PostScript fonts
Encyclopedia
PostScript fonts are outline font specifications developed by Adobe Systems
for professional digital typesetting
, which uses PostScript
file format to encode font information.
page description language. They did not see widespread use until March 1985, when the first laser printer to use the PostScript language, the Apple LaserWriter
, was introduced.
Although originally part of PostScript, Type 1 fonts used a simplified set of drawing operations compared to ordinary PostScript (programmatic elements such as loops and variables were removed, much like PDF
), but Type 1 fonts added "hints"
to help low-resolution rendering. Originally, Adobe kept the details of their hinting scheme undisclosed and used a (simple) encryption scheme to protect Type 1 outlines and hints, which still persists today (although the encryption scheme and key has since been published by Adobe). Despite these measures, Adobe's scheme was quickly reverse engineered by other players in the industry. Adobe nevertheless required anyone working with Type 1 fonts to license their technology.
Type 3 fonts, a lower-cost implementation of Type 1, allowed for all the sophistication of the PostScript language, but without the standardized approach to hinting or an encryption scheme. Other differences further added to the confusion.
The cost of the licensing was considered very high at this time, and Adobe continued to stonewall on more attractive rates. It was this issue that led Apple to design their own system, TrueType
, around 1991. Immediately following the announcement of TrueType, Adobe published "Adobe type 1 font format", a detailed specification for the format. Retail tools such as Altsys Fontographer
(on January 1995 acquired by Macromedia
, owned for FontLab
since May 2005) added the ability to create Type 1 fonts. Since then, many free Type 1 fonts have been released; for instance, many of the fonts used with the TeX
typesetting system are available in this format.
(PS) language, the glyphs are described with cubic
Bézier curve
s (as opposed to the quadratic curves of TrueType
), and thus a single set of glyphs can be resized through simple mathematical transformations, which can then be sent to a PostScript-ready printer
. Because the data of Type 1 is a description of the outline of a glyph and not a raster image, Type 1 fonts are commonly referred to as "outline fonts". For users wanting to preview these typefaces on an electronic display, small versions of a font need extra hints
and anti-aliasing
to look legible and attractive on screen. This often came in the form of an additional bitmap
font of the same typeface, optimized for screen display. Otherwise, in order to preview the Type 1 fonts in typesetting applications, the Adobe Type Manager
utility was required.
, PostScript Type 1, PS1, T1 or Adobe Type 1) is the font format for single-byte digital fonts for use with Adobe Type Manager software and with PostScript printers. It can support font hinting.
It was originally a proprietary specification, but Adobe released the specification to third-party font manufacturers provided that all Type 1 fonts adhere to it.
referred them as CID font types 0, 1, and 2 respectively, documented in Adobe supplements. Types 9, 10, 11 are CIDkeyed fonts for storing Types 1, 3, 42 respectively.
Adobe does not document the Type 14 format.
font, allowing PostScript-capable printers containing a TrueType rasterizer (which was first implemented in PostScript interpreter version 2010 as an optional feature, later standard) to print TrueType fonts. Support for multi-byte CJK TrueType fonts was added in PostScript version 2015. The out-of-sequence choice of the number 42 is said to be a jesting reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)
, where 42 is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
In original PostScript, there are 35 base fonts:
The precise font names are: "AvantGarde-Book", "AvantGarde-BookOblique", "AvantGarde-Demi", "AvantGarde-DemiOblique", "Bookman-Light", "Bookman-LightItalic", "Bookman-Demi", "Bookman-DemiItalic", "Courier", "Courier-Oblique", "Courier-Bold", "Courier-BoldOblique", "Helvetica", "Helvetica-Oblique", "Helvetica-Bold", "Helvetica-BoldOblique", "Helvetica-Narrow", "Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique", "Helvetica-Narrow-Bold", "Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique", "NewCenturySchlbk-Roman", "NewCenturySchlbk-Italic", "NewCenturySchlbk-Bold", "NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic", "Palatino-Roman", "Palatino-Italic", "Palatino-Bold", "Palatino-BoldItalic", "Symbol", "Times-Bold", "Times-BoldItalic", "Times-Roman", "Times-Italic", "ZapfChancery-MediumItalic", "ZapfDingbats".
