Standard Suite
Extensions & Plugins
Power Suite
Apps & Tools
D-Type Engine 9.6.1.4 released. This is a maintenance release recommended for all users. For details, review the readme-news-latest.txt file in the download package.
D-Type Engine 9.6.1.3 released. The main highlights of this release are:
This is a maintenance release recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 9.6.1.2 released. The main highlights of this release are:
This is a maintenance release recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 9.5.1.1 released. The main highlights of this release are:
This is a maintenance release recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 9.0.1.1 released. This major release brings support for 3D rasterization, OpenType SVG Native fonts, HarfBuzz 3.2.0 shaping library, additional Unicode scripts and other important enhancements. For more information and some frequently asked questions, see this page.
D-Type Engine 8.2.1.5 released. This is a maintenance release which fixes one issue present in D-Type Text Layout Extension. Specifically, D-Type Text Layout Extension version 8.2.1.3 and 8.2.1.4 included one internal optimization that was not implemented in a backward compatible manner. This caused D-Type Layout Extension version 8.2.1.3 and 8.2.1.4 (and its clients — D-Type PowerDoc Engine and D-Type Unicode Text Module) to refuse shaping text using fonts that are not based on TrueType/OpenType or D-Type format, such as Type 1 or bare CFF fonts. This issue is now fixed.
Note: This issue did not exist prior to D-Type 8.2.1.3 and did not impact D-Type Standard Engine (e.g. D-Type Font Engine or D-Type Rasterizer) in any way.
D-Type Engine 8.2.1.4 released. This maintenance release resolves a few issues that could occur in some very specific situations:
D-Type PowerDoc Engine: In some cases the pdDocSetErrorCallback function would issue a callback indicating error -4 (PD_RET_OBJ_ERR_FONT) for "removed" glyphs (i.e. glyph IDs 65535 or 0xFFFF) that are sometimes returned by D-Type Text Layout Extension. This issue has now been resolved.
Note: Other than getting the superfluous -4 error code, this issue did not cause any other known problems. In fact, applications that don't make use of the pdDocSetErrorCallback function should be unaffected.
D-Type Unicode Text Module: Fixed a bug that caused the "ts" (text shaping) keyword of the ATTRIBS instruction to be ignored while processing Fontmap files. This bug was accidentally introduced with D-Type 6.5.0.1.
Note: This issue did not cause any other problems as far as Fontmap processing is concerned. The issue only affected applications that explicitly use the "ts" keyword in their Fontmap files, which is not a common use case scenario.
D-Type Font Engine on Windows: If Windows refuses to delete a temporary .ttf file (which can only happen when using the PATENT_WORKAROUND_WIN driver flag), D-Type will ask Windows to remove it later. Credits: Glyph & Cog.
Note: This is actually a Windows quirk that only affected applications that explicitly use D-Type's PATENT_WORKAROUND_WIN driver flag in dtype.inf files to load TrueType fonts on Windows, which is not a common use case scenario. Other than the possibility of having some leftover temporary files in this situation, the issue did not cause any other known problems. It was reported that this issue occurred only in situations when D-Type based applications had multiple processes running in parallel.
On Widows all D-Type libraries are now compiled using the /Gw compiler switch (in addition to /Gy) and all demo executables are linked using the /opt:ref switch. This results in somewhat smaller executables on Windows.
A few other small internal improvements. Also, D-Type PowerDoc Editor brings a few usability enhancements.
This maintenance release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 8.2.1.3 released. The main highlights of this release are:
The HarfBuzz shaping engine (built into D-Type Text Layout Extension) by itself can't process TrueType/OpenType fonts compressed using the WOFF or WOFF2 compression format. As a result, prior to D-Type 8.2.1.3, it was not possible for D-Type Text Layout Extension to utilize OpenType Layout tables in TrueType/OpenType fonts that were saved in WOFF or WOFF2 format. This limitation has been removed. Now, when handling WOFF and WOFF2 fonts, D-Type Font Engine supplies uncompressed (raw) TrueType/OpenType font data to HarfBuzz. This allows HarfBuzz to shape complex scripts using TrueType/OpenType fonts compressed using the WOFF and WOFF2 format, provided they contain OpenType Layout tables.
