162 modeled after `EBDT' and `EBLC', respectively). The color
1163 bitmaps are stored in the new FT_PIXEL_MODE_BGRA format to
1164 represent BGRA pre-multiplied sRGB images. If PNG support is
1165 available, PNG color images as defined in the same proposed
1166 specification are supported also.
1168 Note that color bitmaps are converted to grayscale if client
1169 didn't ask for color.
1171 - As announced in the previous release, the old FreeType CFF
1172 engine is now disabled by default. It can be conditionally
1173 compiled by defining the configuration macro
1174 CFF_CONFIG_OPTION_OLD_ENGINE.
1176 - As announced in the previous release, all code related to macro
1177 FT_CONFIG_OPTION_OLD_INTERNALS has been removed, thus becoming
1183 - The property API (`FT_Property_Get' and `FT_Property_Set') is
1184 now declared as stable.
1186 The exception, however, are the experimental auto-hinter
1187 properties `glyph-to-script-map' and `fallback-script' which are
1188 subject to change in a forthcoming release.
1190 - `ftview' has been updated to support color embedded bitmaps; it
1191 can be toggled on and off with key `c'. The small cache toggle
1194 - It is now possible to control the version of the TrueType
1195 hinting engine using the new `interpreter-version' property of
1196 the `truetype' module: Versions 35 and 38 (the default) are
1197 supported, which roughly corresponds to disable and enable
1198 subpixel hinting support, respectively.
1200 In both `ftview' and `ftdiff', switching between the two
1201 versions can be done with key `H'. In the `ftbench' demo
1202 program, command line option `-H' has been extended to activate
1203 the non-default interpreter version.
1205 - The `ttdebug' program has been further improved. In particular,
1206 it accepts a new command line option `-H' to select the hinting
1209 - `ftdump's verbose option has been renamed to `-V'. For all demo
1210 programs, `-v' now shows version information.
1212 - Another round of TrueType subpixel hinting fixes.
1214 - The `apinames' tool can now create an import file for NetWare.
1216 - 64bit compilation of the new CFF engine was buggy.
1218 - Some fixes to improve robustness in memory-tight situations.
1221 ======================================================================
1223 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.11 and 2.4.12
1225 - We have another CFF parsing and hinting engine! Written by Dave
1226 Arnold <darnold@adobe.com>, this work has been contributed by
1227 Adobe in collaboration with Google. It is vastly superior to
1228 the old CFF engine, and it will replace it in the next release.
1229 Right now, it is still off by default, and you have to
1230 explicitly select it using the new `hinting-engine' property of
1234 #include FT_MODULE_H
1235 #include FT_CFF_DRIVER_H
1238 int engine = FT_CFF_HINTING_ADOBE;
1242 FT_Property_Set( library, "cff", "hinting-engine", &engine );
1244 The code has a (mature) beta status; we encourage all users to
1245 test it and report any problems.
1247 In case you want to activate the new CFF engine unconditionally,
1251 diff --git a/src/cff/cffobjs.c b/src/cff/cffobjs.c
1252 index ebcf189..3f2ce6b 100644
1253 --- a/src/cff/cffobjs.c
1254 +++ b/src/cff/cffobjs.c
1255 @@ -1056,7 +1056,7 @@
1258 /* set default property values */
1259 - driver->hinting_engine = FT_CFF_HINTING_FREETYPE;
1260 + driver->hinting_engine = FT_CFF_HINTING_ADOBE;
1261 driver->no_stem_darkening = FALSE;
1266 - The macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_OLD_INTERNALS is no longer set by
1267 default. In the next release, we will completely remove the
1268 associated code. Please update your programs in case you are
1269 still using this macro.
1274 - The (top-level) `configure' script now respects the MAKE
1275 environment variable to specify a `make' binary. For backward
1276 compatibility, GNUMAKE still overrides MAKE, though.
1278 - The `ftview' and `ftdiff' demo programs have been redesigned,
1279 showing more options permanently on the screen, among other
1282 - Using the `H' key, it is now possible to select the CFF engine
1283 in both `ftview' and `ftdiff'.
1285 - The new command line option `-H' for `ftbench' selects the Adobe
1288 - It is now possible to directly select the LCD rendering mode
1289 with the keys `A'-`F' in `ftview'. The key mapping for cycling
1290 through LCD modes has been changed from `K' and `L' to `k' and
1291 `l', and toggling custom LCD filtering is no longer mapped to
1292 key `F' but to key `L'.
1294 - In `ftdiff', key `x' toggles between layout modes: Either use
1295 the advance width (this is new and now the default) or the
1296 bounding box information to determine line breaks.
1298 - For all demo tools, the new command line option `-v' shows the
1301 - For the demo tools with a GUI, the new command line options `-w'
1302 and `-h' select the width and the height of the output window,
1305 - The `ttdebug' program was broken and has been reactivated. Note
1306 that this program is not compiled by default.
1309 ======================================================================
1311 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.10 and 2.4.11
1313 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1315 - Some vulnerabilities in the BDF implementation have been fixed.
1316 Users of this font format should upgrade.
1319 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1321 - Subpixel hinting support has been contributed by Infinality,
1322 based on Greg Hitchcock's whitepaper at
1324 https://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/truetypecleartype.aspx
1326 Originally, it was a separate patch available from
1328 http://www.infinality.net/blog/
1330 and which has been integrated.
1332 Note that ClearType support is not completely implemented! In
1333 particular, full support for the options `compatible_widths',
1334 `symmetrical_smoothing, and `bgr' (via the GETINFO bytecode
1335 instruction) is missing.
1337 Activation of subpixel hinting support can be controlled with
1338 the `TT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_HINTING' configuration option; it
1339 is switched off by default. This feature is still experimental;
1340 we welcome test reports!
1342 - Support for OpenType collections (OTC) has been added.
1344 - Pure CFF fonts within an SFNT wrapper are now supported.
1349 - Minor rendering improvements to the auto-hinter.
1351 - `FT_GlyphSlot_Oblique' now uses a shear angle of 12°.
1353 - Experimental support to handle `property modules', for example
1354 to control the behaviour of the auto-hinter. The API consists
1355 of two new functions, `FT_Property_Set' and `FT_Property_Get'.
1357 The code is still subject to change and should not be used for
1360 - The `ftdiff' demo program now supports UTF-8 encoded input files
1363 - Using keys `r' and `R', you can now adjust the stroker radius in
1364 the `ftview' demo program.
1366 - Other, minor fixes and improvements.
1369 ======================================================================
1371 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.9 and 2.4.10
1373 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1375 - Incremental glyph loading as needed by ghostscript was broken.
1380 - A new function `FT_Outline_EmboldenXY', contributed by Alexei
1383 - In the `ftview' demo program, key `e' has been replaced with `x'
1384 and `y' to embolden in the horizontal and vertical direction,
1387 - The glyph spacing computation in `FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden' (and
1388 similar code in `ftview') has been improved.
1390 - Minor improvements to the TrueType bytecode interpreter and
1391 glyph loader, the auto-hinter, and the B/W rasterizer.
1394 ======================================================================
1396 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.8 and 2.4.9
1398 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1400 - Another round of fixes to better handle invalid fonts. Many of
1401 them are vulnerabilities (see CVE-2012-1126 up to CVE-2012-1144
1402 and SA48320) so all users should upgrade.
1407 - The `ENCODING -1 <n>' format of BDF fonts is now supported.
1409 - For BDF fonts, support for the whole Unicode encoding range has
1412 - Better TTF support for x_ppem != y_ppem.
1414 - `FT_Get_Advances' sometimes returned bogus values.
1416 - The demo programs no longer recognize and handle default
1417 suffixes; you now have to always specify the complete font name.
1419 - Better rendering and LCD mode cycling added to `ftview'.
1422 ======================================================================
1424 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.7 and 2.4.8
1426 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1428 - Some vulnerabilities in handling CID-keyed PostScript fonts have
1429 been fixed; see CVE-2011-3439.
1434 - Chris Liddell contributed a new API, `FT_Get_PS_Font_Value', to
1435 retrieve most of the dictionary keys in Type 1 fonts.
1438 ======================================================================
1440 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.6 and 2.4.7
1442 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1444 - Some vulnerabilities in handling Type 1 fonts have been fixed;
1450 - FreeType now properly handles ZapfDingbats glyph names while
1451 constructing a Unicode character map (for fonts which don't have
1455 ======================================================================
1457 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.5 and 2.4.6
1459 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1461 - For TrueType based fonts, the ascender and descender values were
1462 incorrect sometimes (off by a pixel if the ppem value was not a
1463 multiple of 5). Depending on the use you might now experience
1464 a different layout; the change should result in better, more
1465 consistent line spacing.
1467 - Fix CVE-2011-0226 which causes a vulnerability while handling
1470 - BDF fonts containing glyphs with negative values for ENCODING
1471 were incorrectly rejected. This bug has been introduced in
1472 FreeType version 2.2.0.
1474 - David Bevan contributed a major revision of the FreeType stroker
1477 . The behaviour of FT_STROKER_LINEJOIN_BEVEL has been corrected.
1479 . A new line join style, FT_STROKER_LINEJOIN_MITER_FIXED, has
1480 been introduced to support PostScript and PDF miter joins.
1482 . FT_STROKER_LINEJOIN_MITER_VARIABLE has been introduced as an
1483 alias for FT_STROKER_LINEJOIN_MITER.
1485 . Various stroking glitches has been fixed.
1490 - SFNT bitmap fonts which contain an outline glyph for `.notdef'
1491 only no longer set the FT_FACE_FLAG_SCALABLE flag.
1494 ======================================================================
1496 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.4 and 2.4.5
1498 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1500 - A rendering regression for second-order Bézier curves has been
1501 fixed, introduced in 2.4.3.
1504 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1506 - If autohinting is not explicitly disabled, FreeType now uses
1507 the autohinter if a TrueType based font doesn't contain native
1510 - The load flag FT_LOAD_IGNORE_GLOBAL_ADVANCE_WIDTH has been made
1511 redundant and is simply ignored; this means that FreeType now
1512 ignores the global advance width value in TrueType fonts.
1517 - `FT_Sfnt_Table_Info' can now return the number of SFNT tables of
1520 - Support for PCF files compressed with bzip2 has been contributed
1521 by Joel Klinghed. To make this work, the OS must provide a
1524 - Bradley Grainger contributed project and solution files in
1525 Visual Studio 2010 format.
1527 - Again some fixes to better handle broken fonts.
1529 - Some improvements to the B/W rasterizer.
1531 - Fixes to the cache module to improve robustness.
1533 - Just Fill Bugs contributed (experimental) code to compute blue
1534 zones for CJK Ideographs, improving the alignment of horizontal
1535 stems at the top or bottom edges.
1537 - The `ftgrid' demo program can now display autohinter segments,
1538 to be toggled on and off with key `s'.
1541 ======================================================================
1543 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.3 and 2.4.4
1545 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1547 - UVS support (TrueType/OpenType cmap format 14) support is fixed.
1548 This regression has been introduced in version 2.4.0.
1553 - Detect tricky fonts (e.g. MingLiU) by the lengths and checksums
1554 of Type42-persistent subtables (`cvt ', `fpgm', and `prep') when
1555 a TrueType font without family name is given. The previous fix,
1556 introduced in 2.4.3, was too rigorous, causing many subsetted
1557 fonts (mainly from PDF files) displayed badly because FreeType
1558 forced rendering with the TrueType bytecode engine instead of
1561 - Better support for 64bit platforms.
1563 - More fixes to improve handling of broken fonts.
1566 ======================================================================
1568 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.2 and 2.4.3
1570 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1572 - Fix rendering of certain cubic, S-shaped arcs. This regression
1573 has been introduced in version 2.4.0.
1578 - To fix the above mentioned rendering issue, a new spline
1579 flattening algorithm has been introduced which speeds up both
1580 conic and cubic arcs.
1582 - Handling of broken fonts has been further improved.
1585 ======================================================================
1587 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.1 and 2.4.2
1589 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1591 - A stack overflow in CFF Type2 CharStrings interpreter is fixed.
1593 - Handling Type 42 font deallocation was broken; additionally, the
1594 library is now more robust against malformed Type 42 fonts.
1599 - Two new functions, `FT_Reference_Library' (in FT_MODULE_H) and
1600 `FT_Reference_Face' (in FT_FREETYPE_H), have been added to
1601 simplify life-cycle management. A counter gets initialized to 1
1602 at the time an FT_Library (or FT_Face) structure is created.
1603 The two new functions increment the respective counter.
1604 `FT_Done_Library' and `FT_Done_Face' then only destroy a library
1605 or face if the counter is 1, otherwise they simply decrement the
1609 ======================================================================
1611 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.4.0 and 2.4.1
1613 I. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1615 - A serious bug in the CFF font module prevented display of many
1616 glyphs in CFF fonts like `MinionPro-Regular.otf'.
1619 ======================================================================
1621 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.12 and 2.4.0
1623 I. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1625 - Since May 2010, all patents regarding the TrueType bytecode
1626 interpreter have expired worldwide. Consequently, we now define
1627 TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER by default (and undefine
1628 TT_CONFIG_OPTION_UNPATENTED_HINTING).
1630 - A new function `FT_Library_SetLcdFilterWeights' is available to
1631 adjust the filter weights set by `FT_Library_SetLcdFilter'.
1636 - Thanks to many reports from Robert Święcki, FreeType's stability
1637 in handling broken or damaged fonts is much improved.
1639 - Support for LCD filter control has been added to the demo
1640 programs `ftdiff' and `ftview'.
1643 ======================================================================
1645 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.11 and 2.3.12
1647 I. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1649 - For `FT_Open_Face', new parameters are available to ignore
1650 preferred family names: FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_PREFERRED_FAMILY and
1651 FT_PARAM_TAG_IGNORE_PREFERRED_SUBFAMILY.
1656 - Support for incremental font loading (controlled with the
1657 FT_CONFIG_OPTION_INCREMENTAL macro) is now active by default.
1659 - Better support for vertical metrics.
1661 - Various minor bug fixes.
1664 ======================================================================
1666 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.10 and 2.3.11
1668 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1670 - Version 2.3.10 broke PCF support.
1673 ======================================================================
1675 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.10 and 2.3.9
1677 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1679 - If all ASCII digits in a font have the same (unscaled) width,
1680 the autohinter respects this and won't change it.
1682 - TrueType fonts are now rasterized correctly if the horizontal
1683 and vertical resolution differ.
1685 - Type 1 fonts are now handled with increased precision internally
1686 to avoid serious rounding issues if non-integral coordinates are
1689 - Horizontally condensed CFF fonts (using the font matrix) were
1690 rendered incorrectly. This bug has been introduced after
1694 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1696 - Support for the SFNT cmap 13 table format (as defined by the new
1697 OpenType 1.6 specification) has been added.
1699 - B/W rasterization of well-hinted TrueType fonts at small sizes
1700 has been greatly improved.
1702 - Calculation of vertical metrics in OpenType fonts has been
1708 - It is now possible to change the emboldening factor in the
1709 `ftview' demo program with keys `e' and `E'.
1711 - It is now possible to change the slant value in the `ftview'
1712 demo program with keys `s' and `S'.
1714 - The 5-levels grayscale mode of the `ftraster' module (which
1715 FreeType doesn't use by default) was broken since version 2.3.0.
1717 - Compilation of the `ftgrays' and `ftraster' modules was broken
1718 in stand-alone mode.
1720 - Various fixes for compilation on 64bit and 16bit architectures.
1723 ======================================================================
1725 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.9 and 2.3.8
1727 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1729 - Very unfortunately, FreeType 2.3.8 contained a change that broke
1730 its official ABI. The end result is that programs compiled
1731 against previous versions of the library, but dynamically linked
1732 to 2.3.8 can experience memory corruption if they call the
1733 `FT_Get_PS_Font_Info' function.