In PostScript 3, 136 fonts are specified, which includes the standard 35 fonts; core fonts in Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh; selected fonts from Microsoft Office and the HP 110 font set. New fonts include:
In PDF, the following 14 fonts are defined:
However, in recent versions of Adobe Reader, Helvetica and Times were internally replaced by Arial and Times New Roman respectively.
Fonts with an Adobe Western 2 character set support most western languages including Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Sami, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish.
This standard superseded ISO-Adobe as the new minimum character set standard as implemented in OpenType fonts from Adobe.
.
Supported encodings include ISO-2022, EUC-TW, Big Five, UCS-2, UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.
, ISO-2022-JP, Microsoft Windows 3.1 J, JIS X 0213
:2004, JIS X 0212-1990, Kyodo News
U-PRESS character set.
font formats, designed to address a large number of glyphs. It was developed to support ideographic East Asian character sets, as these comprise many more characters than the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.
Adobe developed CID-keyed font formats to solve problems with the OCF/Type 0 format, for addressing complex Asian-language (CJK
) encoding and very large character sets. CID-keyed internals can be used with the Type 1 font format for standard CID-keyed fonts, or Type 2 for CID-keyed OpenType
fonts.
CID-keyed fonts often reference "character collections," static glyph sets defined for different language coverage purposes. Although in principle any font maker may define character collections, Adobe's are the only ones in wide usage. Each character collection has an encoding which maps Character IDs to glyphs. Each member glyph in a character collection is identified by a unique character identifier (CID). Such CIDs are generally supplemental to other encodings or mappings such as Unicode
.
Character collections are uniquely named by registry, ordering and supplement, such as "Adobe-Japan1-6." The registry is the developer (such as Adobe). The so-called "ordering" gives the purpose of the collection (for example, "Japan1"). The supplement number (such as 6) indicates incremental additions: for a given language, there may be multiple character collections of increasing size, each a superset of the last, using a higher supplement number. The Adobe-Japan1-0 collection is 8284 glyphs, while Adobe-Japan1-6 is 23,058 glyphs.
CID-keyed fonts may be made without reference to a character collection by using an "identity" encoding, such as Identity-H (for horizontal writing) or Identity-V (for vertical). Such fonts may each have a unique character set, and in such cases the CID number of a glyph is not informative; generally the Unicode
encoding is used instead, potentially with supplemental information.
CID-keyed fonts internally have their character sets divided into "rows," with the advantage that each row may have different global hinting parameters applied.
In theory it would be possible to make CID-keyed OpenType versions of western fonts. This would seem desirable for some such fonts because of the hinting advantages. However, according to Adobe, much of the software infrastructure (applications, drivers, operating systems) makes incorrect assumptions about CID-keyed fonts in ways that makes such fonts behave badly in real-world usage.
Adobe ClearScan technology (as from Acrobat 9) creates custom Type1-CID fonts to match the visual appearance of a scanned document after optical character recognition (OCR). ClearScan (in Acrobat 9) does not replace the fonts with your system fonts or substitute them by Type1-MM (as in Acrobat 8 and earlier versions), but uses these newly created custom fonts. The custom fonts are embedded in the PDF file (this is obviously mandatory).
The so-called PostScript or Type 1 flavor of OpenType
fonts, also called OpenType CFF, contains glyph outlines in a CFF table.
CFF fonts can be embedded in PDF
files, starting with PDF version 1.2. It is the usual approach to representing a Type 1 font within PDF.
CID-keyed fonts can be represented within CFF with Type 2 charstrings for CID-keyed OpenType fonts.
A Type 1 font can be converted into CFF/Type2 format, and back to Type 1 again, without any changes.
' Type 1 PostScript
font
s, now mostly superseded by the advent of OpenType
. Multiple master fonts contain one or more "masters" — that is, original font styles — and enable a user to interpolate these font styles along a continuous range of "axes."
For many Adobe Originals
fonts, particularly those designed by Robert Slimbach
, Adobe did some degree of redesign along with the conversion to OpenType.