Even though variable TrueType/OpenType font support is available in D-Type Font Engine as of release 7.0, the "avar" table in those fonts was not respected due to a bug. This bug is now fixed and "avar" table support works as intended. The bug did not cause any other problems as far as variable font support is concerned.
D-Type Font Engine now includes a tweak which makes the glyph advance widths work as intended with the latest STIX v2.10 variable fonts. The issue was caused by ambiguous OpenType specifications, which are rather unclear on how to correctly interpret the "HVAR" delta-set index mapping table in variable TrueType/OpenType fonts. See https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/typography-issues/issues/708 for more details.
Due to an issue with Apple's LLVM clang 12 compiler (Xcode 12.2), the static version of D-Type Standard Engine (dtypestd.o) built for macOS architectures i386 and x86_64 was not usable on Mac OS X 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10, resulting in a "___darwin_check_fd_set_overflow" undefined symbol link error. This impacted only D-Type releases 8.0.1.3 and 8.2.1.1 which were built using clang 12. To work around this issue, the static version of D-Type Standard Engine for macOS architectures i386 and x86_64 is now being built using LLVM clang 10 (Xcode 10). If the issue is addressed in future Xcode releases, this workaround will be removed. Note that all other D-Type libraries and tools for macOS are still built using Apple's LLVM clang 12 compiler (Xcode 12.2) as they don't seem to cause any linking issues on older Mac OS X systems.
UPDATE: It turns out the ___darwin_check_fd_set_overflow symbol link error does not make the static version of D-Type Standard Engine unusable on Mac OS X 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10 as stated above. D-Type users on these old Mac systems can eliminate the link error themselves by setting the following linker flag:
-Wl,-U,___darwin_check_fd_set_overflow
D-Type Font Optimizer (font_optimizer.exe, font_optimizer_osx and font_optimizer_linux) upgraded to version 1.7.1.
This is a maintenance release recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 8.2.1.1 released. The main highlights of this release are:
This release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 8.0.1.3 released. The main highlights of this release are:
This release is recommended for all existing users and anyone who wants to try D-Type on Apple's new ARM Macs.
D-Type Engine 8.0.1.2 released. The main highlights of this maintenance release are:
This release is recommended for all users who wish to take advantage of the latest HarfBuzz 2.7.1 shaping engine.
D-Type Engine 8.0.1.1 released. This major release brings support for OpenType color fonts and other important enhancements. For more information and some frequently asked questions, see this page.
D-Type 7.5.1.1 is a major D-Type release with some exciting new features and capabilities. This is probably the most important update since the release of D-Type Engine 7.0 in August 2018. For more information, see our D-Type 7.5 Release announcement.
D-Type Engine 7.0.2.2 released. This release includes one important fix for TrueType fonts, a few improvements to the URL Stream and two new stream types: FURL (File-Backed URL) Stream and MURL (Memory-Backed URL) Stream. The new stream types are very similar to the standard URL Stream but significantly faster.
This release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 7.0.1.0 released. This release enables support for OpenType 1.8 variable fonts (with either TrueType or CFF2 outlines). Additionally, this release introduces many new text style/formatting options that can be accessed from D-Type PowerDoc Engine and D-Type Unicode Text Module.
D-Type Engine 6.5.0.1 released. This update focuses on internal enhancements and optimizations. We have also added static D-Type libraries for MS Visual Studio 2017 and new, simplified examples. Recommended for all users.
D-Type VIVO Image Vectorizer and D-Type Shading Rasterizer have been announced.
D-Type VIVO is advanced scalable graphics rendering technology that makes vector images look like photographs. D-Type VIVO Image Vectorizer is a tool that allows end-users to convert bitmap images to D-Type's VIVO scalable vector format. D-Type Shading Rasterizer is a special purpose rasterizer for rendering highly realistic scalable vector art. It was developed in parallel with D-Type VIVO Technology. This new rasterizer is perfect for rendering vector graphics of photo-realistic quality.