1735 We recommend all users to upgrade to 2.3.9 as soon as possible,
1736 or to downgrade to a previous release of the library if this is
1739 The origin of the bug is that a new field was added to the
1740 publicly defined `PS_FontInfoRec' structure. Unfortunately,
1741 objects of this type can be stack or heap allocated by callers
1742 of `FT_Get_PS_Font_Info', resulting in a memory buffer
1743 overwrite with its implementation in 2.3.8.
1745 If you want to know whether your code is vulnerable to this
1746 issue, simply search for the substrings `PS_FontInfo' and
1747 `PS_Font_Info' in your source code. If none is found, your code
1748 is safe and is not affected.
1750 The FreeType team apologizes for the problem.
1752 - The POSIX support of MacOS resource-fork fonts (Suitcase fonts
1753 and LaserWriter Type1 PostScript fonts) was broken in 2.3.8. If
1754 FreeType2 is built without Carbon framework, these fonts are not
1755 handled correctly. Version 2.3.7 didn't have this bug.
1757 - `FT_Get_Advance' (and `FT_Get_Advances') returned bad values for
1758 almost all font formats except TrueType fonts.
1760 - Fix a bug in the SFNT kerning table loader/parser which could
1761 crash the engine if certain malformed tables were encountered.
1763 - Composite SFNT bitmaps are now handled correctly.
1766 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1768 - The new functions `FT_Get_CID_Is_Internally_CID_keyed' and
1769 `FT_Get_CID_From_Glyph_Index' can be used to access CID-keyed
1770 CFF fonts via CID values. This code has been contributed by
1776 - `FT_Outline_Get_InsideBorder' returns FT_STROKER_BORDER_RIGHT
1777 for empty outlines. This was incorrectly documented.
1779 - The `ftview' demo program now supports UTF-8 encoded strings.
1782 ======================================================================
1784 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.8 and 2.3.7
1786 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1788 - CID-keyed fonts in an SFNT wrapper were not handled correctly.
1790 - The smooth renderer produced truncated images (on the right) for
1791 outline parts with negative horizontal values. Most fonts don't
1792 contain outlines left to the y coordinate axis, but the effect
1793 was very noticeable for outlines processed with FT_Glyph_Stroke,
1794 using thick strokes.
1796 - `FT_Get_TrueType_Engine_Type' returned a wrong value if both
1797 configuration macros TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER and
1798 TT_CONFIG_OPTION_UNPATENTED_HINTING were defined.
1800 - The `face_index' field in the `FT_Face' structure wasn't
1801 initialized properly after calling FT_Open_Face and friends with
1802 a positive face index for CFFs, WinFNTs, and, most importantly,
1803 for TrueType Collections (TTCs).
1806 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1808 - Rudimentary support for Type 1 fonts and CID-keyed Type 1 fonts
1809 in an SFNT wrapper has been added -- such fonts are used on the
1810 Mac. The core SFNT tables `TYP1' and `CID ' are passed to the
1811 PS Type 1 and CID-keyed PS font drivers; other tables (`ALMX',
1812 `BBOX', etc.) are not supported yet.
1814 - A new interface to extract advance values of glyphs without
1815 loading their outlines has been added. The functions are called
1816 `FT_Get_Advance' and `FT_Get_Advances'; they are defined in file
1817 `ftadvanc.h' (to be accessed as FT_ADVANCES_H).
1819 - A new function `FT_Get_FSType_Flags' (in FT_FREETYPE_H) has been
1820 contributed by David Bevan to access the embedding and
1821 subsetting restriction information of fonts.
1826 - FT_MulFix is now an inlined function; by default, assembler code
1827 is provided for x86 and ARM. See FT_CONFIG_OPTION_INLINE_MULFIX
1828 and FT_CONFIG_OPTION_NO_ASSEMBLER (in ftoption.h) for more.
1830 - The handling of `tricky' fonts (this is, fonts which don't work
1831 with the autohinter, needing the font format's hinting engine)
1832 has been generalized and changed slightly:
1834 . A new face flag FT_FACE_FLAG_TRICKY indicates that the font
1835 format's hinting engine is necessary for correct rendering.
1836 The macro FT_IS_TRICKY can be used to check this flag.
1838 . FT_LOAD_NO_HINTING is now ignored for tricky fonts. To really
1839 force raw loading of such fonts (without hinting), both
1840 FT_LOAD_NO_HINTING and FT_LOAD_NO_AUTOHINT must be used --
1841 this is something which you probably never want to do.
1843 . Tricky TrueType fonts always use the bytecode interpreter,
1844 either the patented or unpatented version.
1846 - The function `FT_GlyphSlot_Own_Bitmap' has been moved from
1847 FT_SYNTHESIS_H to FT_BITMAP_H; it is now part of the `official'
1848 API. (The functions in FT_SYNTHESIS_H are still subject to
1851 - In the `ftdiff' demo program you can now toggle the use of
1852 FT_LOAD_IGNORE_GLOBAL_ADVANCE_WIDTH with key `a'.
1855 ======================================================================
1857 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.7 and 2.3.6
1859 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1861 - If the library was compiled on an i386 platform using gcc, and
1862 compiler option -O3 was given, `FT_MulFix' sometimes returned
1863 incorrect results which could have caused problems with
1864 `FT_Request_Metrics' and `FT_Select_Metrics', returning an
1865 incorrect descender size.
1867 - Pure CFFs without subfonts were scaled incorrectly if the font
1868 matrix was non-standard. This bug has been introduced in
1871 - The `style_name' field in the `FT_FaceRec' structure often
1872 contained a wrong value for Type 1 fonts. This misbehaviour
1873 has been introduced in version 2.3.6 while trying to fix
1874 another problem. [Note, however, that this value is
1875 informative only since the used algorithm to extract it is
1879 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1881 - Two new macros, FT_OUTLINE_SMART_DROPOUTS and
1882 FT_OUTLINE_EXCLUDE_STUBS, have been introduced. Together with
1883 FT_OUTLINE_IGNORE_DROPOUTS (which was ignored previously) it is
1884 now possible to control the dropout mode of the `raster' module
1885 (for B&W rasterization), using the `flags' field in the
1886 `FT_Outline' structure.
1888 - The TrueType bytecode interpreter now passes the dropout mode to
1889 the B&W rasterizer. This greatly increases the output for small
1890 ppem values of many fonts like `pala.ttf'.
1893 ======================================================================
1895 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.6 and 2.3.5
1897 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1899 - A bunch of potential security problems have been found. All
1900 users should update.
1902 - Microsoft Unicode cmaps in TrueType fonts are now always
1903 preferred over Apple cmaps. This is not a bug per se, but there
1904 exist some buggy fonts created for MS which have broken Apple
1905 cmaps. This affects only the automatic selection of FreeType;
1906 it's always possible to manually select an Apple Unicode cmap if
1909 - Many bug fixes to the TrueType bytecode interpreter.
1911 - Improved Mac support.
1913 - Subsetted CID-keyed CFFs are now supported correctly.
1915 - CID-keyed CFFs with subfonts which are scaled in a non-standard
1916 way are now handled correctly.
1918 - A call to FT_Open_Face with `face_index' < 0 crashed FreeType if
1919 the font was a Windows (bitmap) FNT/FON.
1922 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1924 - The new function `FT_Get_CID_Registry_Ordering_Supplement' gives
1925 access to those fields in a CID-keyed font. The code has been
1926 contributed by Derek Clegg.
1928 - George Williams contributed code to validate the new `MATH'
1929 OpenType table (within the `otvalid' module). The `ftvalid'
1930 demo program has been extended accordingly.
1932 - An API for cmap 14 support (for Unicode Variant Selectors, UVS)
1933 has been contributed by George Williams.
1935 - A new face flag FT_FACE_FLAG_CID_KEYED has been added, together
1936 with a macro FT_IS_CID_KEYED which evaluates to 1 if the font is
1942 - Build support for symbian has been contributed.
1944 - Better WGL4 glyph name support, contributed by Sergey Tolstov.
1946 - Debugging output of the various FT_TRACEX macros is now sent to
1949 - The `ftview' demo program now provides artificial slanting too.
1951 - The `ftvalid' demo program has a new option `-f' to select the
1955 ======================================================================
1957 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.5 and 2.3.4
1959 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
1961 - Some subglyphs in TrueType fonts were handled incorrectly due to
1962 a missing graphics state reinitialization.
1964 - Large .Z files (as distributed with some X11 packages) weren't
1965 handled correctly, making FreeType increase the heap stack in an
1968 - A large number of bugs have been fixed to avoid crashes and
1969 endless loops with invalid fonts.
1972 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
1974 - The two new cache functions `FTC_ImageCache_LookupScaler' and
1975 `FTC_SBit_Cache_LookupScaler' have been added to allow lookup of
1976 glyphs using an `FTC_Scaler' object; this makes it possible to
1977 use fractional pixel sizes in the cache. The demo programs have
1978 been updated accordingly to use this feature.
1980 - A new API `FT_Get_CMap_Format' has been added to get the cmap
1981 format of a TrueType font. This is useful in handling PDF
1982 files. The code has been contributed by Derek Clegg.
1984 - The auto-hinter now produces better output by default for
1985 non-Latin scripts like Indic. This was done by using the CJK
1986 hinting module as the default instead of the Latin one. Thanks
1987 to Rahul Bhalerao for this suggestion.
1989 - A new API `FT_Face_CheckTrueTypePatents' has been added to find
1990 out whether a given TrueType font uses patented bytecode
1991 instructions. The `ft2demos' bundle contains a new program
1992 called `ftpatchk' which demonstrates its usage.
1994 - A new API `FT_Face_SetUnpatentedHinting' has been added to
1995 enable or disable the unpatented hinter.
1997 - Support for Windows FON files in PE format has been contributed
1998 by Dmitry Timoshkov.
2003 - Vincent Richomme contributed Visual C++ project files for Pocket
2007 ======================================================================
2009 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.4 and 2.3.3
2011 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2013 - A serious bug in the handling of bitmap fonts (and bitmap
2014 strikes of outline fonts) has been introduced in 2.3.3.
2017 ======================================================================
2019 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.3 and 2.3.2
2021 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2023 - Remove a serious regression in the TrueType bytecode interpreter
2024 that was introduced in version 2.3.2. Note that this does not
2025 disable the improvements introduced to the interpreter in
2026 version 2.3.2, only some ill cases that occurred with certain
2027 fonts (though a few popular ones).
2029 - The auto-hinter now ignores single-point contours for computing
2030 blue zones. This bug created `wavy' baselines when rendering
2031 text with various fonts that use these contours to model
2032 mark-attach points (these are points that are never rasterized
2033 and are placed outside of the glyph's real outline).
2035 - The `rsb_delta' and `lsb_delta' glyph slot fields are now set to
2036 zero for mono-spaced fonts. Otherwise code that uses them would
2037 essentially ruin the fixed-advance property.
2039 - Fix CVE-2007-1351 which can cause an integer overflow while
2040 parsing BDF fonts, leading to a potentially exploitable heap
2046 - Fixed compilation issues on some 64-bit platforms (see ChangeLog
2049 - A new demo program `ftdiff' has been added to compare TrueType
2050 hinting, FreeType's auto hinting, and rendering without hinting
2054 ======================================================================
2056 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.2 and 2.3.1
2058 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2060 - FreeType returned incorrect kerning information from TrueType
2061 fonts when the bytecode interpreter was enabled. This happened
2062 due to a typo introduced in version 2.3.0.
2064 - Negative kerning values from PFM files are now reported
2065 correctly (they were read as 16-bit unsigned values from the
2068 - Fixed a small memory leak when `FT_Init_FreeType' failed for
2071 - The Postscript hinter placed and sized very thin and ghost stems
2074 - The TrueType bytecode interpreter has been fixed to get rid of
2075 most of the rare differences seen in comparison to the Windows
2079 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2081 - The auto-hinter now better deals with serifs and corner cases
2082 (e.g., glyph '9' in Arial at 9pt, 96dpi). It also improves
2083 spacing adjustments and doesn't change widths for non-spacing
2086 - Many Mac-specific functions are deprecated (but still
2087 available); modern replacements have been provided for them.
2088 See the documentation in file `ftmac.h'.
2091 ======================================================================
2093 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.1 and 2.3.0
2095 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2097 - The TrueType interpreter sometimes returned incorrect horizontal
2098 metrics due to a bug in the handling of the SHZ instruction.
2100 - A typo in a security check introduced after version 2.2.1
2101 prevented FreeType to render some glyphs in CFF fonts.
2104 ======================================================================
2106 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.3.0 and 2.2.1
2108 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2110 - The PCF font loader is now much more robust while loading
2111 malformed font files.
2113 - Various memory leaks have been found and fixed.
2115 - The TrueType name loader now deals properly with some fonts that
2116 encode their names in UTF-16 (the specification was vague, and
2117 the code incorrectly assumed UCS-4).
2119 - Fixed the TrueType bytecode loader to deal properly with subtle
2120 monochrome/gray issues when scaling the CVT. Some fonts
2121 exhibited bad rendering artifacts otherwise.
2123 - `FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden' now supports vertical layouts correctly
2124 (it mangled the vertical advance height).
2126 - Fixed byte endian issues of `ftmac.c' to support Mac OS X on
2129 - The PFR font loader no longer erroneously tags font files
2130 without any outlines as FT_FACE_FLAG_SCALABLE.
2133 II. NEW API FUNCTIONS
2135 - `FT_Library_SetLcdFilter' allows you to select a special filter
2136 to be applied to the bitmaps generated by `FT_Render_Glyph' if
2137 one of the FT_RENDER_MODE_LCD and FT_RENDER_MODE_LCD_V modes has
2138 been selected. This filter is used to reduce color fringes;
2139 several settings are available through the FT_LCD_FILTER_XXX
2142 Its declaration and documentation can be found in file
2143 `include/freetype/ftlcdfil.h' (to be accessed with macro
2146 *IMPORTANT*: This function returns an error
2147 (FT_Err_Unimplemented_Feature) in default builds of the library
2148 for patent reasons. See below.
2150 - `FT_Get_Gasp' allows you to query the flags of the TrueType
2151 `gasp' table for a given character pixel size. This is useful
2152 to duplicate the text rendering of MS Windows when the native
2153 bytecode interpreter is enabled (which isn't the default for
2154 other patent reasons).
2156 Its declaration and documentation can be found in file
2157 `include/freetype/ftgasp.h' (to be accessed with macro
2161 III. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2163 - The auto-hinter has been tuned a lot to improve its results with
2164 serif fonts, resulting in much better font rendering of many web
2167 - The unpatented hinter is now part of the default build of the
2168 library; we have added code to automatically support `tricky'
2171 This means that FreeType should `just work' with certain Asian
2172 fonts, like MingLiU, which cannot properly be loaded without a
2173 bytecode interpreter, but which fortunately do not use any of
2174 the patented bytecode opcodes. We detect these fonts by name,
2175 so please report any font file that doesn't seem to work with
2176 FreeType, and we shall do what we can to support it in a next
2179 Note that the API hasn't changed, so you can still force
2180 unpatented hinting with a special parameter to `FT_Open_Face' as
2181 well. This might be useful in same cases; for example, a PDF
2182 reader might present a user option to activate it to deal with
2183 certain `tricky' embedded fonts which cannot be clearly
2186 If you are a developer for embedded systems, you might want to
2187 *disable* the feature to save code space by undefining
2188 TT_CONFIG_OPTION_UNPATENTED_HINTING in file `ftoption.h'.
2190 - LCD-optimized rendering is now *disabled* in all default builds
2191 of the library, mainly due to patent issues. For more
2194 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freetype/2006-09/msg00064.html
2196 A new configuration macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING
2197 has been introduced in `ftoption.h'; manually define it in this
2198 file if you want to re-enable the feature.
