US Patent 7598955 Hinted stem placement on high-resolution pixel grid

Methods and apparatus implementing a technique for rendering a hinted character for display in grayscale on a grayscale output device in accordance with a hinted stem placement policy. In one embodiment, the policy is a black-edge policy, by which a hinted stem is moved so that at least one of the hinted stem edges aligns with an edge of a device cell (which corresponds to an output device pixel). In another embodiment, the policy is an unbiased-stems policy, by which a hinted stem is moved a minimum distance to have it span a minimum number of device cells.