D-Type Engine 6.0.3.3 released. This is a maintenance release recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 6.0.2.1 released. Compared to the previous 6.0.1.0 release, the latest release brings even more useful features and improvements. The most notable ones are:
This release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 6.0.1.0 released. This release brings new features and enhancements designed to simplify common tasks, boost performance and enable additional capabilities.
D-Type Engine 5.0.2.1 released. This release brings a number of important enhancements.
D-Type Engine 5.0.1.5 released. This release brings a number of important enhancements and new features: built-in compression for large PowerDoc objects, modernized internals to provide better support for 32-bit Unicode, better error reporting capabilities, various improvements to PowerDoc Editor and many other small improvements. Also, in this release D-Type Text Layout Extension has been upgraded to utilize the latest HarfBuzz text shaping engine.
D-Type Engine 5.0.1.3 released. This is a maintenance release.
D-Type Engine 5.0.1.2 released. This is a maintenance release with one important bug fix related to CFF font processing.
Added a few additional examples to the D-Type Direct Color Rasterizer page that illustrate why D-Type is perfect for rendering vectorized photos and illustrations. These images typically contain hundreds or thousands of adjacent contours and can be produced using popular bitmap-to-vector conversion programs such as Vector Magic.
D-Type 5.0.1.1 released. The main highlights of this major new release are:
Read our D-Type Engine 5.0 historical note for more information on this release.
First public demonstration of D-Type engines running on Zealz GK802 Quad Core Mini PC. The Zealz GK802 Mini PC is a tiny computer that fits in the palm of your hand. It features a Freescale i.MX6 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage.
We will soon be releasing another version of D-Type Text Layout Extension, based on the new HarfBuzz text shaping engine. This extension is now under development. This means that in the near future D-Type users will be able to choose between an ICU-based D-Type Text Layout Extension or a HarfBuzz-based D-Type Text Layout Extension.
D-Type Engine 4.6.4.1 released. This release includes enhancements and optimizations and is recommended for all users. In this release D-Type Text Layout Extension has been upgraded to utilize the latest ICU LayoutEngine (ICU 52).
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.9 released. This is a maintenance release with a number of internal improvements and a few new features.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.7 released. This is an important release with new features, recommended for all users. The main highlights of this release are: support for Web Open Font Format (WOFF), ICU LayoutEngine upgraded to the latest version (ICU 51) bringing support for Apple's 'morx' tables, new PowerDoc Engine properties and Text Module attributes, updated PowerDoc Editor with new functions and features and a number of other useful improvements. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WOFF/ for more information about the WOFF font format.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.6 released. This is an important release with new features and enhancements, recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.4 released. This is an important release with new features and enhancements. The main highlights of this release are: custom pattern fill definitions for text and shapes rendered by D-Type PowerDoc Engine, enhanced support for bitmap images, faster processing of text selections and new PowerDoc objects and properties. At the same time D-Type PowerDoc Editor has been enhanced to support new display, print and document export options. This release is recommended for all users.
First public demonstration of D-Type engines and D-Type PowerDoc Editor running on Raspberry Pi, a low cost credit card sized ARM GNU/Linux computer based on the ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.3 released. This release includes enhancements and optimizations and is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.2 released. This release includes new functions, important updates and enhancements.
D-Type Engine 4.6.3.0 released. This release includes important updates and enhancements.
Our web site redesigned, reorganized and updated. The new site features an improved structure and several new sections: D-Type Direct Color Rasterizer, D-Type PowerDoc For Java, D-Type Font Converter and an Online Survey Form. This site is more accessible and more optimized for speed than the previous version.
D-Type Engine 4.6.2.9 released. This release includes enhancements and optimizations. A number of new features have been added to D-Type PowerDoc Editor.