2200 The change only affects the implementation, not the FreeType
2201 API. This means that clients don't need to be modified, because
2202 the library still generates LCD decimated bitmaps, but with the
2203 added constraint that R=G=B on each triplet.
2205 The displayed result should be equal to normal anti-aliased
2208 Additionally, if FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING is not
2209 defined, the new `FT_Library_SetLcdFilter' function returns the
2210 FT_Err_Unimplemented_Feature error code.
2212 - Some computation bugs in the TrueType bytecode interpreter were
2213 found, which allow us to get rid of very subtle and rare
2214 differences we had experienced with the Windows renderer.
2216 - It is now possible to cross-compile the library easily. See the
2217 file `docs/INSTALL.CROSS' for details.
2219 - The file `src/base/ftmac.c' now contains code for Mac OS X only;
2220 its deprecated function `FT_GetFile_From_Mac_Font_Name' always
2221 returns an error even if the QuickDraw framework is available.
2222 The previous version has been moved to `builds/mac/ftmac.c'.
2224 Selecting configure option `--with-quickdraw-carbon' makes the
2225 build process use the original `ftmac.c' file instead of the Mac
2231 - Various performance and memory footprint optimizations have been
2232 performed on the TrueType and CFF font loaders, sometimes with
2233 very drastic benefits (e.g., the TrueType loader is now about
2234 25% faster; FreeType should use less heap memory under nearly
2237 - The anti-aliased rasterizer has been optimized and is now 15% to
2238 25% percent faster than in previous versions, depending on
2241 - The Type 1 loader has been improved; as an example, it now skips
2242 top-level dictionaries properly.
2244 - Better support for Mac fonts on POSIX systems, plus compilation
2245 fixes for Mac OS X on ppc64 where `ftmac.c' cannot be built.
2247 - Configuration without `--with-old-mac-fonts' does not include
2248 `ftmac.c' (this was the behaviour in FreeType version 2.1.10).
2250 - The TrueTypeGX validator (gxvalid) checks the order of glyph IDs
2254 ======================================================================
2256 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.2.1 and 2.2
2258 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2260 - Various integer overflows have been fixed.
2262 - PFB fonts with MacOS resource fork weren't handled correctly on
2263 non-MacOS platforms.
2266 ======================================================================
2268 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.2 and 2.1.10
2270 (not released officially)
2272 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2274 - Vertical metrics for SFNT fonts were incorrect sometimes.
2276 - The FT_HAS_KERNING macro always returned 0.
2278 - CFF OpenType fonts didn't return correct vertical metrics for
2279 glyphs with outlines.
2281 - If FreeType was compiled without hinters, all font formats based
2282 on PS outlines weren't scaled correctly.
2285 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2287 - Version 2.2 no longer exposes its internals, this is, the header
2288 files located in the `include/freetype/internal' directory of
2289 the source package are not copied anymore by the `make install'
2290 command. Consequently, a number of rogue clients which directly
2291 access FreeType's internal functions and structures won't
2292 compile without modification.
2294 We provide patches for most of those rogue clients. See the
2295 following page for more information:
2297 https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/patches/rogue-patches.html
2299 Note that, as a convenience to our Unix desktop users, version
2300 2.2 is *binary* compatible with FreeType 2.1.7, which means that
2301 installing this release on an existing distribution shall not
2302 break any working desktop.
2304 - FreeType's build mechanism has been redesigned. With GNU make
2305 it is now sufficient in most cases to edit two files:
2306 `modules.cfg', to select the library components, and the
2307 configuration file `include/freetype/config/ftoption.h' (which
2308 can be copied to the objects directory). Removing unused module
2309 directories to prevent its compilation and editing
2310 `include/freetype/config/ftmodule.h' is no longer necessary.
2312 - The LIGHT hinting algorithm produces more pleasant results.
2313 Also, using the FT_LOAD_TARGET_LIGHT flags within FT_Load_Glyph
2314 always forces auto-hinting, as a special exception. This allows
2315 you to experiment with it even if you have enabled the TrueType
2316 bytecode interpreter in your build.
2318 - The auto hinter now employs a new algorithm for CJK fonts, based
2319 on Akito Hirai's patch. Note that this only works for fonts
2320 with a Unicode charmap at the moment.
2322 - The following callback function types have changed slightly (by
2323 adding the `const' keyword where appropriate):
2325 FT_Outline_MoveToFunc
2326 FT_Outline_LineToFunc
2327 FT_Outline_ConicToFunc
2328 FT_Outline_CubicToFunc
2330 FT_Raster_RenderFunc
2332 FT_Glyph_TransformFunc
2333 FT_Renderer_RenderFunc
2334 FT_Renderer_TransformFunc
2336 Note that this doesn't affect binary backward compatibility.
2338 - On MacOS, new APIs have been added as replacements for legacy
2339 APIs: `FT_New_Face_From_FSRef' for `FT_New_Face_From_FSSpec',
2340 and `FT_GetFile_From_Mac_ATS_Name' for
2341 `FT_GetFile_From_Mac_Name'. Legacy APIs are still available, if
2342 FreeType is built without disabling them.
2344 - A new API `FT_Select_Size' has been added to select a bitmap
2345 strike by its index. Code using other functions to select
2346 bitmap strikes should be updated to use this function.
2348 - A new API `FT_Get_SubGlyph_Info' has been added to retrieve
2349 subglyph data. This can be used by rogue clients which used to
2350 access the internal headers to get the corresponding data.
2352 - In 2.1.10, the behaviour of `FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes' was changed for
2353 BDF/PCF fonts, and only for them. This causes inconsistency.
2354 In this release, we undo the change. The intent of the change
2355 in 2.1.10 is to allow size selection through real dimensions,
2356 which can now be done through `FT_Request_Size'.
2358 - Some security issues were discovered and fixed in the CFF and
2359 Type 1 loader, causing crashes of FreeType by malformed font
2365 - The documentation for FT_LOAD_TARGET_XXX and FT_RENDER_MODE_XXX
2366 values now better reflects its usage and differences: One set is
2367 used to specify the hinting algorithm, the other to specify the
2368 pixel rendering mode.
2370 - `FT_New_Face' and `FT_New_Face_From_FSSpec' in ftmac.c have been
2371 changed to count supported scalable faces (sfnt, LWFN) only, and
2372 to return the number of available faces via face->num_faces.
2373 Unsupported bitmap faces (fbit, NFNT) are ignored.
2375 - builds/unix/configure has been improved for MacOS X. It now
2376 automatically checks available functions in Carbon library, and
2377 prepare to use newest functions by default. Options to specify
2378 the dependencies of each Carbon APIs (FSSpec, FSRef, old/new
2379 QuickDraw, ATS) are available too. By manual disabling of all
2380 QuickDraw functionality, FreeType can be built without
2381 `deprecated function' warnings on MacOS 10.4.x, but
2382 FT_GetFile_Mac_Name in ftmac.c then is changed to a dummy
2383 function, and returns an `unimplemented' error. For details see
2386 - SFNT cmap handling has been improved, mainly to run much faster
2389 - A new function `FT_Get_TrueType_Engine_Type (declared in
2390 `FT_MODULE_H') is provided to determine the status of the
2391 TrueType bytecode interpreter compiled into the library
2392 (patented, unpatented, unimplemented).
2394 - Vertical metrics of glyphs are synthesized if the font does not
2395 provide such information. You can tell whether the metrics are
2396 synthesized or not by checking the FT_FACE_FLAG_VERTICAL flag of
2399 - The demo programs `ftview' and `ftstring' have been rewritten
2400 for better readability. `ftview' has a new switch `-p' to test
2401 FT_New_Memory_Face (instead of FT_New_Face).
2403 - FreeType now honours bit 1 in the `head' table of TrueType fonts
2404 (meaning `left sidebearing point at x=0'). This helps with some
2407 - Rudimentary support for Adobe's new `SING Glyphlet' format. See
2409 https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/font/pdfs/5148.SING_Tutorial.pdf
2411 for more information.
2413 - The `ftdump' program from the `ft2demos' bundle now shows some
2414 information about charmaps. It also supports a new switch `-v'
2415 to increase verbosity.
2417 - Better AFM support. This includes track kerning support.
2420 ======================================================================
2422 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.10 and 2.1.9
2424 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2426 - The size comparison for BDF and PCF files could fail sometimes.
2428 - Some CFF files were still not loaded correctly. Patch from
2431 - The stroker still had some serious bugs.
2433 - Boris Letocha fixed a bug in the TrueType interpreter: The
2434 NPUSHW instruction wasn't skipped correctly in IF clauses. Some
2435 fonts like `Helvetica 75 Bold' failed.
2437 - Another serious bug in handling TrueType hints caused many
2438 distortions. It has been introduced in version 2.1.8, and it is
2439 highly recommended to upgrade.
2441 - FreeType didn't properly parse empty Type 1 glyphs.
2443 - An unbound dynamic buffer growth was fixed in the PFR loader.
2445 - Several bugs have been fixed in the cache sub-system.
2447 - FreeType behaved incorrectly when resizing two distinct but very
2448 close character pixel sizes through `FT_Set_Char_Size' (Savannah
2451 - The auto-hinter didn't work properly for fonts without a Unicode
2452 charmap -- it even refused to load the glyphs.
2455 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2457 - Many fixes have been applied to drastically reduce the amount of
2458 heap memory used by FreeType, especially when using
2459 memory-mapped font files (which is the default on Unix systems
2460 which support them).
2462 - The auto-hinter has been replaced with a new module, called the
2463 `auto-fitter'. It consumes less memory than its predecessor,
2464 and it is prepared to support non-latin scripts better in next
2467 - George Williams contributed code to read kerning data from PFM
2470 - FreeType now uses the TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_FAMILY and
2471 TT_NAME_ID_PREFERRED_SUBFAMILY strings (if available) for
2472 setting family and style in SFNT fonts (patch from Kornfeld
2475 - A new API `FT_Sfnt_Table_Info' (in FT_TRUETYPE_TABLES_H) has
2476 been added to retrieve name and size information of SFNT tables.
2478 - A new API `FT_OpenType_Validate' (in FT_OPENTYPE_VALIDATE_H) has
2479 been added to validate OpenType tables (BASE, GDEF, GPOS, GSUB,
2480 JSTF). After validation it is no longer necessary to check
2481 for errors in those tables while accessing them.
2483 Note that this module might be moved to another library in the
2484 future to avoid a tight dependency between FreeType and the
2485 OpenType specification.
2487 - A new API in FT_BITMAP_H (`FT_Bitmap_New', `FT_Bitmap_Convert',
2488 `FT_Bitmap_Copy', `FT_Bitmap_Embolden', `FT_Bitmap_Done') has
2489 been added. Its use is to convert an FT_Bitmap structure in
2490 1bpp, 2bpp, 4bpp, or 8bpp format into another 8bpp FT_Bitmap,
2491 probably using a different pitch, and to further manipulate it.
2493 - A new API `FT_Outline_Embolden' (in FT_OUTLINE_H) gives finer
2494 control how outlines are emboldened.
2496 - `FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden' (in FT_SYNTHESIS_H) now handles bitmaps
2497 also (code contributed by Chia I Wu). Note that this function
2498 is still experimental and may be replaced with a better API.
2500 - The method how BDF and PCF bitmap fonts are accessed has been
2501 refined. Formerly, FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes and FT_Set_Char_Size
2502 were synonyms in FreeType's BDF and PCF interface. This has
2503 changed now. FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes should be used to select the
2504 actual font dimensions (the `strike', which is the sum of the
2505 `FONT_ASCENT' and `FONT_DESCENT' properties), while
2506 FT_Set_Char_Size selects the `nominal' size (the `PIXELSIZE'
2507 property). In both functions, the width parameter is ignored.
2512 - The BDF driver no longer converts all returned bitmaps with a
2513 depth of 2bpp or 4bpp to a depth of 8bpp. The documentation has
2514 not mentioned this explicitly, but implementors might have
2515 relied on this after looking into the source files.
2517 - A new option `--ftversion' has been added to freetype-config to
2518 return the FreeType version.
2520 - The memory debugger has been updated to dump allocation
2521 statistics on all allocation sources in the library. This is
2522 useful to spot greedy allocations when loading and processing
2525 - We removed a huge array of constant pointers to constant strings
2526 in the `psnames' module. The problem was that compilations in
2527 PIC mode (i.e., when generating a Unix shared object/dll) put
2528 the array into the non-shared writable section of the library
2529 since absolute pointers are not relocatable by nature.
2531 This reduces the memory consumption by approximately 16KByte per
2532 process linked to FreeType. We now also store the array in a
2533 compressed form (as a trie) which saves about 20KByte of code as
2536 - Kirill Smelkov provided patches to make src/raster/ftraster.c
2537 compile stand-alone again.
2540 ======================================================================
2542 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.9 and 2.1.8
2544 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2546 - The function `FT_Get_CharMap_Index' was only declared, without
2547 any real code. For consistency, it has been renamed to
2548 `FT_Get_Charmap_Index'. (This function is needed to implement
2551 - `FT_Outline_Get_BBox' sometimes returned incorrect values for
2552 conic outlines (e.g., for TrueType fonts).
2554 - Handling of `bhed' table has been fixed.
2556 - The TrueType driver with enabled byte code interpreter sometimes
2557 returned artifacts due to incorrect rounding. This bug has been
2558 introduced after version 2.1.4.
2560 - The BDF driver dropped the last glyph in the font.
2562 - The BDF driver now uses the DEFAULT_CHAR property (if available)
2563 to select a glyph shape for the undefined glyph.
2565 - The stroker failed for closed outlines and single points.
2568 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2570 - George Williams contributed code to handle Apple's font
2571 distortion technology found in GX fonts (`avar', `cvar', `fvar',
2572 and `gvar' tables; the Multiple Masters API has been slightly
2573 extended to cope with the new functionality).
2575 - The `FT_GlyphSlotRec' structure has been extended: The elements
2576 `lsb_delta' and `rsb_delta' give the difference between hinted
2577 and unhinted left and right side bearings if autohinting is
2578 active. Using those values can improve the inter-letter spacing
2579 considerably. See the documentation of `FT_GlyphSlotRec' and
2580 the `ftstring' demo program how to use it.
2582 - Loading TrueType and Type 1 fonts has been made much faster.
2584 - The stroker is no longer experimental (but the cache subsystem
2590 - A new documentation file `formats.txt' describes various font
2591 formats supported (and not supported) by FreeType.
2594 ======================================================================
2596 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.8 and 2.1.7
2598 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2600 - The native TrueType hinter contained some bugs which prevented
2601 some fonts to be rendered correctly, most notably Legendum.otf.
2603 - The PostScript hinter now produces improved results.
2605 - The linear advance width and height values were incorrectly
2606 rounded, making them virtually unusable if not loaded with
2607 FT_LOAD_LINEAR_DESIGN.
2609 - Indexing CID-keyed CFF fonts is now working: The glyph index is
2610 correctly treated as a CID, similar to FreeType's CID driver
2611 module. Note that CID CMap support is still missing.
2613 - The FT_FACE_FLAG_GLYPH_NAMES flag is now set correctly for all
2616 - Some subsetted Type 1 fonts weren't parsed correctly. This bug
2617 has been introduced in 2.1.7. In summary, the Type 1 parser has
2620 - Non-decimal numbers weren't parsed correctly in PS fonts.
2622 - The WinFNT driver now correctly reports FT_ENCODING_NONE for all
2623 but one encoding. Use the new FT_WinFNT_ID_XXX values together
2624 with `FT_Get_WinFNT_Header' to get the WinFNT charset ID.
2626 - The descender metrics (face->size->metrics.descender) for WinFNT
2627 bitmap fonts had the wrong sign.
