VTT seems to not be working on my machine, am I unable?

jansindl3r

Hi, I have been trying to get VTT running on my machine Win7. Am I doing something wrong? I have been following the only tutorial I have found "hinting indic fonts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUePyRntGKc&t ", I set everything as mentioned but none of the tools seems to take action as seen in the tutorial or as expected after experience from FontLab V. Is there some pre-procedure only to be able to make a simple link and see the result, please? Could anyone share a test file with me - one hinted glyph or so - so I can see if I am having some sort of bug or am I only unable to work with this program? 
Thanks, Jan

Thomas Phinney

Are you using a TrueType font (TTF) as input for VTT?

jansindl3r

@Thomas Phinney  yes for demonstration I am using Consola.ttf, here is a demo of what is it doing https://streamable.com/4ajbe do you have idea what could be wrong? Seems weird to me, if I am doing something wrong then it is a super confusing UI. I can imagine it must be a handy program

Jens Kutilek

I think you are viewing the original outline, not the gridfitted one. Try ctrl-G, and you should see the resulting outline modification of your instructions.

jansindl3r

@Jens Kutilek  Thanks Jens! Looking forward to discover the world of hinting!

Viktor Rubenko

Michael Duggan (http://typedrawers.com/profile/829/Mike Duggan) has a blog with tutorials for VTT on MSDN.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/fontblog/
but it's not available now for some reason. (or deleted ?)

jansindl3r

@Viktor Rubenko thanks, yes it seems to be not working. Unfortunatelly I haven't found any user made tutorials that would explain such basics to a beginner. 

Mike Duggan

hi. The blog where the tutorials were hosted has unfortunately been taken down, due to circumstances beyond my control. We are looking to host this material elsewhere, but we do not have a timeline for this yet. There is a demo font that ships with VTT. If you search your machine \Documents\Visual TrueType\Sample VTTDemo.ttf this font shows the basic approaches for hinting today. The help files in VTT have also been updated. All that said, if you are new to Hinting in VTT, it is not a quick learning curve. If I can help you can send me questions directly to mikedu at microsoft.com 

Mike Duggan

Although this thread makes reference to a slightly older version of VTT, there is a lot of general useful information contained within. 
https://typedrawers.com/discussion/1406/microsoft-visual-truetype-6-10-with-autohinter-available-for-download/p1

Viktor Rubenko

@Mike Duggan 
Sad news. I hope that you will be able to restore your guides in a short time.
The article about the hinting of variable fonts was super useful.

Thomas Phinney

Perhaps you could still access the content through the Wayback Machine?

Mike Duggan

unfortunately the content is not captured by Wayback Machine

Thomas Phinney

Viktor Rubenko

@Mike Duggan
So, do you still have these articles in any form(txt, pdf, html) or they are completely lost?
Maybe if you have it, can you share them?

Jasper de Waard

Couldn't they be hosted somehow on typedrawers?

Mike Duggan

Just FYI, this blog is back online. I am not entirely sure for how long, but for those interested it’s up again for now

Mike Duggan

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/fontblog/