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

[John J. Urbaniak]

Thanks.  This was a valuable treatise on font technology.

John


"T. Guilbert" wrote:

> 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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