2629 - The (emulated) `seac' support for CFF fonts was broken.
2631 - The `flex' operator didn't work for CFF fonts.
2633 - PS glyphs which use the `hintmask' operator haven't been
2634 rendered correctly in some cases.
2636 - Metrics for BDF and PCF bitmap font formats have been fixed.
2638 - Autohinting is now disabled for glyphs which are vertically
2639 distorted or mirrored (using a transformation matrix). This
2640 fixes a bug which produced zero-height glyphs.
2642 - The `freetype-config' script now handles --prefix and
2643 --exec-prefix correctly; it also returns the proper --rpath (or
2644 -R) value if FreeType has been built as a shared library.
2647 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2649 - Both PCF and BDF drivers now handle the SETWIDTH_NAME and
2650 ADD_STYLE_NAME properties. Values are appended to
2651 face->style_name; example: `Bold SemiCondensed'.
2653 - The PCF driver now handles bitmap fonts compressed with the LZW
2654 algorithm (extension .pcf.Z, compressed with `compress').
2656 - A new API function `FT_Get_CMap_Language_ID' (declared in
2657 `tttables.h') is available to get the language ID of a
2660 - The hexadecimal format of data after the `StartData' command in
2661 CID-keyed Type 1 fonts is now supported. While this can't occur
2662 in file-based fonts, it can happen in document-embedded
2663 resources of PostScript documents.
2665 - Embedded bitmaps in SFNT-based CFF fonts are now supported.
2667 - A simple API is now available to control FreeType's tracing
2668 mechanism if compiled with FT_DEBUG_LEVEL_TRACE. See the file
2669 `ftdebug.h' for more details.
2671 - YAMATO Masatake contributed improved handling of MacOS resource
2672 forks on non-MacOS platforms (for example, Linux can mount MacOS
2675 - Support for MacOS has been improved; there is now a new function
2676 `FT_New_Face_From_FSSpec' similar to `FT_New_Face' except that
2677 it accepts an FSSpec instead of a path.
2679 - The cache sub-system has been rewritten.
2681 - There is now support for deinstallation of faces.
2683 - A new API function `FTC_Manager_RemoveFaceID' has been added
2684 to delete all `idle' nodes that correspond to a given
2685 FTC_FaceID. All `locked' nodes (i.e., those with a reference
2686 count > 0), will be modified to prevent them from appearing in
2687 further lookups (they will be cleaned normally when their
2688 reference count reaches 0).
2690 - There is now support for point scaling (i.e., providing
2691 character sizes in points + dpis, instead of pixels).
2693 - Three abstract cache classes are now available:
2695 FTC_GCache: Used to store one glyph item per cache node,
2696 with the ability to group common attributes into
2697 `families'. This replaces the old
2698 FTC_GlyphCache class.
2700 FTC_ICache: Used to store one FT_Glyph per cache node. This
2701 extends FTC_GCache. Family definition, family
2702 comparison, and glyph loading are however left
2705 FTC_SCache: Used to store up to 16 small bitmaps per cache
2706 node. This extends FTC_GCache. Family
2707 definition, family comparison and glyph loading
2708 are however left to sub-classes.
2710 - The file `src/cache/ftcbasic.c' implements:
2712 FTC_ImageCache: Extends FTC_ICache; implements family
2713 definitions and glyph loading similar to the
2716 FTC_SBitCache: Extends FTC_SCache, implements family
2717 definitions and glyph loading similar to the
2720 Client applications should be able to extend FTC_GCache,
2721 FTC_ICache, or FTC_SCache much more easily (i.e., less code to
2722 write, and less callbacks). For example, one could envision
2723 caches that are capable of storing transformed (obliqued),
2724 stroked, emboldened, or colored glyph images. Use
2725 `ftcbasic.c' as an example.
2727 - All public APIs are now in `include/freetype/ftcache.h', (to
2728 be accessed as `FT_CACHE_H'). The contents of
2729 `include/freetype/cache/' is only needed by applications that
2730 wish to implement their own caches.
2732 - There were some major performance improvements through the use
2733 of various programming tricks. Cache hits are up to 70%
2734 faster than in the old code.
2736 - The FTC_CMapCache has been simplified. Charmaps can only be
2737 accessed by index right now. There is also a new API named
2738 `FT_Charmap_GetIndex' for this purpose.
2740 - The demo programs have been updated to the new code. The
2741 previous versions will not work with the current one.
2743 - Using an invalid face index in FT_Open_Face and friends now
2744 causes an error even if the font contains a single face only.
2749 - Wolfgang Domröse contributed support files for building FreeType
2750 on the Atari using the PureC compiler. Note that the Atari is a
2753 - Vitaliy Pasternak contributed project files for VS.NET 2003.
2756 ======================================================================
2758 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.7 and 2.1.6
2760 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2762 - Updated to newest libtool version, fixing build problems on
2765 - On Unix platforms, `make install' didn't copy the correct
2768 Note that version 2.1.7 contains the same library C source code as
2772 ======================================================================
2774 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.6 and 2.1.5
2776 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2778 - The PFR font driver didn't load kerning tables correctly, and
2779 the functions in FT_PFR_H didn't work at all.
2781 - Type 1 font files in binary format (PFB) with an end-of-file
2782 indicator weren't accepted by the FreeType engine.
2784 - Fonts which contain /PaintType and /StrokeWidth no longer cause
2785 a segfault. This bug has been introduced in version 2.1.5.
2787 - Fonts loaded with FT_LOAD_RENDER no longer cause strange
2788 results. This bug has been introduced in version 2.1.5.
2790 - Some Windows (bitmap) FNT/FON files couldn't be handled
2794 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2796 - The internal module API has been heavily changed in favor of
2797 massive simplifications within the font engine. This also means
2798 that authors of third-party modules must adapt their code to the
2801 NOTE: THE NEW SCHEME IS NOT COMPLETED YET. PLEASE WAIT UNTIL A
2804 - The PostScript parser has been enhanced to handle comments and
2805 strings correctly. Additionally, more syntax forms are
2808 - Added the optional unpatented hinting system for TrueType. It
2809 allows typefaces which need hinting to produce correct glyph
2810 forms (e.g., Chinese typefaces from Dynalab) to work acceptably
2811 without infringing Apple patents. This system is compiled only
2812 if TT_CONFIG_OPTION_COMPILE_UNPATENTED_HINTING is defined in
2813 ftoption.h (activated by default).
2818 - There is now a guard in the public header files to protect
2819 against inclusion of freetype.h from FreeType 1.
2821 - Direct inclusion of freetype.h and other public header files no
2822 longer works. You have to use the documented scheme
2824 #include <ft2build.h>
2825 #include FT_FREETYPE_H
2827 to load freetype.h with a symbolic name. This protects against
2828 renaming of public header files (which shouldn't happen but
2829 actually has, avoiding two public header files with the same
2833 ======================================================================
2835 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.5 and 2.1.4
2837 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2839 - Parsing the /CIDFontName field now removes the leading slash to
2840 be in sync with other font drivers.
2842 - gzip support was buggy. Some fonts could not be read.
2844 - Fonts which have nested subglyphs more than one level deep no
2845 longer cause a segfault.
2847 - Creation of synthetic cmaps for fonts in CFF format was broken
2850 - Numeric font dictionary entries for synthetic fonts are no
2853 - The font matrix wasn't applied to the advance width for Type1,
2854 CID, and CFF fonts. This caused problems when loading certain
2855 synthetic Type 1 fonts like `Helvetica Narrow'.
2857 - The test for the charset registry in BDF and PCF fonts is now
2860 - FT_Vector_Rotate sometimes returned strange values due to
2863 - The PCF driver now returns the correct number of glyphs
2864 (including an artificial `notdef' glyph at index 0).
2866 - FreeType now supports buggy CMaps which are contained in many
2867 CJK fonts from Dynalab.
2869 - Opening an invalid font on a Mac caused a segfault due to
2870 double-freeing memory.
2872 - BDF fonts with more than 32768 glyphs weren't supported
2876 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2878 - Accessing bitmap font formats has been synchronized. To do that
2879 the FT_Bitmap_Size structure has been extended to contain new
2880 fields `size', `x_ppem', and `y_ppem'.
2882 - The FNT driver now returns multiple faces, not multiple strikes.
2884 - The `psnames' module has been updated to the Adobe Glyph List
2887 - The `psnames' module now understands `uXXXX[X[X]]' glyph names.
2889 - The algorithm for guessing the font style has been improved.
2891 - For fonts in SFNT format, root->height is no longer increased if
2892 the line gap is zero. There exist fonts (containing e.g. form
2893 drawing characters) which intentionally have a zero line gap
2896 - ft_glyph_bbox_xxx flags are now deprecated in favour of
2899 - ft_module_xxx flags are now deprecated in favour of
2902 - FT_ENCODING_MS_{SJIS,GB2312,BIG5,WANSUNG,JOHAB} are now
2903 deprecated in favour of
2904 FT_ENCODING_{SJIS,GB2312,BIG5,WANSUNG,JOHAB} -- those encodings
2905 are not specific to Microsoft.
2910 - The autohinter has been further improved; for example, `m'
2911 glyphs now retain its vertical symmetry.
2913 - Partial support of Mac fonts on non-Mac platforms.
2915 - `make refdoc' (after first `make') builds the HTML
2916 documentation. You need Python for this.
2918 - The make build system should now work more reliably on DOS-like
2921 - Support for EMX gcc and Watson C/C++ compilers on MS-DOS has
2924 - Better VMS build support.
2926 - Support for the pkg-config package by providing a `freetype.pc'
2929 - New configure option --with-old-mac-fonts for Darwin.
2931 - Some source files have been renamed (mainly to fit into the 8.3
2935 ======================================================================
2937 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.4 and 2.1.3
2939 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
2941 - Updated to newest libtool version, fixing build problems on
2944 - A fix in the Gzip stream reader: It couldn't read certain .gz
2945 files properly due to a small typo. In certain cases, FreeType
2946 could also loop endlessly when trying to load tiny gzipped
2949 - The configure script now tries to use the system-wide zlib when
2950 it finds one (instead of the copy found in src/gzip). And
2951 `freetype-config' has been updated to return relevant flags in
2952 this case when invoked with `--libs' (e.g. `-lzlib').
2954 - Certain fonts couldn't be loaded by 2.1.3 because they lacked a
2955 Unicode charmap (e.g. SYMBOL.TTF). FreeType erroneously
2958 - The CFF loader was modified to accept fonts which only contain a
2959 subset of their reference charset. This prevented the correct
2960 use of PDF-embedded fonts.
2962 - The logic to detect Unicode charmaps has been modified. This is
2963 required to support fonts which include both 16-bit and 32-bit
2964 charmaps (like very recent asian ones) using the new 10 and 12
2967 - The TrueType loader now limits the depth of composite glyphs.
2968 This is necessary to prevent broken fonts to break the engine by
2969 blowing the stack with recursive glyph definitions.
2971 - The CMap cache is now capable of managing UCS-4 character codes
2972 that are mapped through extended charmaps in recent
2973 TrueType/OpenType fonts.
2975 - The cache sub-system now properly manages out-of-memory
2976 conditions instead of blindly reporting them to the caller.
2977 This means that it will try to empty the cache before restarting
2978 its allocations to see if that can help.
2980 - The PFR driver didn't return the list of available embedded
2983 - There was a nasty memory leak when using embedded bitmaps in
2984 certain font formats.
2987 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
2989 - David Chester contributed some enhancements to the auto-hinter
2990 that significantly increase the quality of its output. The
2991 Postscript hinter was also improved in several ways.
2993 - The FT_RENDER_MODE_LIGHT render mode was implemented.
2995 - A new API function called `FT_Get_BDF_Property' has been added
2996 to FT_BDF_H to retrieve BDF properties from BDF _and_ PCF font
2997 files. THIS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL, since it hasn't been
2998 properly tested yet.
3000 - A Windows FNT specific API has been added, mostly to access font
3001 headers. This is used by Wine.
3003 - TrueType tables without an `hmtx' table are now tolerated when
3004 an incremental interface is used. This happens for certain
3005 Type42 fonts passed from Ghostscript to FreeType.
3007 - The PFR font driver is now capable of returning the font family
3008 and style names when they are available (instead of the sole
3009 `FontID'). This is performed by parsing an *undocumented*
3010 portion of the font file!
3015 - The path stroker in FT_STROKER_H has entered beta stage. It now
3016 works very well, but its interface might change a bit in the
3017 future. More on this in later releases.
3019 - The documentation for FT_Size_Metrics didn't appear properly in
3022 - The file docs/VERSION.DLL has been updated to explain versioning
3023 with FreeType (i.e., comparing release/libtool/so numbers, and
3024 how to use them in autoconf scripts).
3026 - The installation documentation has been seriously revamped.
3027 Everything is now in the `docs' directory.
3030 ======================================================================
3032 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.3 and 2.1.2
3034 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3036 - FT_Vector_Transform had been incorrectly modified in 2.1.2,
3037 resulting in incorrect transformations being applied (for
3038 example, rotations were processed in opposite angles).
3040 - The format 8 and 12 TrueType charmap enumeration routines have
3041 been fixed (FT_Get_Next_Char returned invalid values).
3043 - The PFR font driver returned incorrect advance widths if the
3044 outline and metrics resolution defined in the font file were
3047 - FT_Glyph_To_Bitmap now returns successfully when called with an
3048 FT_BitmapGlyph argument (it previously returned an error).
3050 - A bug in the Type 1 loader that prevented valid font bounding
3051 boxes to be loaded from multiple master fonts.
3053 - The SFNT validation code has been rewritten. FreeType can now
3054 load `broken' fonts that were usable on Windows, but not with
3055 previous versions of the library.
3057 - The computation of bearings in the BDF driver has been fixed.
3059 - The Postscript hinter crashed when trying to hint certain glyphs
3060 (more precisely, when trying to apply hints to an empty glyph
3063 - The TrueType glyph loader now supports composites in `Apple
3064 format' (they differ slightly from Microsoft/OpenType ones in
3065 the way transformation offsets are computed).
3067 - FreeType was very slow at opening certain asian CID/CFF fonts,
3068 due to fixed increment in dynamic array re-allocations. This
3069 has been changed to exponential behaviour to get acceptable
3074 II. IMPORTANT CHANGES
3076 - The PCF driver now supports gzip-compressed font files natively.
3077 This means that you will be able to use all these bitmap fonts
3078 that come with XFree86 with FreeType (and libXft/libXft2, by
3081 - The automatic and postscript hinters have both been updated.
3082 This results in a relatively important increase of rendering
3083 quality since many nasty defaults have been suppressed. Please
3086 https://www.freetype.org/hinting/smooth-hinting.html
3088 for additional details on this topic.
3090 - The `load_flags' parameter of `FT_Load_Glyph' is now an FT_Int32
3091 (instead of just being an FT_Int). This breaks source and
3092 binary compatibility for 16bit systems only, while retaining
3093 both of them for 32 and 64 bit ones.
3095 Some new flags have been added consequently:
3097 FT_LOAD_NO_AUTOHINT :: Disable the use of the auto-hinter
3098 (but not native format hinters).
3100 FT_LOAD_TARGET_NORMAL :: Hint and render for normal
3101 anti-aliased displays.
3103 FT_LOAD_TARGET_MONO :: Hint and render for 1-bit displays.
3105 FT_LOAD_TARGET_LCD :: Hint and render for horizontal RGB or
3106 BGR subpixel displays (like LCD
3107 screens). THIS IS STILL
3110 FT_LOAD_TARGET_LCD_V :: Same as FT_LOAD_TARGET_LCD, for
3111 vertical subpixel displays (like
3112 rotated LCD screens). THIS IS STILL
3115 FT_LOAD_MONOCHROME is still supported, but only affects
3116 rendering, not the hinting.