The typeface Helvetica Narrow was not converted to OpenType, because the Type 1 original was a mathematically squished version of Helvetica, rather than an actually designed condensed typeface. This was originally done to conserve ROM space in PostScript printers.
As a result of the above changes, Adobe no longer guarantees metric compatibility between Type 1 and OpenType fonts. However, Adobe claims the change is minimal for Adobe (not Adobe Originals) fonts, if:
level 2.
Adobe then developed the CID-keyed font file format which was designed to offer better performance and a more flexible architecture for addressing the complex Asian-language encoding and character set issues. Adobe does not document or support OCF font format.
OCF font metrics are described in Adobe Composite Font Metrics file.
contain general font
information and font metrics information for the font program. These files are generally used directly only in Unix
environments.
An AFM file provides both global metrics for a font program and the metrics of each individual character.
The metrics of a multiple master font are described by one AMFM file, which specifies the control data and global font information, plus one AFM file for each of the master designs in the font.
An ACFM file provides information about the structure of a composite font. Specifically, the global metrics of the composite font program and the global metrics of each of its immediately descendent font programs. ACFM file does not associate with a base font, but act as the top-level structure of a composite font. The character metrics of individual characters in the composite font are described completely by one of more associated AFM files.
The formats are sufficiently similar that a compliant parser can parse AFM, ACFM, and AMFM files.
version of PFB, usually carrying ".PFA" file name extension. It contains a font's glyph data. PFA is the form of the font used by PostScript-language interpreters, and is also the preferred format for Type 1 fonts used in UNIX environments.
format created by Adobe Systems
, usually carrying ".PFB" file name extension. It contains a font's glyph data.
The PFM format is documented in the Windows 3.1 "Printers and Fonts Kit" help file (PFK31WH.HLP). Some details are also covered in the Windows 3.1 "Device Drivers Adaptation Guide" help file (DDAG31WH.HLP). Both of those documents are part of the Windows 3.1 Device Development Kit (DDK), which is still available (October 2008) to MSDN subscribers.
for its version of binary font metrics file, starting from version 2.1.
, Windows 98
, Windows NT
and Windows Me
do not support Type 1 fonts natively. Adobe Type Manager
is needed in order to use these fonts on these operating systems. Windows 2000
, Windows XP
and Windows Vista
support Type 1 fonts natively through GDI
calls. The Windows Presentation Foundation
introduced in Windows Vista
, which is also available for Windows XP
however drops support for Type 1 fonts, in favor of Type 2 fonts.
For Windows platforms that natively support PostScript, only binary PostScript and OpenType file formats are supported.
Windows Presentation Foundation
(formerly codenamed Avalon) in Windows Vista
supports rasterizing OpenType CFF/Type 2 fonts, whereas Type 1 fonts will still be supported in GDI
, but not in GDI+.
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
for professional digital typesetting
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
, which uses PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
file format to encode font information.
History
Type 1 and Type 3 fonts were introduced by Adobe in 1984 as part of the PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
page description language. They did not see widespread use until March 1985, when the first laser printer to use the PostScript language, the Apple LaserWriter
LaserWriter
The LaserWriter was a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter introduced by Apple in 1985. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market...
, was introduced.
Although originally part of PostScript, Type 1 fonts used a simplified set of drawing operations compared to ordinary PostScript (programmatic elements such as loops and variables were removed, much like PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
), but Type 1 fonts added "hints"
Font hinting
Font hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...
to help low-resolution rendering. Originally, Adobe kept the details of their hinting scheme undisclosed and used a (simple) encryption scheme to protect Type 1 outlines and hints, which still persists today (although the encryption scheme and key has since been published by Adobe). Despite these measures, Adobe's scheme was quickly reverse engineered by other players in the industry. Adobe nevertheless required anyone working with Type 1 fonts to license their technology.
Type 3 fonts, a lower-cost implementation of Type 1, allowed for all the sophistication of the PostScript language, but without the standardized approach to hinting or an encryption scheme. Other differences further added to the confusion.
