[Am-info] Re: True-Type fonts "gone!"

[T. Guilbert]

In a message dated 2002 August 19 (Monday), timestamp 01:44 PM, 
   on the topic Re: [Am-info] Re: True-Type fonts "gone!",
   Eric Mathew Hopper <hopper@omnifarious.org> wrote:

"|> Oh dear. Whatever the people at /. may think of Adobe, they should
"|> know better than to express a preference for TT over Type 1 fonts (or
"|> any other font system, probably).

"|	I would find an education on why one format was better than the
"|other to be elucidating though.

TrueType is a typeface (a font is a face in a specific size and
weight) technology, whereas Postscript is a page-description
technology, not limited to type.  In fact, Postscript is a general
purpose language, closely related to FORTH:  it would be possible
(indeed, some have done it for kicks) to write a word processor or
spreadsheet application in Postscript. 

The major difference between them is the rasterizer.  In Postscript,
the rasterizing is generally accomplished in hardware.  (There are
some standalone Postscript software rasterizers, but they tend to be
slow and quirky.)  This makes Postscript type files smaller than their
TrueType counterparts, and also means that if you have a Postscript
face from the days when 300dpi laser printers were the standard and
run the same face on new 1200dpi (or better) hardware, it will be
sharper and clearer on the new hardware.  It also means that generally
you pay more for the Postscript hardware peripheral. 

If you output your job to a Postscript file on your humble desktop
machine, you can take the file on disk to a professional printer, and
that pronter can print the job in true 3000dpi on his or her megabuck
printing technology.  

In TrueType, the rasterizer and the typeface are integrated. 
Theoretically, this means that the rasterizer could be "tuned" to the
specific face (similar to the "hints" in Postscript) and optimized
more highly than Postscript, which is designed (like CD audio) to work
with a reference standardized rasterizer.  In practice, customizing
the TrueType rasterizer takes a lot of highly skilled programmer
hours, so most TrueType rasterizers are one-size-fits-all, also. 
Also, a TrueType typeface designed for a 300dpi standard will not
improve on a 1200dpi hardware peripheral, and one designed for a
1200dpi hardware peripheral may look terrible when used with a 300dpi
peripheral, or may not run at all. 

-- 
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