Introducing Visual TrueType

Microsoft Visual TrueType is a software tool for viewing, editing, and adding instructions, or hints, to the outlines of TrueType and OpenType/TTF fonts. You use Visual TrueType after creating a font with an outline editor or after converting an existing font to the TrueType format.

Hints make the individual glyphs in a font look better at small point sizes, especially on low-resolution screens, printers, and other devices with fewer dots, or pixels for accurately and legibly matching the glyph outline. The lower the device resolution and the smaller the point size, the more hinting improves the accuracy and legibility of the outline. Hinting matters most for displaying TrueType fonts on screens (72-120 dpi, or dots per inch). It also improves text on high resolution screens and consumer printers (150-600dpi). However, hinting has minimal effect on high-resolution (1,200+ dpi) devices. Hints can also assemble component-based strokes, and match existing bitmap glyphs.