flint's relationship with FontVal

[HinTak]

Just noticed flint from Microsoft which seems to do similar thing. May be useful to know if FontVal derives from it, or differences.

[kenmcd]

Could you please provide a link to this flint from Microsoft. I tried various search engines and terms but no luck.
Thanks.

[twardoch]

I think flint is included in the old Microsoft commandline tools: http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/f/a/ffae9ec6-3bf6-488a-843d-b96d552fd815/FontTools.exe

The package contains

TTFdump

TTFDump is a console (command line) tool that dumps the contents of 
TrueType font files. TTFDump parses and labels the contents of the 
tables and subtables in a font, making the data more readable. 
Using TTFDump, you can dump specific tables and data for specific 
glyphs. TTFDUMP exists in both 16 and 32 bit versions.

TrueType Open Assembler

Two DOS utilities, TrueType Open Assembler (TTOAsm) and TrueType 
Open Disassembler (TTODasm), work together to aid in the creation, 
modification, and verification of TrueType Open (TTO) tables. 
TTOAsm accepts TrueType Open table data in text format and then 
assembles that data into a binary TrueType Open table file. A 
separate utility, AddTable, can be used to add the binary output 
file to a TrueType file.

Flint

A 32-bit Windows tool used to test TrueType fonts. The tool 
validates hinting instructions in TrueType fonts, checking flags 
and arguments for a set of glyphs over a set of sizes.

SBIT32

SBIT32 is a 32-bit console tool that embeds bitmap data into 
existing TrueType font files. These embedded bitmaps are also 
called 'sbits' (for 'scaler bitmaps'). To use SBIT32, you first 
need to create a file which contains the bitmap information (.BDF), 
and a file containing metrics and format information (.MET). SBIT32 
reads these input files and inserts tables containing bitmap 
information into the TrueType file. SBIT32 can also be used to 
delete all embedded bitmaps of a specified ppem size, generate .BDF 
files from fonts with sbit data, or add information enabling 
bitmaps to be shared between sizes. Vincent Connare has contributed 
a brief guide to  Making TrueType bitmap fonts.

CacheTT

The NT Console/Windows 95 DOS application CacheTT is a utility to 
enable the modification of TrueType and TrueType Open files. 
Modifications include creation/modification of one or more of the 
tables VDMX, hdmx and LTSH by calculating and caching values 
obtained from the Rasterizer. The resulting font is a complete and 
correct font.

FastFont

This program reorders a TrueType file for faster execution. It does 
this by placing all of the small, frequently used tables at the 
beginning of the font file, allowing the font to be loaded with 
fewer page faults.

AddTable

Addtable.exe is a command-line utility for appending binary table 
files to an existing TrueType font. For example, the utility can be 
used to add the TrueType Open tables generated by the TTO 
Assembler.

[twardoch]

I believe that all those tools are written in C++, and I believe that Microsoft has backed off from visible distribution of them (though the downloadables still reside in Microsoft servers). I'm not sure why Microsoft stopped offering these tools, but I imagine that's largely because they were written a long time ago (before OpenType), and quite possibly have some quirks that makes them no longer work properly in modern Windows. Some of are even DOS-only, I think.

[kenmcd]

Thank you for the link and the detailed explanation.