Comparison of D-Type and Other Font Rendering Engines

Compare Windows Font Rasterizer and D-Type

Example 1

The following screenshot shows how Windows Font Rasterizer renders the Slipstream font. As it can be seen, a limited number of gray-levels and suboptimal anti-aliasing result in poor and inconsistent output quality.

With D-Type you get the best possible output. The following screenshot shows how D-Type Font Engine renders the same font. The difference in quality is obvious — thanks to D-Type’s superb anti-aliasing and support for 256 levels of gray.

Example 2

The following sample text was created in WordPad. The title and the first paragraph utilize a TrueType font called Century Gothic, while the last paragraph employs Adobe’s Kozuka Mincho Pro OpenType font.

This is the same text rendered by D-Type Font Engine. Again, the difference in appearance and quality is significant, showcasing a more uniform and improved text quality and legibility.

Example 3

This example features a TrueType font called Thonburi. As you can see below, its screen appearance with the Windows rasterizer is horrendous, leading us to question whether the font is incorrectly hinted or not hinted at all.

Fortunately, with D-Type that doesn’t matter! D-Type’s built-in automatic hinting subsystem enhances even these non-hinted or incorrectly hinted TrueType fonts. The following screenshot shows that D-Type, unlike Windows, renders this font with exceptional quality and consistency. As previously mentioned, as long as the font has reasonably well-constructed glyph outlines, D-Type ensures proper hinting and high-quality rendering.

Example 4

Times New Roman, one of the most widely used fonts, is the pride of Microsoft and Monotype. These companies, working together, invested nearly two years in manually instructing, hand-tuning, and painstakingly delta-hinting Windows core fonts, including Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier. Despite this effort, the font’s appearance remains inconsistent across different sizes: first very light, then too dark (not legible), then monochrome (jagged), and finally anti-aliased.

Here is the same Times New Roman font, but this time auto-hinted and rendered by D-Type Font Engine 4.0. As you can see, D-Type’s fully automated run-time font hinting system matches or even surpasses the skills of a professional typographer.

Example 5

Let’s take a look at a little bit more practical example. In the following screenshot, we have Windows Font Rasterizer rendering text using Times New Roman at 12 points, a common size for computer screens. It is evident that Microsoft and Monotype dedicated considerable effort to instructing and manually delta-hinting glyphs at this size.

Now, we see D-Type 4.0 rendering the same text, using the same font and size. In this case, the font is 100% auto-hinted by D-Type Font Engine at run-time. D-Type once again demonstrates that its automatic font hinting routines can match or exceed the capabilities of the best typographers. In fact, fonts that are automatically hinted by D-Type appear more natural and remain truer to the original design compared to those rendered by Windows.

Compare Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and D-Type

Example 6

Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF) is recognized for its smooth, accurate, device-independent, and generally visually appealing text output, particularly when using version 7.0 or higher, as shown in the following screenshot.

As you can see, D-Type easily matches or exceeds these qualities, providing comparable text output.

Compare Adobe Photoshop and D-Type

Example 7

In the following screenshot we see Adobe Photoshop rendering text using fractional precision.

Here, we see the output from D-Type, where text is also rendered using fractional precision. While it may be a bit difficult to see the differences at first, it’s noticesble that D-Type’s text is more uniform and easier to read, especially at smaller sizes.

Example 8

The following screenshot shows how Adobe Photoshop renders the same text as in the previous example, but this time using the Century Gothic font. Unlike Windows Font Rasterizer, Adobe Photoshop consistently applies anti-aliasing when rendering this font, regardless of size. However, the result appears overly fuzzy.

Once again, D-Type demonstrates that the quality and clarity of the text can be significantly improved while still maintaining the anti-aliased look and feel.

For more details on D-Type font technology, see the D-Type Font Engine page.