3118 Note that the `ftview' demo program available in the `ft2demos'
3119 package has been updated to support LCD-optimized display on
3120 non-paletted displays (under Win32 and X11).
3122 - The PFR driver now supports embedded bitmaps (all formats
3123 supported), and returns correct kerning metrics for all glyphs.
3125 - The TrueType charmap loader now supports certain `broken' fonts
3126 that load under Windows without problems.
3128 - The cache API has been slightly modified (it's still a beta!):
3130 - The type FTC_ImageDesc has been removed; it is now replaced
3131 by FTC_ImageTypeRec. Note that one of its fields is a
3132 `load_flag' parameter for FT_Load_Glyph.
3134 - The field `num_grays' of FT_SBitRec has been changed to
3135 `max_grays' in order to fit within a single byte. Its
3136 maximum value is thus 255 (instead of 256 as previously).
3141 - Added support for the DESTDIR variable during `make install'.
3142 This simplifies packaging of FreeType.
3144 - Included modified copies of the ZLib sources in `src/gzip' in
3145 order to support gzip-compressed PCF fonts. We do not use the
3146 system-provided zlib for now, though this is a probable
3147 enhancement for future releases.
3149 - The DocMaker tool used to generate the on-line API reference has
3150 been completely rewritten. It is now located in
3151 `src/tools/docmaker/docmaker.py'. Features:
3153 - better cross-referenced output
3154 - more polished output
3155 - uses Python regular expressions (though it didn't speed the
3157 - much more modular structure, which allows for different
3158 `backends' in order to generate HTML, XML, or whatever
3161 One can regenerate the API reference by calling:
3163 python src/tools/docmaker/docmaker.py \
3165 --title=FreeType-2.1.3 \
3166 --output=<outputdirectory>
3167 include/freetype/*.h \
3168 include/freetype/config/*.h \
3169 include/freetype/cache/*.h
3171 - A new, experimental, support for incremental font loading (i.e.,
3172 loading of fonts where the glyphs are not in the font file
3173 itself, but provided by an external component, like a Postscript
3174 interpreter) has been added by Graham Asher. This is still work
3175 in progress, however.
3177 - A new, EXPERIMENTAL, path stroker has been added. It doesn't
3178 suffer from severe rounding errors and treat bezier arcs
3179 directly. Still work in progress (i.e. not part of the official
3180 API). See the file <freetype/ftstroker.h> for some of the
3183 - The massive re-formatting of sources and internal re-design is
3184 still under-way. Many internal functions, constants, and types
3188 ======================================================================
3190 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.2 and 2.1.1
3192 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3194 - Many font drivers didn't select a Unicode charmap by default
3195 when a new face was opened (with the FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_CMAPS
3196 options enabled), causing many applications to not be able to
3197 display text correctly with the 2.1.x releases.
3199 - The PFR driver had a bug in its composite loading code that
3200 produces incorrectly placed accents with many fonts.
3202 - The Type42 driver crashed sometimes due to a nasty bug.
3204 - The Type 1 custom encoding charmap didn't handle the case where
3205 the first glyph index wasn't 0.
3207 - A serious typo in the TrueType composite loader produced
3208 incorrectly placed glyphs in fonts like `Wingdings' and a few
3214 - The Win32 Visual C++ project file has been updated to include
3215 the PFR driver as well.
3217 - `freetype.m4' is now installed by default by `make install' on
3220 - The function FT_Get_PS_Font_Info now works with CID and Type42
3224 ======================================================================
3226 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.1 and 2.1.0
3228 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3230 - The `version_info' returned by `freetype-config' in 2.1.0
3231 returned an invalid value. It now returns 9:1:3 (2.0.9 returned
3234 - Version 2.1.0 couldn't be linked against applications on Win32
3235 and Amiga systems due to a new debug function that wasn't
3236 properly propagated to the system-specific directory in
3239 - Various MacOS and Mac OS X specific fixes.
3241 - Fixed a bug in the TrueType charmap validation routines that
3242 made version 2.1.0 too restrictive -- many popular fonts have
3245 - There was still a very small difference between the monochrome
3246 glyph bitmaps produced by FreeType 1.x and FreeType 2.x with the
3247 bytecode interpreter enabled. This was caused by an invalid
3248 flag setting in the TrueType glyph loader, making the rasterizer
3249 change its drop-out control mode. Now the results should
3250 _really_ be completely identical.
3252 - The TrueType name table loader has been improved to support many
3253 popular though buggy Asian fonts. It now ignores empty name
3254 entries, invalid pointer offsets and a few other incorrect
3255 subtleties. Moreover, name strings are now loaded on demand,
3256 which reduces the memory load of many faces (e.g. the ARIAL.TTF
3257 font file contains a 10kByte name table with 70 names).
3259 - Fixed a bug in the Postscript hinter that prevented family blues
3260 substitution to happen correctly.
3265 - Three new font drivers in this release:
3267 * A BDF font driver, contributed by Franco Zappa Nardelli,
3268 heavily modified by Werner Lemberg. It also supports
3269 anti-aliased bitmaps (using a slightly extended BDF format).
3271 * A Type42 font driver, contributed by Roberto Alameda. It is
3272 still experimental but seems to work relatively well.
3274 * A PFR font driver, contributed by David Turner himself. It
3275 doesn't support PFR hinting -- note that BitStream has at
3276 least two patents on this format!
3281 - The cache sub-system has been optimized in important ways.
3282 Cache hits are now significantly faster. For example, using the
3283 CMap cache is about twice faster than calling FT_Get_Char_Index
3284 on most platforms. Similarly, using an SBit cache is about five
3285 times faster than loading the bitmaps from a bitmap file, and
3286 300 to 500 times faster than generating them from a scalable
3289 Note that you should recompile your sources if you designed a
3290 custom cache class for the FT2 Cache subsystem, since the
3291 changes performed are source, but not binary, compatible.
3294 ======================================================================
3296 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.1.0 and 2.0.9
3298 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3300 - The TrueType bytecode interpreter has been fixed to produce
3301 _exactly_ the same output as FreeType 1.x. Previous differences
3302 were due to slightly distinct fixed-point computation routines
3303 used to perform dot products and vector length measurements.
3305 It seems that native TrueType hinting is _extremely_ sensitive
3306 to rounding errors. The required vector computation routines
3307 have been optimized and placed within the `ttinterp.c' file.
3309 - Fixed the parsing of accelerator tables in the PCF font driver.
3311 - Fixed the Type1 glyph loader routine used to compute the font's
3312 maximum advance width.
3317 - The `configure' script used on Unix systems has been modified to
3318 check that GNU Make is being used to build the library.
3319 Otherwise, it will display a message proposing to use the
3320 GNUMAKE environment variable to name it.
3322 The Unix-specific file README.UNX has been modified accordingly.
3327 - The FreeType License in `docs/FTL.TXT' has been updated to
3328 include a proposed preferred disclaimer. If you are using
3329 FreeType in your products, you are encouraged (but not mandated)
3330 to use the following text in your documentation:
3333 Portions of this software are copyright © 1996-2002 The
3334 FreeType Project (www.freetype.org). All rights reserved.
3337 - The default size of the render pool has been reduced to 16kByte.
3338 This shouldn't result in any noticeable performance penalty,
3339 unless you are using the engine as-is to render very large and
3342 - The FreeType 2 redesign has begun. More information can be
3345 https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/redesign.html
3347 The following internal changes have been performed within the
3348 sources of this release:
3350 - Many internal types have been renamed to increase
3351 consistency. The following should be true, except for
3354 * All structure types have a name ending in `Rec' (short
3357 * A pointer-to-structure type has the same name as the
3358 structure, _without_ the `Rec' suffix.
3362 typedef struct FooRec_
3368 - Many internal macros have been renamed to increase
3369 consistency. The following should be true:
3371 * All macros have a name beginning with `FT_'. This
3372 required a few changes like
3376 REALLOC => FT_REALLOC
3378 * All macros are completely UPPERCASE. This required a
3381 READ_Short => FT_READ_SHORT
3382 NEXT_Short => FT_NEXT_SHORT
3383 GET_ULongLE => FT_GET_ULONG_LE
3384 MEM_Set => FT_MEM_SET
3385 MEM_Copy => FT_MEM_COPY
3388 * Whenever possible, all macro names follow the
3389 FT_<OBJECT>_<METHOD> pattern. For example
3391 ACCESS_Frame => FT_FRAME_ENTER
3392 FORGET_Frame => FT_FRAME_EXIT
3393 EXTRACT_Frame => FT_FRAME_EXTRACT
3394 RELEASE_Frame => FT_FRAME_RELEASE
3396 FILE_Pos => FT_STREAM_POS
3397 FILE_Seek => FT_STREAM_SEEK
3398 FILE_Read => FT_STREAM_READ
3399 FILE_ReadAt => FT_STREAM_READ_AT
3400 READ_Fields => FT_STREAM_READ_FIELDS
3402 - Many internal functions have been renamed to follow the
3403 FT_<Object>_<Method> pattern. For example:
3405 FT_Seek_Stream => FT_Stream_Seek
3406 FT_Read_Stream_At => FT_Stream_ReadAt
3407 FT_Done_Stream => FT_Stream_Close
3408 FT_New_Stream => FT_Stream_Open
3409 FT_New_Memory_Stream => FT_Stream_OpenMemory
3410 FT_Extract_Frame => FT_Stream_ExtractFrame
3412 Note that method names do not contain `_'.
3414 - The FT_ALLOC_ARRAY and FT_REALLOC_ARRAY have been replaced
3415 with FT_NEW_ARRAY and FT_RENEW_ARRAY which do not take a
3416 type as the fourth argument. Instead, the array element
3417 type size is computed automatically from the type of the
3418 target pointer used.
3420 - A new object class, FT_CMap, has been introduced. These
3421 internal objects are used to model character maps. This
3422 eases the support of additional charmap types within the
3425 - A new configuration file named `ftstdlib.h' has been added
3426 to `include/freetype/config'. It is used to define aliases
3427 for _every_ routine of the ISO C library that the font
3428 engine uses. Each aliases has a `ft_' prefix
3429 (e.g. `ft_strlen' is an alias for `strlen').
3431 This is used to ease the porting of FreeType 2 to exotic
3432 runtime environments where the ISO C Library isn't available
3433 (e.g. XFree86 extension modules).
3435 More details are available in the `ChangeLog' file.
3438 ======================================================================
3440 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.9 and 2.0.8
3442 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3444 - Certain fonts like `foxjump.ttf' contain broken name tables with
3445 invalid entries and wild offsets. This caused FreeType to crash
3446 when trying to load them.
3448 The SFNT `name' table loader has been fixed to be able to
3449 support these strange fonts.
3451 Moreover, the code in charge of processing this table has been
3452 changed to always favour Windows-formatted entries over other
3453 ones. Hence, a font that works on Windows but not on the Mac
3454 will load cleanly in FreeType and report accurate values for
3455 Family & PostScript names.
3457 - The CID font driver has been fixed. It unfortunately returned a
3458 Postscript Font name with a leading slash, as in
3459 `/MunhwaGothic-Regular'.
3461 - FreeType 2 should now compile fine on AIX 4.3.3 as a shared
3464 - A bug in the Postscript hinter has been found and fixed,
3465 removing un-even stem widths at small pixel sizes (like 14-17).
3467 This improves the quality of a certain number of Postscript
3473 - A new function named `FT_Library_Version' has been added to
3474 return the current library's major, minor, and patch version
3475 numbers. This is important since the macros FREETYPE_MAJOR,
3476 FREETYPE_MINOR, and FREETYPE_PATCH cannot be used when the
3477 library is dynamically linked by a program.
3479 - Two new APIs have been added: `FT_Get_First_Char' and
3482 Together, these can be used to iterate efficiently over the
3483 currently selected charmap of a given face. Read the API
3484 reference for more details.
3489 - The FreeType sources are under heavy internal re-factoring. As
3490 a consequence, we have created a branch named `STABLE' on the
3491 CVS to hold all future releases/fixes in the 2.0.x family.
3493 The HEAD branch now contains the re-factored sources and
3494 shouldn't be used for testing or packaging new releases. In
3495 case you would like to access the 2.0.9 sources from our CVS
3496 repository, use the tag `VER-2-0-9'.
3499 ======================================================================
3501 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.8 and 2.0.7
3503 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3505 - There was a small but nasty bug in `freetype-config.in' which
3506 caused the `freetype-config' script to fail on Unix.
3508 This didn't prevent the installation of the library or even its
3509 execution, but caused problems when trying to compile many Unix
3510 packages that depend on it.
3512 - Some TrueType or OpenType fonts embedded in PDF documents do not
3513 have a 'cmap', 'post' and 'name' as is required by the
3514 specification. FreeType no longer refuses to load such fonts.
3516 - Various fixes to the PCF font driver.
3519 ======================================================================
3521 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.7 and 2.0.6
3523 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3525 - Fixed two bugs in the Type 1 font driver. The first one
3526 resulted in a memory leak in subtle cases. The other one caused
3527 FreeType to crash when trying to load `.gsf' files (Ghostscript
3528 so-called Postscript fonts).
3530 (This made _many_ KDE applications crash on certain systems.
3531 FreeType _is_ becoming a critical system component on Linux :-)
3533 - Fixed a memory leak in the CFF font driver.
3535 - Fixed a memory leak in the PCF font driver.
3537 - Fixed the Visual C++ project file
3538 `builds/win32/visualc/freetype.dsp' since it didn't include the
3539 Postscript hinter component, causing errors at build time.
3541 - Fixed a small rendering bug in the anti-aliased renderer that
3542 only occurred when trying to draw thin (less than 1 pixel)
3545 - Fixed `builds/unix/freetype2.a4' which is used to generate a
3546 valid `freetype2.m4' for use with autoconf.
3548 - Fixed the OpenVMS Makefiles.
3553 - Added `configure' and `install' scripts to the top-level
3554 directory. A GNU-style installation is thus now easily possible
3557 ./configure <options>
3562 ======================================================================
3564 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.6 and 2.0.5
3566 I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES
3568 - It wasn't possible to load embedded bitmaps when the auto-hinter
3569 was used. This is now fixed.
3571 - The TrueType font driver didn't load some composites properly
3572 (the sub-glyphs were slightly shifted, and this was only
3573 noticeable when using monochrome rendering).
3575 - Various fixes to the auto-hinter. They merely improve the
3576 output of sans-serif fonts. Note that there are still problems
3577 with serifed fonts and composites (accented characters).
3579 - All scalable font drivers erroneously returned un-fitted glyph
3580 advances when hinting was requested. This created problems for
3581 a number of layout applications. This is a very old bug that
3582 got undetected mainly because most test/demo program perform
3583 rounding explicitly or implicitly (through the cache).
3585 - `FT_Glyph_To_Bitmap' did erroneously modify the source glyph in
3588 - `glnames.py' still contained a bug that made FreeType return
3589 invalid names for certain glyphs.
3591 - The library crashed when loading certain Type 1 fonts like
3592 `sadn.pfb' (`Stalingrad Normal'), which appear to contain
3593 pathetic font info dictionaries.
3595 - The TrueType glyph loader is now much more paranoid and checks
3596 everything when loading a given glyph image. This was necessary
3597 to avoid problems (crashes and/or memory overwrites) with broken
3598 fonts that came from a really buggy automatic font converter.
3601 II. IMPORTANT UPDATES AND NEW FEATURES
3603 - Important updates to the Mac-specific parts of the library.
3605 - The caching sub-system has been completely re-designed, and its
3606 API has evolved (the old one is still supported for backward
3609 The documentation for it is not yet completed, sorry. For now,
3610 you are encouraged to continue using the old API. However, the
3611 ftview demo program in the ft2demos package has already been
3612 updated to use the new caching functions.
