I'm still trying to wrap my head around what exactly is in
between a font's vector outlines and what we see on screen in
web browsers. Based on a little reading, as well as the
excellent replies in a previous thread (Who else wants to
understand hinting?), this is the gauntlet I imagine a glyph
must survive on its way to being rendered in a web page... - A
glyph starts as a bezier-based shape. - This shape is made in or
brought into a font-creation program like FontLab. - Settings
like UPM (units per em), key dimensions (for vertical
measurements like x-height, cap height, ascenders and
descenders), and metrics (for horizontal measurements like
sidebearings and kerning) determine how the letterform will act
as a glyph in a font—e.g., how much room it will occupy at a
given size, how close other letters may live. - Hinting or
instructions are added (automatically and/or manually) which can
provide directions for conservation of the fonts design
character in environments where less-than ideal output is to be
em