How does one know which rasterizer IE is using?

James Puckett
James Puckett Posts: 2,013
in Type Design Technique & 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: 680
    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: 1,457
    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: 217
    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: 429
    Wasn't Internet Explorer officially pronounced dead last month?

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