3614 - A new charmap cache is provided too. See `FTC_CMapCache'. This
3615 is useful to perform character code -> glyph index translations
3616 quickly, without the need for an opened FT_Face.
3618 - A NEW POSTSCRIPT HINTER module has been added to support native
3619 hints in the following formats: PostScript Type 1, PostScript
3622 Please test! Note that the auto-hinter produces better results
3623 for a number of badly-hinted fonts (mostly auto-generated ones)
3626 - A memory debugger is now part of the standard FreeType sources.
3627 To enable it, define FT_DEBUG_MEMORY in
3628 <freetype/config/ftoption.h>, and recompile the library.
3630 Additionally, define the _environment_ variable FT_DEBUG_MEMORY
3631 and run any program using FreeType. When the library is exited,
3632 a summary of memory footprints and possible leaks will be
3635 This works transparently with _any_ program that uses FreeType.
3636 However, you will need a lot of memory to use this (allocated
3637 blocks are never released to the heap to detect double deletes
3643 - We are aware of subtle differences between the output of
3644 FreeType versions 1 and 2 when it comes to monochrome
3645 TrueType-hinted glyphs. These are most probably due to small
3646 differences in the monochrome rasterizers and will be worked out
3647 in an upcoming release.
3649 - We have decided to fork the sources in a `stable' branch, and an
3650 `unstable' one, since FreeType is becoming a critical component
3651 of many Unix systems.
3653 The next bug-fix releases of the library will be named 2.0.7,
3654 2.0.8, etc., while the `2.1' branch will contain a version of
3655 the sources where we will start major reworking of the library's
3656 internals, in order to produce FreeType 2.2.0 (or even 3.0) in a
3657 more distant future.
3659 We also hope that this scheme will allow much more frequent
3660 releases than in the past.
3663 ======================================================================
3665 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.5 and 2.0.4
3667 NOTE THAT 2.0.5 DOES NOT CONTAIN THE POSTSCRIPT HINTER. THIS MODULE
3668 WILL BE PART OF THE NEXT RELEASE (EITHER 2.0.6 or 2.1)
3670 - Fixed a bug that made certain glyphs, like `Cacute', `cacute' and
3671 `lslash' unavailable from Unicode charmaps of Postscript fonts.
3672 This prevented the correct display of Polish text, for example.
3674 - The kerning table of Type 1 fonts was loaded by FreeType, when its
3675 AFM file was attached to its face, but the
3676 FT_FACE_FLAG_HAS_KERNING bit flags was not set correctly,
3677 preventing FT_Get_Kerning to return meaningful values.
3679 - Improved SFNT (TrueType & OpenType) charmap support. Slightly
3680 better performance, as well as support for the new formats defined
3681 by the OpenType 1.3 specification (8, 10, and 12)
3683 - Fixed a serious typo in `src/base/ftcalc.c' which caused invalid
3684 computations in certain rare cases, producing ugly artefacts.
3686 - The size of the EM square is computed with a more accurate
3687 algorithm for Postscript fonts. The old one caused slight errors
3688 with embedded fonts found in PDF documents.
3690 - Fixed a bug in the cache manager that prevented normal LRU
3691 behaviour within the cache manager, causing unnecessary reloads
3692 (for FT_Face and FT_Size objects only).
3694 - Added a new function named `FT_Get_Name_Index' to retrieve the
3695 glyph index of a given glyph name, when found in a face.
3697 - Added a new function named `FT_Get_Postscript_Name' to retrieve
3698 the `unique' Postscript font name of a given face.
3700 - Added a new public header size named FT_SIZES_H (or
3701 <freetype/ftsizes.h>) providing new FT_Size-management functions:
3702 FT_New_Size, FT_Activate_Size, FT_Done_Size.
3704 - Fixed a reallocation bug that generated a dangling pointer (and
3705 possibly memory leaks) with Postscript fonts (in
3706 src/psaux/psobjs.c).
3708 - Many fixes for 16-bit correctness.
3710 - Removed many pedantic compiler warnings from the sources.
3712 - Added an Amiga build directory in `builds/amiga'.
3715 ======================================================================
3717 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.4 and 2.0.3
3719 - Fixed a rather annoying bug that was introduced in 2.0.3. Namely,
3720 the font transformation set through FT_Set_Transform was applied
3721 twice to auto-hinted glyphs, resulting in incorrectly rotated text
3724 - Fixed _many_ compiler warnings. FT2 should now compile cleanly
3725 with Visual C++'s most pedantic warning level (/W4). It already
3726 compiled fine with GCC and a few other compilers.
3728 - Fixed a bug that prevented the linear advance width of composite
3729 TrueType glyphs to be correctly returned.
3731 - Fixed the Visual C++ project files located in
3732 `builds/win32/visualc' (previous versions used older names of the
3735 - Many 32-bit constants have an `L' appended to their value, in
3736 order to improve the 16-bitness of the code. Someone is actually
3737 trying to use FT2 on an Atari ST machine!
3739 - Updated the `builds/detect.mk' file in order to automatically
3740 build FT2 on AIX systems. AIX uses `/usr/sbin/init' instead of
3741 `/sbin/init' and wasn't previously detected as a Unix platform by
3742 the FreeType build system.
3744 - Updated the Unix-specific portions of the build system (new
3745 libtool version, etc.).
3747 - The SFNT kerning loader now ensures that the table is sorted
3748 (since some problem fonts do not meet this requirement).
3751 =======================================================================
3753 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.3 and 2.0.2
3755 I. CHANGES TO THE MODULES / FONT DRIVERS
3757 - THE AUTO-HINTER HAS BEEN SLIGHTLY IMPROVED, in order to fix
3758 several annoying artefacts, mainly:
3760 - Blue zone alignment of horizontal stems wasn't performed
3761 correctly, resulting in artefacts like the `d' being placed
3762 one pixel below the `b' in some fonts like Time New Roman.
3764 - Overshoot thresholding wasn't performed correctly, creating
3765 unpleasant artefacts at large character pixel sizes.
3767 - Composite glyph loading has been simplified. This gets rid
3768 of various artefacts where the components of a composite
3769 glyphs were not correctly spaced.
3771 These are the last changes to the current auto-hinting module.
3772 A new hinting sub-system is currently in the work in order to
3773 support native hints in Type 1 / CFF / OpenType fonts, as well
3774 as globally improve rendering.
3776 - The PCF driver has been fixed. It reported invalid glyph
3777 dimensions for the fonts available on Solaris.
3779 - The Type 1, CID and CFF drivers have been modified to fix the
3780 computation of the EM size.
3782 - The Type 1 driver has been fixed to avoid a dangerous bug that
3783 crashed the library with non-conforming fonts (i.e. ones that do
3784 not place the .notdef glyph at position 0).
3786 - The TrueType driver had a rather subtle bug (dangling pointer
3787 when loading composite glyphs) that could crash the library in
3791 II. HIGH-LEVEL API CHANGES
3793 - The error code enumeration values have been changed. An error
3794 value is decomposed in a generic error code, and a module
3795 number. see <freetype/fterrors.h> for details.
3797 - A new public header file has been introduced, named
3798 FT_TRIGONOMETRY_H (include/freetype/fttrigon.h), providing
3799 trigonometric functions to compute sines, cosines, arctangents,
3800 etc. with 16.16 fixed precision. The implementation is based on
3801 the CORDIC algorithm and is very fast while being sufficiently
3807 - Added BeOS-specific files in the old build sub-system. Note
3808 that no changes were required to compile the library with Jam.
3810 - The configuration is now capable of automatically detecting
3811 64-bit integers on a set of predefined compilers (GCC, Visual
3812 C++, Borland C++) and will use them by default. This provides a
3813 small performance boost.
3815 - A small memory leak that happened when opening 0-sized files
3816 (duh!) have been fixed.
3818 - Fixed bezier stack depth bug in the routines provided by the
3819 FT_BBOX_H header file. Also fixed similar bugs in the
3822 - The outline bounding box code has been rewritten to use direct
3823 computations, instead of bezier sub-division, to compute the
3824 exact bounding box of glyphs. This is slightly slower but more
3827 - The build system has been improved and fixed, mainly to support
3828 `make' on Windows 2000 correctly, avoid problems with `make
3829 distclean' on non Unix systems, etc.
3831 - Hexadecimal constants have been suffixed with `U' to avoid
3832 problems with certain compilers on 64-bit platforms.
3834 - A new directory named `src/tools' has been created. It contains
3835 Python scripts and simple unit test programs used to develop the
3838 - The DocMaker tool has been moved from `docs' to `src/tools' and
3839 has been updated with the following:
3841 - Now accepts the `--title=XXXX' or `-t XXXX' option from the
3842 command line to set the project's name in the generated API
3845 - Now accepts the `--output=DIR' or `-o DIR' option from the
3846 command line to set the output directory for all generated
3849 - Now accepts the `--prefix=XXXX' or `-p XXX' option from the
3850 command line to set the file prefix to use for all
3851 generated HTML files.
3853 - Now generates the current time/data on each generated page
3854 in order to distinguish between versions.
3856 DocMaker can be used with other projects now, not only FT2
3857 (e.g. MLib, FTLayout, etc.).
3860 ======================================================================
3862 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.2 and 2.0.1
3864 I. CHANGES TO THE MODULES / FONT DRIVERS
3866 - THE TRUETYPE BYTECODE INTERPRETER IS NOW TURNED OFF, in order to
3867 avoid legal problems with the Apple patents. It seems that we
3868 mistakenly turned this option on in previous releases of the
3871 Note that if you want to use the bytecode interpreter in order
3872 to get high-quality TrueType rendering, you will need to toggle
3873 by hand the definition of the
3874 TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER macro in the file
3875 `include/freetype/config/ftoption.h'.
3877 - The CFF driver has been improved by Tom Kacvinsky and Sander van
3880 * Support for `seac' emulation.
3881 * Support for `dotsection'.
3882 * Support for retrieving glyph names through
3883 `FT_Get_Glyph_Name'.
3885 The first two items are necessary to correctly a large number of
3886 Type 1 fonts converted to the CFF formats by Adobe Acrobat.
3888 - The Type 1 driver was also improved by Tom & others:
3890 * Better EM size computation.
3891 * Better support for synthetic (transformed) fonts.
3892 * The Type 1 driver returns the charstrings corresponding to
3893 each glyph in the `glyph->control_data' field after a call to
3894 `FT_Load_Glyph' (thanks Ha Shao).
3896 - Various other bugfixes, including the following:
3898 * Fixed a nasty memory leak in the Type 1 driver.
3899 * The autohinter and the pcf driver used static writable data
3900 when they shouldn't.
3901 * Many casts were added to make the code more 64-bits safe. It
3902 also now compiles on Windows XP 64-bits without warnings.
3903 * Some incorrect writable statics were removed in the `autohint'
3904 and `pcf' drivers. FreeType 2 now compiles on Epoc again.
3907 II. CHANGES TO THE HIGH-LEVEL API
3909 - The library header files inclusion scheme has been changed. The
3910 old scheme looked like:
3912 #include <freetype/freetype.h>
3913 #include <freetype/ftglyph.h>
3914 #include <freetype/ftcache.h>
3915 #include <freetype/cache/ftimage.h>
3919 #include <ft2build.h>
3920 #include FT_FREETYPE_H
3923 #include FT_CACHE_IMAGE_H
3925 NOTE THAT THE OLD INCLUSION SCHEME WILL STILL WORK WITH THIS
3926 RELEASE. HOWEVER, WE DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT THIS WILL STILL BE
3927 TRUE IN THE NEXT ONE (A.K.A. FREETYPE 2.1).
3929 The file <ft2build.h> is used to define the header filename
3930 macros. The complete and commented list of macros is available
3931 in the API reference under the section name `Header File Macros'
3934 For more information, see section I of the following document:
3936 https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/tutorial/step1.html
3938 - Many, many comments have been added to the public source file in
3939 order to automatically generate the API Reference through the
3940 `docmaker.py' Python script.
3942 The latter has been updated to support the grouping of sections
3943 in chapters and better index sort. See:
3945 https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-toc.html
3948 III. CHANGES TO THE BUILD PROCESS
3950 - If you are not building FreeType 2 with its own build system
3951 (but with your own Makefiles or project files), you will need to
3952 be aware that the build process has changed a little bit.
3954 You don't need to put the `src' directory in the include path
3955 when compiling any FT2 component. Instead, simply put the
3956 component's directory in the current include path.
3958 So, if you were doing something like:
3960 cc -c -Iinclude -Isrc src/base/ftbase.c
3964 cc -c -Iinclude -Isrc/base src/base/ftbase.c
3966 If you were doing something like:
3969 cc -c -I../../include -I.. ftbase.c
3974 cc -c -I../../include ftbase.c
3977 ======================================================================
3979 CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.1 and 2.0
3981 2.0.1 introduces a few changes:
3983 - Fixed many bugs related to the support of CFF / OpenType fonts.
3984 These formats are now much better supported though there is
3985 still work planned to deal with charset tables and PDF-embedded
3986 CFF files that use the old `seac' command.
3988 - The library could not be compiled in debug mode with a very
3989 small number of C compilers whose pre-processors didn't
3990 implement the `##' directive correctly (i.e. per se the ANSI C
3991 specification!) An elegant fix was found.
3993 - Added support for the free Borland command-line C++ Builder
3994 compiler. Use `make setup bcc32'. Also fixed a few source
3995 lines that generated new warnings with BCC32.
3997 - Fixed a bug in FT_Outline_Get_BBox when computing the extrema of
4000 - Updated the INSTALL file to add IDE compilation.
4002 - Other minor bug fixes, from invalid Type 1 style flags to
4003 correct support of synthetic (obliqued) fonts in the
4004 auto-hinter, better support for embedded bitmaps in a SFNT font.
4006 - Fixed some problems with `freetype-config'.
4008 Finally, the `standard' scheme for including FreeType headers is now
4009 gradually changing, but this will be explained in a later release
4012 And very special thanks to Tom Kacvinsky and YAMANO-UCHI Hidetoshi
4013 for their contributions!
4016 ======================================================================
4018 CHANGES BETWEEN beta8 and 2.0
4020 - Changed the default installation path for public headers from
4021 `include/freetype' to `include/freetype2'.
4023 Also added a new `freetype-config' that is automatically generated
4024 and installed on Unix and Cygwin systems. The script itself is
4025 used to retrieve the current install path, C compilation flags as
4026 well as linker flags.
4028 - Fixed several small bugs:
4030 * Incorrect max advance width for fixed-pitch Type 1 fonts.
4031 * Incorrect glyph names for certain TrueType fonts.
4032 * The glyph advance was not copied when FT_Glyph_To_Bitmap was
4034 * The linearHoriAdvance and linearVertAdvance fields were not
4035 correctly returned for glyphs processed by the auto-hinter.
4036 * `type1z' renamed back to `type1'; the old `type1' module has
4039 - Revamped the build system to make it a lot more generic. This
4040 will allow us to re-use nearly un-modified in lots of other
4041 projects (including FreeType Layout).
4043 - Changed `cid' to use `psaux' too.
4045 - Added the cache sub-system. See <freetype/ftcache.h> as well as
4046 the sources in `src/cache'. Note that it compiles but is still
4049 - Updated `docs/docmaker.py', a draft API reference is available at
4050 http://www.freetype.org/ft2api.html.
4052 - Changed `type1' to use `psaux'.
4054 - Created a new module named `psaux' to hold the Type 1 & Type 2
4055 parsing routines. It should be used by `type1', `cid', and `cff'
4058 - Fixed an important bug in `FT_Glyph_Get_CBox'.
4060 - Fixed some compiler warnings that happened since the TrueType
4061 bytecode decoder was deactivated by default.