D-Type Engine 4.6.2.8 released. Recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.2.7 released. This release includes lots of new features, enhancements and optimizations and is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.2.5 released. In this release D-Type PowerDoc Editor was redesigned and rebuilt as a cross-platform application. It now runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. It uses D-Type engines to render the contents of all windows, including its own user interface. This release also brings new modes for positioning line(s) in underline/strike-through effects and several internal improvements and optimizations.
D-Type Engine 4.6.1.7 released. This release includes new features and enhancements to D-Type Shape Engine, 22 new hyphenation dictionaries for D-Type PowerDoc Engine and a number of internal optimizations to D-Type Font Engine and D-Type PowerDoc Engine. This release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.1.6 released. This is an important release that brings new features and improvements to D-Type PowerDoc Engine and D-Type Unicode Text Module needed for high-end text layout applications: support for automatic hyphenation, control of line breaks, advanced vertical justification, control of empty text lines etc. In addition to the existing Bidirectional Reordering algorithm, D-Type PowerDoc Engine and D-Type Unicode Text Module now also support Bidirectional Rotation, which is particularly useful in vertical writing mode. This release is recommended for all users.
D-Type Engine 4.6.1.5 released. This release brings improvements to D-Type PowerDoc Engine and D-Type Unicode Text Module in vertical writing mode and many other useful enhancements and optimizations.
D-Type Engine 4.6.1.2 released. This release brings a few improvements and the ability to vertically align text inside the bounding box of a text area (top, middle, bottom, justified).
D-Type Engine 4.6.1.1 released. This is an important release that includes two new rasterizers: the Universal Black & White Rasterizer and the Universal Grayscale Rasterizer. Additionally, the precision and output quality of the existing Ultra-Fast Grayscale Rasterizer has been improved. This means that D-Type Engine now includes 5 amazing rasterizers: the Perfect Rasterizer, the Ultra-Fast Grayscale Rasterizer, the Universal Black & White Rasterizer, the Universal Grayscale Rasterizer and the special purpose Direct Color Rasterizer. Best of all, thanks to a number of internal optimizations and improvements, the size of the new engine remains virtually unchanged compared to the previous version!
D-Type Engine version 4.5.2.1 released. This release includes new features and functions.
D-Type Engine version 4.5.1.3 released. This release includes a few internal enhancements and improvements.
D-Type Engine version 4.5.1.1 released. This is an important release with new features and enhancements. The main highlights of this release are: significantly reorganized and simplified folder structure, new header files and examples; a new specialized rasterizer called D-Type Direct Color Rasterizer; a new helper library for platform independent window display.
D-Type Engine version 4.4.1.0 released.
D-Type Engine version 4.4.0.7 released.
D-Type Engine version 4.3.0.1 released. This is an important release with several new features and enhancements.
D-Type Unicode Text Module released.
D-Type Engine version 4.0.5.1 released. The main highlights of this release are: support for bare CFF fonts, support for synthetic Unicode encoding that is substantially based on Adobe Glyph Naming Convention version 2.3, new fonts.
D-Type Engine version 4.0.4.9 released. This release brings limited support for PostScript Type 3 fonts and some internal enhancements. One of the nice things about D-Type's limited PostScript font support is that it allows developers to easily generate outline fonts on the fly using simple PostScript path operators (moveto, rmoveto, lineto, rlineto, curveto, rcurveto, closepath) and render them using D-Type Font Engine. Although Type 3 fonts do not include any hints, D-Type's auto-hinting mechanism can generate them automatically. As a result, developers can generate high quality Type 3 fonts that D-Type Font Engine will render extremely well. Also, Type 3 fonts can be optimized and converted to D-Type font format.
D-Type Engine version 4.0.4.8 released. This is an important release with many new features and enhancements.
D-Type Engine 4.0.4.1 released. This new version offers two rasterizers: the Ultra-Fast Rasterizer and the Perfect Rasterizer. The Ultra-Fast rasterizer is the fastest possible rasterizer. The Perfect Rasterizer is, as the name implies, a perfectly accurate anti-aliaser which produces the highest possible quality. Applications that require the fastest possible rendering speed (e.g. games and animations) may use the Ultra-Fast Rasterizer. Applications that require the best possible quality (e.g. text renderers) may use the Perfect Rasterizer.
