Why the lining numeral 9 is elevated relative to the rest of them?

[LuciferaseMaster]

Why the lining numeral 9 is elevated at the bottom relative to the rest of them?

[psb1558]

I think you're probably using the static TTF version of the font. It is autohinted, and the result has many problems, including that one (at some sizes). I am planning to retire that version, since I cannot manually hint 38 font files, and I am urging all users of static Junicode to use the OTF version. It is also autohinted, but the hinting works much better. The variable version of the font is also TTF, but it is manually hinted.

[psb1558]

For the next release (2.215), I am omitting hinting for the TTF version of Junicode. It will work exactly as well for Mac OS and (probably) Linux users, but Windows users should prefer the OTF version. Oh, and everyone who can (especially web developers and LuaTeX users) should use the variable font.

[LuciferaseMaster]

What's interesting, the hinting looks ok in the pdf file generated (by LibreOffice) from the LibreOffice Writer file screenshoted above.

It makes sense to keep the presence of .ttf files for the tremendous amount of people using MS Word. Because MS Office has a known bug (which they haven't fixed for many years), where its internal pdf engine cannot generate vector fonts from .otf font files (so you get rasterized letters instead).

[psb1558]

Maybe LibreOffice drops the hinting. I'll look into that.

Version 2.215 keeps the ttf files but drops the hinting. We'll see how people react.

[kenmcd]

Ran across a similar hinting issue in the Affinity forum just a few days ago.
The macOS Charter font italics have really bad (broken) hinting.
Been that way for over 20 years.
But Apple does not care as they don't use the TTF font's hinting.
And it breaks the fonts on Windows.

What's interesting, the hinting looks ok in the pdf file generated (by LibreOffice) from the LibreOffice Writer file screenshoted above.

This is affected by how your PDF reader/editor handles the hinting.
In my PDF-XChange Editor Pro, ClearType hinting is On by default, but I can turn it Off.
Or just change the hinting settings.
I think macOS by default ignores TTF hinting and applies their own.
That may be different by application.

Below is the broken Charter Italic and BoldItalic fonts on the first two lines.
On the third line is the Italic where for comparison I have removed all the hinting.
And the de-hinted font looks fine. No distortions.
This document was created in LibreOffice and exported to PDF.
The bad hinting came with the fonts into the PDF.
(this is the same thing that was happening with Affinity Publisher)

In the image below, I have turned-Off all hinting in the PDF-XChange Editor.
And now the first two lines do not have all the distortions by the bad hinting.
So the PDF reader may not show the hinting issues.
And the zoom level also affected it.

So if Apple users are using a PDF reader which ignores the TTF hinting, it looks fine.

In the Affinity situation the problems appeared when the printer processed the PDF file.
The printer's rasterizer was applying the hinting in the PDF supplied by the Affinity user.
And the book proofs came back looking really bad.
We figured-out it was the bad hinting in the fonts.

[psb1558]

Thanks for this account, @kenmcd! TrueType hinting has changed a lot over the years, with MacOS not consulting the font's hinting at all while Windows requires a lot less hinting in fonts than it used to; and it seems that old hints can break in newer renderers.

The only apps on my Mac that I'm sure use a TrueType font's hinting are those of the Adobe suite (and, of course, my own hinting tool ygt). But hints are included in fonts embedded in PDFs, and my little Epson inkjet printer consults them (helps me spot problems).

It's a little disheartening that autohinting for TrueType is so imperfect, and also that some apps have trouble interpreting TrueType hints, but most of the time our fonts print and display pretty well.