4063 - Fixed two memory leaks:
4065 * The memory manager (16 bytes) isn't released in
4067 * Using custom input streams, the copy of the original stream was
4070 - Fixed the auto-hinter by performing automatic computation of the
4071 `filling direction' of each glyph. This is done through a simple
4072 and fast approximation, and seems to work (problems spotted by
4073 Werner though). The Arphic fonts are a lot nicer though there are
4074 still a lot of things to do to handle Asian fonts correctly.
4077 ======================================================================
4079 BETA-8 (RELEASE CANDIDATE) CHANGES
4081 - Deactivated the TrueType bytecode interpreter by default.
4083 - Deactivated the `src/type1' font driver. Now `src/type1z' is used
4086 - Updates to the build system. We now compile the library correctly
4087 under Unix system through `configure' which is automatically
4088 called on the first `make' invocation.
4090 - Added the auto-hinting module! Fixing some bugs here and there.
4092 - Found some bugs in the composite loader (seac) of the Type1-based
4095 - Renamed the directory `freetype2/config' to `freetype2/builds' and
4096 updated all relevant files.
4098 - Found a memory leak in the `type1' driver.
4100 - Incorporated Tom's patches to support flex operators correctly in
4101 OpenType/CFF fonts. Now all I need is to support pure CFF and CEF
4102 fonts to be done with this driver :-)
4104 - Added the Windows FNT/FON driver in `src/winfonts'. For now, it
4105 always `simulates' a Unicode charmap, so it shouldn't be
4106 considered completed right now.
4108 It is there to be more a proof of concept than anything else
4109 anyway. The driver is a single C source file, that compiles to 3
4112 I'm still working on the PCF/BDF drivers, but I'm too lazy to
4115 - CHANGES TO THE HIGH-LEVEL API
4117 * FT_Get_Kerning has a new parameter that allows you to select the
4118 coordinates of the kerning vector (font units, scaled, scaled +
4120 * The outline functions are now in <freetype/ftoutln.h> and not
4121 part of <freetype/freetype.h> anymore.
4122 * <freetype/ftmodule.h> now contains declarations for
4123 FT_New_Library, FT_Done_Library, FT_Add_Default_Modules.
4124 * The so-called convenience functions have moved from `ftoutln.c'
4125 to `ftglyph.c', and are thus available with this optional
4126 component of the library. They are declared in
4127 <freetype/ftglyph.h> now.
4128 * Anti-aliased rendering is now the default for FT_Render_Glyph
4129 (i.e. corresponds to render_mode == 0 == ft_render_mode_normal).
4130 To generate a monochrome bitmap, use ft_render_mode_mono, or the
4131 FT_LOAD_MONOCHROME flag in FT_Load_Glyph/FT_Load_Char.
4132 FT_LOAD_ANTI_ALIAS is still defined, but values to 0.
4133 * <freetype/freetype.h> now include <freetype/config/ftconfig.h>,
4134 solving a few headaches :-)
4135 * The type FT_GlyphSlotRec has now a `library' field.
4137 - CHANGES TO THE `ftglyph.h' API
4139 This API has been severely modified in order to make it simpler,
4140 clearer, and more efficient. It certainly now looks like a real
4141 `glyph factory' object, and allows client applications to manage
4142 (i.e. transform, bbox and render) glyph images without ever
4143 knowing their original format.
4145 - Added support for CID-keyed fonts to the CFF driver. Maybe
4146 support for pure CFF + CEF fonts should come in?
4148 - Cleaned up source code in order to avoid two functions with the
4149 same name. Also changed the names of the files in `type1z' from
4150 `t1XXXX' to `z1XXXX' in order to avoid any conflicts.
4152 `make multi' now works well :-)
4154 Also removed the use of `cidafm' for now, even if the source files
4155 are still there. This functionality will certainly go into a
4158 - ADDED SUPPORT FOR THE AUTO-HINTER
4160 It works :-) I have a demo program which simply is a copy of
4161 `ftview' that does a `FT_Add_Module(library,
4162 &autohinter_module_class)' after library initialization, and Type
4163 1 & OpenType/CFF fonts are now hinted.
4165 CID fonts are not hinted, as they include no charmap and the
4166 auto-hinter doesn't include `generic' global metrics computations
4169 Now, I need to release this thing to the FreeType 2 source.
4171 - CHANGES TO THE RENDERER MODULES
4173 The monochrome and smooth renderers are now in two distinct
4174 directories, namely `src/raster1' and `src/smooth'. Note that the
4175 old `src/renderer' is now gone.
4177 I ditched the 5-gray-levels renderers. Basically, it involved a
4178 simple #define toggle in 'src/raster1/ftraster.c'.
4180 FT_Render_Glyph, FT_Outline_Render & FT_Outline_Get_Bitmap now
4181 select the best renderer available, depending on render mode. If
4182 the current renderer for a given glyph image format isn't capable
4183 of supporting the render mode, another one will be found in the
4184 library's list. This means that client applications do not need
4185 to switch or set the renderers themselves (as in the latest
4186 change), they'll get what they want automatically. At last.
4188 Changed the demo programs accordingly.
4190 - MAJOR INTERNAL REDESIGN:
4192 A lot of internal modifications have been performed lately on the
4193 source in order to provide the following enhancements:
4195 * More generic module support:
4197 The FT_Module type is now defined to represent a handle to a
4198 given module. The file <freetype/ftmodule.h> contains the
4199 FT_Module_Class definition, as well as the module-loading public
4202 The FT_Driver type is still defined, and still represents a
4203 pointer to a font driver. Note that FT_Add_Driver is replaced
4204 by FT_Add_Module, FT_Get_Driver by FT_Get_Module, etc.
4206 * Support for generic glyph image types:
4208 The FT_Renderer type is a pointer to a module used to perform
4209 various operations on glyph image.
4211 Each renderer is capable of handling images in a single format
4212 (e.g. ft_glyph_format_outline). Its functions are used to:
4214 - transform an glyph image
4215 - render a glyph image into a bitmap
4216 - return the control box (dimensions) of a given glyph image
4218 The scan converters `ftraster.c' and `ftgrays.c' have been moved
4219 to the new directory `src/renderer', and are used to provide two
4220 default renderer modules.
4222 One corresponds to the `standard' scan-converter, the other to
4225 he current renderer can be set through the new function
4228 The old raster-related function FT_Set_Raster, FT_Get_Raster and
4229 FT_Set_Raster_Mode have now disappeared, in favor of the new:
4234 See the file <freetype/ftrender.h> for more details.
4236 These changes were necessary to properly support different
4237 scalable formats in the future, like bi-color glyphs, etc.
4239 * Glyph loader object:
4241 A new internal object, called a 'glyph loader' has been
4242 introduced in the base layer. It is used by all scalable format
4243 font drivers to load glyphs and composites.
4245 This object has been created to reduce the code size of each
4246 driver, as each one of them basically re-implemented its
4249 See <freetype/internal/ftobjs.h> and the FT_GlyphLoader type for
4252 * FT_GlyphSlot has new fields:
4254 In order to support extended features (see below), the
4255 FT_GlyphSlot structure has a few new fields:
4259 This field gives the linearly scaled (i.e. scaled but
4260 unhinted) advance width for the glyph, expressed as a 16.16
4261 fixed pixel value. This is useful to perform WYSIWYG text.
4264 This field gives the linearly scaled advance height for the
4265 glyph (relevant in vertical glyph layouts only). This is
4266 useful to perform WYSIWYG text.
4268 Note that the two above field replace the removed `metrics2'
4269 field in the glyph slot.
4272 This field is a vector that gives the transformed advance for
4273 the glyph. By default, it corresponds to the advance width,
4274 unless FT_LOAD_VERTICAL_LAYOUT was specified when calling
4275 FT_Load_Glyph or FT_Load_Char.
4278 This field gives the distance in integer pixels from the
4279 current pen position to the left-most pixel of a glyph image
4280 IF IT IS A BITMAP. It is only valid when the `format' field
4281 is set to `ft_glyph_format_bitmap', for example, after calling
4282 the new function FT_Render_Glyph.
4285 This field gives the distance in integer pixels from the
4286 current pen position (located on the baseline) to the top-most
4287 pixel of the glyph image IF IT IS A BITMAP. Positive values
4288 correspond to upwards Y.
4291 This is a new private field for the glyph slot. Client
4292 applications should not touch it.
4295 * Support for transforms and direct rendering in FT_Load_Glyph:
4297 Most of the functionality found in <freetype/ftglyph.h> has been
4298 moved to the core library. Hence, the following:
4300 - A transform can be specified for a face through
4301 FT_Set_Transform. this transform is applied by FT_Load_Glyph
4302 to scalable glyph images (i.e. NOT TO BITMAPS) before the
4303 function returns, unless the bit flag FT_LOAD_IGNORE_TRANSFORM
4304 was set in the load flags.
4306 - Once a glyph image has been loaded, it can be directly
4307 converted to a bitmap by using the new FT_Render_Glyph
4308 function. Note that this function takes the glyph image from
4309 the glyph slot, and converts it to a bitmap whose properties
4310 are returned in `face.glyph.bitmap', `face.glyph.bitmap_left'
4311 and `face.glyph.bitmap_top'. The original native image might
4312 be lost after the conversion.
4314 - When using the new bit flag FT_LOAD_RENDER, the FT_Load_Glyph
4315 and FT_Load_Char functions will call FT_Render_Glyph
4316 automatically when needed.
4318 - Reformatted all modules source code in order to get rid of the
4319 basic data types redefinitions (i.e. `TT_Int' instead of `FT_Int',
4320 `T1_Fixed' instead of `FT_Fixed'). Hence the format-specific
4321 prefixes like `TT_', `T1_', `T2_' and `CID_' are only used for
4322 relevant structures.
4325 ======================================================================
4327 OLD CHANGES FOR BETA 7
4329 - bug-fixed the OpenType/CFF parser. It now loads and displays my
4330 two fonts nicely, but I'm pretty certain that more testing is
4333 - fixed the crummy Type 1 hinter, it now handles accented characters
4334 correctly (well, the accent is not always well placed, but that's
4337 - added the CID-keyed Type 1 driver in `src/cid'. Works pretty well
4338 for only 13 Kb of code ;-) Doesn't read AFM files though, nor the
4339 really useful CMAP files..
4341 - fixed two bugs in the smooth renderer (src/base/ftgrays.c).
4342 Thanks to Boris Letocha for spotting them and providing a fix.
4344 - fixed potential `divide by zero' bugs in ftcalc.c.
4346 - added source code for the OpenType/CFF driver (still incomplete
4349 - modified the SFNT driver slightly to perform more robust header
4350 checks in TT_Load_SFNT_Header. This prevents certain font files
4351 (e.g. some Type 1 Multiple Masters) from being incorrectly
4352 `recognized' as TrueType font files..
4354 - moved a lot of stuff from the TrueType driver to the SFNT module,
4355 this allows greater code re-use between font drivers
4356 (e.g. TrueType, OpenType, Compact-TrueType, etc..)
4358 - added a tiny segment cache to the SFNT Charmap 4 decoder, in order
4359 to minimally speed it up..
4361 - added support for Multiple Master fonts in `type1z'. There is
4362 also a new file named <freetype/ftmm.h> which defines functions to
4363 manage them from client applications.
4365 The new file `src/base/ftmm.c' is also optional to the engine..
4367 - various formatting changes (e.g. EXPORT_DEF -> FT_EXPORT_DEF) +
4368 small bug fixes in FT_Load_Glyph, the `type1' driver, etc..
4370 - a minor fix to the Type 1 driver to let them apply the font matrix
4371 correctly (used for many oblique fonts..)
4373 - some fixes for 64-bit systems (mainly changing some FT_TRACE calls
4374 to use %p instead of %lx). Thanks to Karl Robillard.
4376 - fixed some bugs in the sbit loader (src/base/sfnt/ttsbit.c) +
4377 added a new flag, FT_LOAD_CROP_BITMAP to query that bitmaps be
4378 cropped when loaded from a file (maybe I should move the bitmap
4379 cropper to the base layer ??).
4381 - changed the default number of gray levels of the smooth renderer
4382 to 256 (instead of the previous 128). Of course, the human eye
4383 can't see any difference ;-)
4385 - removed TT_MAX_SUBGLYPHS, there is no static limit on the number
4386 of subglyphs in a TrueType font now..
4389 ======================================================================
4391 OLD CHANGES 16 May 2000
4393 - tagged `BETA-6' in the CVS tree. This one is a serious release
4394 candidate even though it doesn't incorporate the auto-hinter yet..
4396 - various obsolete files were removed, and copyright header updated
4398 - finally updated the standard raster to fix the monochrome
4399 rendering bug + re-enable support for 5-gray levels anti-aliasing
4402 - created new header files, and modified sources accordingly:
4404 <freetype/fttypes.h>
4405 - simple FreeType types, without the API
4406 <freetype/internal/ftmemory.h>
4407 - definition of memory-management macros
4409 - added the `DSIG' (OpenType Digital Signature) tag to
4412 - light update/cleaning of the build system + changes to the sources
4413 in order to get rid of _all_ compiler warnings with three
4416 gcc with `-ansi -pedantic -Wall -W', Visual C++ with `/W3 /WX' and
4419 IMPORTANT NOTE FOR WIN32-LCC USERS:
4421 | It seems the C pre-processor that comes with LCC is broken, it
4422 | doesn't recognize the ANSI standard directives # and ##
4423 | correctly when one of the argument is a macro. Also,
4426 | #define F(x) print##x
4430 | will get incorrectly translated to:
4434 | by its pre-processor. For this reason, you simply cannot build
4435 | FreeType 2 in debug mode with this compiler..
4437 - yet another massive grunt work. I've changed the definition of
4438 the EXPORT_DEF, EXPORT_FUNC, BASE_DEF & BASE_FUNC macros. These
4439 now take an argument, which is the function's return value type.
4441 This is necessary to compile FreeType as a DLL on Windows and
4442 OS/2. Depending on the compiler used, a compiler-specific keyword
4443 like __export or __system must be placed before (VisualC++) or
4444 after (BorlandC++) the type..
4446 Of course, this needed a lot of changes throughout the source code
4447 to make it compile again... All cleaned up now, apparently..
4449 Note also that there is a new EXPORT_VAR macro defined to allow
4450 the _declaration_ of an exportable public (constant)
4451 variable. This is the case of the raster interfaces (see
4452 ftraster.h and ftgrays.h), as well as each module's interface (see
4453 sfdriver.h, psdriver.h, etc..)
4455 - new feature: it is now possible to pass extra parameters to font
4456 drivers when creating a new face object. For now,
4457 this capability is unused. It could however prove to
4458 be useful in a near future..
4460 the FT_Open_Args structure was changes, as well as the internal
4461 driver interface (the specific `init_face' module function has
4462 now a different signature).
4464 - updated the tutorial (not finished though).
4466 - updated the top-level BUILD document
4468 - fixed a potential memory leak that could occur when loading
4471 - added the declaration of FT_New_Memory_Face in
4472 <freetype/freetype.h>, as it was missing from the public header
4473 (the implementation was already in `ftobjs.c').
4475 - the file <freetype/fterrors.h> has been seriously updated in order
4476 to allow the automatic generation of error message tables. See
4477 the comments within it for more information.
4479 - major directory hierarchy re-organisation. This was done for two
4482 * first, to ease the `manual' compilation of the library by
4483 requiring at lot less include paths :-)
4485 * second, to allow external programs to effectively access
4486 internal data fields. For example, this can be extremely
4487 useful if someone wants to write a font producer or a font
4488 manager on top of FreeType.