New pages added to our website: Rendering Great Looking Text With D-Type and Comparison Of D-Type and Other Font Rendering Engines. D-Type Engine version 4.0.3.8 released containing important new features and improvements.
D-Type Engine version 4.0.3.4 released. This release brings lots of useful enhancements. The most important ones include: better compression of fonts when stored in D-Type font format, redesigned, simplified and improved library of the common 2D shapes, support for dashed lines and curves, new PowerDoc objects, new style effects for emboldening text etc.
New page added to our website: Why is D-Type Ideal For Device Independent Text Layout?
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 4.0.1.5 released. This release brings several new features and speed optimizations.
Our web site redesigned and updated.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 4.0 licensed to Veer Incorporated, the global provider of visual elements for design and professional creative work. Veer's product line includes a large collection of digital typefaces in all major font formats. Veer is one of the first customers who licensed the new 4.0 engine and tested it successfully on more than 5,000 font files.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 4.0 released.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 3.9.4.6 released.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 3.9.4.4 released. This release includes a significant number of internal optimizations, improvements and security enhancements. In addition, memory footprint of TrueType, OpenType and Type 1 drivers has been reduced.
OpenType support added to D-Type Font Engine. Release 3.9.3.0 available.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer licensed to ArcSoft, a recognized technology leader specializing in software for device manufacturers and infrastructure solutions for telecommunications and consumer electronics companies. ArcSoft develops, markets, and distributes award winning digital imaging and video solutions that are well known around the world.
D-Type PowerDoc for ASP version 1.1.0 available. This release brings enhanced text editing and formatting capabilities, various improvements to D-Type PowerDoc Editor, support for both PNG and JPEG and lots of internal improvements.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer successfully ported to Mac OS X, Apple's new operating system and XBox, Microsoft's new gaming platform.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer version 3.7.0.2 released. This release brings lots of new features including new font access modes for extremely fast initialization of the engine, improved algorithms to quickly render fractionally positioned text, redesigned library of shapes with native support for two-dimensional affine transformations and several completely new functions.
D-Type PowerDoc for ASP version 1.0.3 available. This new version brings a few major enhancements with respect to the user interface, performance, data import and overall usability.
D-Type PowerDoc for ASP available for licensing and evaluation. Several IT companies have already licensed the component and successfully employed it in their Web applications. A number of other companies is evaluating the product.
A new section on D-Type PowerDoc added to this web site. Several live examples to demonstrate D-Type PowerDoc for ASP are now available.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer version 3.5 released. New features include support for Gaussian and Fuzzy blur, pattern fills, 2D transformation matrix and many internal improvements and optimizations.
D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer version 3.0.7 released. A large number of companies license D-Type for Linux.
First public demonstration of D-Type PowerDoc. Now in the final testing stage, the beta version expected to be available by November 2000.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer licensed to Hewlett Packard Co., the world's leading provider of computing and imaging solutions.
iConcepts, People & People and several other highly reputable domestic and international companies license D-Type Font Engine and Rasterizer.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer version 3.0 released. Added support for additional RGB formats and alpha channels.
Our web site redesigned and updated.
Our web site redesigned and updated.
Several domestic and international high-technology IT companies have licensed D-Type for use in their products.
D-Type PowerDoc announced. Although still in the final development stage, this technology will allow applications to streamline and automate the process of creating professional, high-quality and resolution independent documents of any kind.
D-Type Font Engine version 2.6 released. This version brings several enhancements, including faster rendering, reduced memory requirements and extended API.
D-Type Font Engine and D-Type Rasterizer licensed to Creative Technology, the inventor of the popular Sound Blaster® technology and the world's leading provider of multimedia products and peripherals for personal computers.
D-Type Font Engine version 2.5 released. This version brings several major enhancements, including support for multiple-master fonts, animation, ultra-fast rendering to memory RGB surfaces and custom transparency.