How does one know which rasterizer IE is using?

James Puckett
James Puckett Posts: 1,994
in Technique and Theory
Internet Explorer can use Directwrite, but it doesn’t always. Quirks and configurations of HTML and fonts can cause IE to use an older rasterizer. Is there a feature in IE that reports which rasterizer is being used?

Comments

  • Robin Mientjes
    Robin Mientjes Posts: 132
    I recall a Javascript thing that drew a letter in a canvas and, based on the way it rendered its subpixels – amounts of pink etc. – it reported back its rendering environment.

    Type Rendering Mix seems to handle this case. It’s not what I remember seeing, but it at least can supply this sort of knowledge.
  • Georg Seifert
    Georg Seifert Posts: 674
    I think I saw a font that uses some clever hinting to show different outlines depending on the rasterizer. But, I don't know where I saw it.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,429
    edited April 2015
    DejaVu and I believe the Ubuntu fonts had some clever hinting in a PUA-encoded glyph that drew a glyph showing the PPEM size... I don't think it changed on rasterizer, though... 
  • Denis Moyogo Jacquerye
    Denis Moyogo Jacquerye Posts: 191
    The DejaVu fonts have U+F000 and U+F001 for the PPEM (horizontal and vertical), U+F002 and U+F003 for the point size (horizontal and vertical). The Ubuntu fonts have U+F000 for the PPEM.
  • Scott-Martin Kosofsky
    Scott-Martin Kosofsky Posts: 422
    Wasn't Internet Explorer officially pronounced dead last month?

Categories