4490 Basically, you should now use the 'freetype/' prefix for header
4493 #include <freetype/freetype.h>
4494 #include <freetype/ftglyph.h>
4496 Some new include sub-directories are available:
4498 a. the `freetype/config' directory, contains two files used to
4499 configure the build of the library. Client applications
4500 should not need to look at these normally, but they can if
4503 #include <freetype/config/ftoption.h>
4504 #include <freetype/config/ftconfig.h>
4506 b. the `freetype/internal' directory, contains header files that
4507 describes library internals. These are the header files that
4508 were previously found in the `src/base' and `src/shared'
4512 As usual, the build system and the demos have been updated to
4513 reflect the change..
4515 Here's a layout of the new directory hierarchy:
4544 Compiling a module is now much easier, for example, the following
4545 should work when in the TOP_DIR directory on an ANSI build:
4547 gcc -c -I./include -I./src/base src/base/ftbase.c
4548 gcc -c -I./include -I./src/sfnt src/sfnt/sfnt.c
4551 (of course, using -Iconfig/<system> if you provide system-specific
4552 configuration files).
4554 - updated the structure of FT_Outline_Funcs in order to allow direct
4555 coordinate scaling within the outline decomposition routine (this
4556 is important for virtual `on' points with TrueType outlines) +
4557 updates to the rasters to support this..
4559 - updated the OS/2 table loading code in `src/sfnt/ttload.c' in
4560 order to support version 2 of the table (see OpenType 1.2 spec)
4562 - created `include/tttables.h' and `include/t1tables.h' to allow
4563 client applications to access some of the SFNT and T1 tables of a
4564 face with a procedural interface (see `FT_Get_Sfnt_Table') +
4565 updates to internal source files to reflect the change..
4567 - some cleanups in the source code to get rid of warnings when
4568 compiling with the `-Wall -W -ansi -pedantic' options in gcc.
4570 - debugged and moved the smooth renderer to `src/base/ftgrays.c' and
4571 its header to `include/ftgrays.h'
4573 - updated TT_MAX_SUBGLYPHS to 96 as some CJK fonts have composites
4574 with up to 80 sub-glyphs !! Thanks to Werner
4577 ======================================================================
4579 OLD CHANGES - 14-apr-2000
4581 - fixed a bug in the TrueType glyph loader that prevented the
4582 correct loading of some CJK glyphs in mingli.ttf
4584 - improved the standard Type 1 hinter in `src/type1'
4586 - fixed two bugs in the experimental Type 1 driver in `src/type1z'
4587 to handle the new XFree86 4.0 fonts (and a few other ones..)
4589 - the smooth renderer is now complete and supports sub-banding to
4590 render large glyphs at high speed. However, it is still located
4591 in `demos/src/ftgrays.c' and should move to the library itself in
4592 the next beta. NOTE: The smooth renderer doesn't compile in
4593 stand-alone mode anymore, but this should be fixed RSN..
4595 - introduced convenience functions to more easily deal with glyph
4596 images, see `include/ftglyph.h' for more details, as well as the
4597 new demo program named `demos/src/ftstring.c' that demonstrates
4600 - implemented FT_LOAD_NO_RECURSE in both the TrueType and Type 1
4601 drivers (this is required by the auto-hinter to improve its
4604 - changed the raster interface, in order to allow client
4605 applications to provide their own span-drawing callbacks.
4606 However, only the smooth renderer supports this. See
4607 `FT_Raster_Params' in the file `include/ftimage.h'.
4609 - fixed a small bug in FT_MulFix that caused incorrect transform
4612 - Note: The tutorial is out-of-date.
4615 ======================================================================
4617 OLD CHANGES - 12-mar-2000
4619 - changed the layout of configuration files : now, all ANSI
4620 configuration files are located in
4621 `freetype2/config'. System-specific over-rides can be placed in
4622 `freetype2/config/<system>'.
4624 - moved all configuration macros to `config/ftoption.h'
4626 - improvements in the Type 1 driver with AFM support
4628 - changed the fields in the FT_Outline structure : the old `flags'
4629 array is re-named `tags', while all ancient flags are encoded into
4630 a single unsigned int named `flags'.
4632 - introduced new flags in FT_Outline.flags (see
4633 ft_outline_.... enums in `ftimage.h').
4635 - changed outline functions to `FT_Outline_<action>' syntax
4637 - added a smooth anti-alias renderer to the demonstration programs
4639 - added Mac graphics driver (thanks Just)
4641 - FT_Open_Face changed in order to received a pointer to a
4642 FT_Open_Args descriptor..
4644 - various cleanups, a few more API functions implemented (see
4650 ======================================================================
4652 OLD CHANGES - 22-feb-2000
4654 - introduced the `psnames' module. It is used to:
4656 o convert a Postscript glyph name into the equivalent Unicode
4657 character code (used by the Type 1 driver(s) to synthesize on
4658 the fly a Unicode charmap).
4660 o provide an interface to retrieve the Postscript names of the
4661 Macintosh, Adobe Standard & Adobe Expert character codes.
4662 (the Macintosh names are used by the SFNT-module postscript
4663 names support routines, while the other two tables are used by
4664 the Type 1 driver(s)).
4666 - introduced the `type1z' alternate Type 1 driver. This is a (still
4667 experimental) driver for the Type 1 format that will ultimately
4668 replace the one in `src/type1'. It uses pattern matching to load
4669 data from the font, instead of a finite state analyzer. It works
4670 much better than the `old' driver with `broken' fonts. It is also
4671 much smaller (under 15 Kb).
4673 - the Type 1 drivers (both in `src/type1' and `src/type1z') are
4674 nearly complete. They both provide automatic Unicode charmap
4675 synthesis through the `psnames' module. No re-encoding vector is
4676 needed. (note that they still leak memory due to some code
4677 missing, and I'm getting lazy).
4679 Trivial AFM support has been added to read kerning information but
4680 wasn't exactly tested as it should ;-)
4682 - The TrueType glyph loader has been seriously rewritten (see the
4683 file `src/truetype/ttgload.c'. It is now much, much simpler as
4684 well as easier to read, maintain and understand :-) Preliminary
4685 versions introduced a memory leak that has been reported by Jack
4686 Davis, and is now fixed..
4688 - introduced the new `ft_glyph_format_plotter', used to represent
4689 stroked outlines like Windows `Vector' fonts, and certain Type 1
4690 fonts like `Hershey'. The corresponding raster will be written
4693 - FT_New_Memory_Face is gone. Likewise, FT_Open_Face has a new
4694 interface that uses a structure to describe the input stream, the
4695 driver (if required), etc..
4700 - Write FT_Get_Glyph_Bitmap and FT_Load_Glyph_Bitmap
4702 - Add a function like FT_Load_Character(face, char_code, load_flags)
4703 that would really embed a call to FT_Get_Char_Index then
4704 FT_Load_Glyph to ease developer's work.
4706 - Update the tutorial!
4708 - consider adding support for Multiple Master fonts in the Type 1
4711 - Test the AFM routines of the Type 1 drivers to check that kerning
4712 information is returned correctly.
4714 - write a decent auto-gridding component !! We need this to release
4720 - add a CFF/Type2 driver
4722 - add a FNT/PCF/HBF driver
4723 - add a Speedo driver from the X11 sources
4726 ======================================================================
4728 OLDER CHANGES - 27-jan-2000
4730 - updated the `sfnt' module interface to allow several SFNT-based
4731 drivers to co-exist peacefully
4733 - updated the `T1_Face' type to better separate Postscript font
4734 content from the rest of the FT_Face structure. Might be used
4735 later by the CFF/Type2 driver..
4737 - added an experimental replacement Type 1 driver featuring advanced
4738 (and speedy) pattern matching to retrieve the data from postscript
4741 - very minor changes in the implementation of FT_Set_Char_Size and
4742 FT_Set_Pixel_Sizes (they now implement default to lighten the font
4746 ======================================================================
4750 This file summarizes the changes that occurred since the last `beta'
4751 of FreeType 2. Because the list is important, it has been divided into
4756 I High-Level Interface (easier !)
4757 II Directory Structure
4758 III Glyph Image Formats
4764 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4766 High-Level Interface:
4768 The high-level API has been considerably simplified. Here is how:
4770 - resource objects have disappeared. this means that face objects
4771 can now be created with a single function call (see FT_New_Face
4774 - when calling either FT_New_Face & FT_Open_Face, a size object
4775 and a glyph slot object are automatically created for the face,
4776 and can be accessed through `face->glyph' and `face->size' if
4777 one really needs to. In most cases, there's no need to call
4778 FT_New_Size or FT_New_Glyph.
4780 - similarly, FT_Load_Glyph now only takes a `face' argument
4781 (instead of a glyph slot and a size). Also, its `result'
4782 parameter is gone, as the glyph image type is returned in the
4783 field `face->glyph.format'
4785 - the list of available charmaps is directly accessible through
4786 `face->charmaps', counting `face->num_charmaps' elements. Each
4787 charmap has an 'encoding' field which specifies which known
4788 encoding it deals with. Valid values are, for example:
4790 ft_encoding_unicode (for ASCII, Latin-1 and Unicode)
4791 ft_encoding_apple_roman
4793 ft_encoding_adobe_standard
4794 ft_encoding_adobe_expert
4796 other values may be added in the future. Each charmap still
4797 holds its `platform_id' and `encoding_id' values in case the
4798 encoding is too exotic for the current library
4801 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4803 Directory Structure:
4805 Should seem obvious to most of you:
4808 config/ -- configuration sub-makefiles
4810 unix/ -- platform-specific configuration files
4815 include/ -- public header files, those to be included
4816 directly by client apps
4818 src/ -- sources of the library
4819 base/ -- the base layer
4820 sfnt/ -- the sfnt `driver' (see the drivers section
4822 truetype/ -- the truetype driver
4823 type1/ -- the type1 driver
4824 shared/ -- some header files shared between drivers
4826 demos/ -- demos/tools
4828 docs/ -- documentation (a bit empty for now)
4831 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4833 Glyph Image Formats:
4835 Drivers are now able to register new glyph image formats within the
4836 library. For now, the base layer supports of course bitmaps and
4837 vector outlines, but one could imagine something different like
4838 colored bitmaps, bi-color vectors or whatever else (Metafonts anyone
4841 See the file `include/ftimage.h'. Note also that the type
4842 FT_Raster_Map is gone, and is now replaced by FT_Bitmap, which
4843 should encompass all known bitmap types.
4845 Each new image format must provide at least one `raster', i.e. a
4846 module capable of transforming the glyph image into a bitmap. It's
4847 also possible to change the default raster used for a given glyph
4850 The default outline scan-converter now uses 128 levels of grays by
4851 default, which tends to smooth many things. Note that the demo
4852 programs have been updated significantly in order to display these..
4855 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4859 You still need GNU Make to build the library. The build system has
4860 been very seriously re-vamped in order to provide things like :
4862 - automatic host platform detection (reverting to 'config/ansi' if
4863 it is not detected, with pseudo-standard compilation flags)
4865 - the ability to compile from the Makefiles with very different and
4866 exotic compilers. Note that linking the library can be difficult
4869 For example, the file `config/win32/lcclib.bat' is invoked by the
4870 build system to create the `.lib' file with LCC-Win32 because its
4871 librarian has too many flaws to be invoked directly from the
4874 Here's how it works:
4876 - the first time you type `make', the build system runs a series of
4877 sub-makefiles in order to detect your host platform. It then
4878 dumps what it found, and creates a file called `config.mk' in the
4879 current directory. This is a sub-Makefile used to define many
4880 important Make variables used to build the library.
4882 - the second time, the build system detects the `config.mk' then use
4883 it to build the library. All object files go into 'obj' by
4884 default, as well as the library file, but this can easily be
4887 Note that you can run `make setup' to force another host platform
4888 detection even if a `config.mk' is present in the current
4889 directory. Another solution is simply to delete the file, then
4892 Finally, the default compiler for all platforms is gcc (for now,
4893 this will hopefully changed in the future). You can however specify
4894 a different compiler by specifying it after the 'setup' target as
4897 gnumake setup lcc on Win32 to use the LCC compiler
4898 gnumake setup visualc on Win32 to use Visual C++
4900 See the file `config/<system>/detect.mk' for a list of supported
4901 compilers for your platforms.
4903 It should be relatively easy to write new detection rules files and
4906 Finally, to build the demo programs, go to `demos' and launch GNU
4907 Make, it will use the `config.mk' in the top directory to build the
4911 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4915 In the previous beta, a single FT_System object was used to
4916 encompass all low-level operations like thread synchronisation,
4917 memory management and i/o access. This has been greatly simplified:
4919 - thread synchronisation has been dropped, for the simple reason
4920 that the library is already re-entrant, and that if you really
4921 need two threads accessing the same FT_Library, you should
4922 really synchronize access to it yourself with a simple mutex.
4924 - memory management is performed through a very simple object
4925 called `FT_Memory', which really is a table containing a table
4926 of pointers to functions like malloc, realloc and free as well
4927 as some user data (closure).
4929 - resources have disappeared (they created more problems than they
4930 solved), and i/o management have been simplified greatly as a
4931 result. Streams are defined through FT_Stream objects, which
4932 can be either memory-based or disk-based.
4934 Note that each face has its own stream, which is closed only
4935 when the face object is destroyed. Hence, a function like
4936 TT_Flush_Face in 1.x cannot be directly supported. However, if
4937 you really need something like this, you can easily tailor your
4938 own streams to achieve the same feature at a lower level (and
4939 use FT_Open_Face instead of FT_New_Face to create the face).
4941 See the file `include/ftsystem.h' for more details, as well as the
4942 implementations found in `config/unix' and `config/ansi'.
4945 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4949 The Font Driver interface has been modified in order to support
4950 extensions & versioning.
4953 The list of the font drivers that are statically linked to the
4954 library at compile time is managed through a new configuration file
4955 called `config/<platform>/ftmodule.h'.
4957 This file is autogenerated when invoking `make modules'. This
4958 target will parse all sub-directories of 'src', looking for a
4959 `module.mk' rules file, used to describe the driver to the build
4962 Hence, one should call `make modules' each time a font driver is
4963 added or removed from the `src' directory.
4965 Finally, this version provides a `pseudo-driver' in `src/sfnt'.
4966 This driver doesn't support font files directly, but provides
4967 services used by all TrueType-like font drivers. Hence, its code is
4968 shared between the TrueType & OpenType font formats, and possibly
4969 more formats to come if we're lucky..
4972 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
4976 The extensions support is inspired by the one found in 1.x.
4978 Now, each font driver has its own `extension registry', which lists
4979 which extensions are available for the font faces managed by the
4982 Extension ids are now strings, rather than 4-byte tags, as this is
4983 usually more readable.
4986 - some data, associated to each face object
4987 - an interface (table of function pointers)
4989 An extension that is format-specific should simply register itself
4990 to the correct font driver. Here is some example code:
4992 // Registering an extensions
4994 FT_Error FT_Init_XXXX_Extension( FT_Library library )
4996 FT_DriverInterface* tt_driver;
4998 driver = FT_Get_Driver( library, "truetype" );
4999 if (!driver) return FT_Err_Unimplemented_Feature;
5001 return FT_Register_Extension( driver, &extension_class );
5005 // Implementing the extensions
5007 FT_Error FT_Proceed_Extension_XXX( FT_Face face )
5009 FT_XXX_Extension ext;
5010 FT_XXX_Extension_Interface ext_interface;
5012 ext = FT_Get_Extension( face, "extensionid", &ext_interface );
5013 if (!ext) return error;
5015 return ext_interface->do_it(ext);
5018 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
5020 Copyright 2000-2018 by
5021 David Turner, Robert Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg.
5023 This file is part of the FreeType project, and may only be used,
5024 modified, and distributed under the terms of the FreeType project
5025 license, LICENSE.TXT. By continuing to use, modify, or distribute this
5026 file you indicate that you have read the license and understand and
5031 version-control: never
5035 --- end of CHANGES ---