How to adopting hinting strip as a design system policy
- Step 1Audit current state — Check which fonts in your repo carry hinting (file size and table presence are clues). Most modern fonts are lightly hinted; some inherited assets carry heavy hinting from older versions.
- Step 2Strip across the system — Run the Hinting Stripper on every font in one batch. Compare before/after sizes. Visual regression test against representative pages — modern audiences see no difference.
- Step 3Document the policy — Pin in design system docs: "All web fonts are stripped of TrueType hinting. Audience analysis confirms <0.5% Windows 7 GDI traffic where hints would matter." Add the CI step to enforce.
Frequently asked questions
When is the policy wrong?+
Audiences with heavy Windows 7/8 GDI usage (some industrial software, older enterprise intranets). If your analytics show >5% IE11/Windows 7 traffic, keep hinting. For consumer-facing sites in 2026, strip.
Does this affect SEO?+
Indirectly positive — smaller fonts mean better Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS). Font rendering quality isn't a ranking signal, so the absence of hinting doesn't hurt SEO.
What about brand-typography quality at small sizes?+
Below 12px on Windows 7 GDI, hint-stripped text is slightly less crisp. On retina/2x DPR displays, the difference is invisible. Modern brand typography lives at 14px+ where hinting is irrelevant.
Privacy first
Every JAD Font tool runs entirely in your browser using opentype.js and the wawoff2 WASM Brotli encoder. Your fonts never leave your device — verified by zero outbound network requests during processing.