Comment 5 for bug 820493

Dave: You are correct. An outline font benefits from being hinted, to render usefully and reliably in a low-resolution black-and-white environment.

The font looks good, either:

  * in black-and-white with lots of pixels (600 DPI laser printer), or
  * with few pixels, but lots of grayscale levels (a computer monitor running at its full abilities.

It's unlikely to look good with low spatial granularity and low luminance granularity.

I've tried to show in the attached PDF the level of distortion that might be necessary in order to render a complex outline font in a low-resolution bi-level environment.

  * On the left is the outline font in its full glory (an 'm' in this case)
  * In the middle is an approximated demonstration of what might happen if one were simply to colour the nearest pixels.
  * On the right, is an approximated demonstration, is a possibly result with hinting information, better guiding the distortion/grid-alignment.