The cost of the licensing was considered very high at this time, and Adobe continued to stonewall on more attractive rates. It was this issue that led Apple to design their own system, TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
, around 1991. Immediately following the announcement of TrueType, Adobe published "Adobe type 1 font format", a detailed specification for the format. Retail tools such as Altsys Fontographer
Fontographer
Fontographer , is a software application used to create digital fonts, available for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. It was originally developed by Altsys but is now owned by FontLab Ltd.-Fontastic:...
(on January 1995 acquired by Macromedia
Macromedia
Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
, owned for FontLab
FontLab
FontLab is both the name of a company, FontLab Ltd, and the former name of their flagship font editor product, now called FontLab Studio. Since the early 2000s, FontLab Studio has been the dominant software tool for commercial/retail digital font development. This is partly because the...
since May 2005) added the ability to create Type 1 fonts. Since then, many free Type 1 fonts have been released; for instance, many of the fonts used with the TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
typesetting system are available in this format.
Technology
By using PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
(PS) language, the glyphs are described with cubic
Cubic plane curve
In mathematics, a cubic plane curve is a plane algebraic curve C defined by a cubic equationapplied to homogeneous coordinates x:y:z for the projective plane; or the inhomogeneous version for the affine space determined by setting z = 1 in such an equation...
Bézier curve
Bézier curve
A Bézier curve is a parametric curve frequently used in computer graphics and related fields. Generalizations of Bézier curves to higher dimensions are called Bézier surfaces, of which the Bézier triangle is a special case....
s (as opposed to the quadratic curves of TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
), and thus a single set of glyphs can be resized through simple mathematical transformations, which can then be sent to a PostScript-ready printer
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
. Because the data of Type 1 is a description of the outline of a glyph and not a raster image, Type 1 fonts are commonly referred to as "outline fonts". For users wanting to preview these typefaces on an electronic display, small versions of a font need extra hints
Font hinting
Font hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...
and anti-aliasing
Anti-aliasing
In digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
to look legible and attractive on screen. This often came in the form of an additional bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
font of the same typeface, optimized for screen display. Otherwise, in order to preview the Type 1 fonts in typesetting applications, the Adobe Type Manager
Adobe Type Manager
Adobe Type Manager is the name of a family of computer programs created and marketed by Adobe Systems for use with their Type 1 fonts. The current version is Adobe ATM Light 4.1.2, available from Adobe's FTP .-Apple Macintosh:...
utility was required.
Type 0
Type 0 is a "composite" font format - as described in the PostScript Language Reference Manual, 2nd Edition. A composite font is composed of a high-level font that references multiple descendent fonts.Type 1
Type 1 (also known as PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, PostScript Type 1, PS1, T1 or Adobe Type 1) is the font format for single-byte digital fonts for use with Adobe Type Manager software and with PostScript printers. It can support font hinting.
It was originally a proprietary specification, but Adobe released the specification to third-party font manufacturers provided that all Type 1 fonts adhere to it.
Type 2
Type 2 is a character string format that offers a compact representation of the character description procedures in an outline font file. The format is designed to be used with the Compact Font Format (CFF). The CFF/Type2 format is the basis for Type 1 OpenType fonts, and is used for embedding fonts in Acrobat 3.0 PDF files (PDF format version 1.2).Type 3
Type 3 font (also known as PostScript Type 3 or PS3, T3 or Adobe Type 3) consists of glyphs defined using the full PostScript language, rather than just a subset. Because of this, a Type 3 font can do some things that Type 1 fonts cannot do, such as specify shading, color, and fill patterns. However, it does not support hinting. Adobe Type Manager does not support Type 3 fonts.Type 4
Type 4 is a format that was used to make fonts for printer font cartridges and for permanent storage on a printer's hard disk. The character descriptions are expressed in the Type 1 format. Adobe does not document this proprietary format.Type 5
Type 5 is similar to the Type 4 format but is used for fonts stored in the ROMs of a PostScript printer. It is also known as CROM font (Compressed ROM font).Types 9, 10, 11
GhostscriptGhostscript
Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format page description languages.- Features :...
referred them as CID font types 0, 1, and 2 respectively, documented in Adobe supplements. Types 9, 10, 11 are CIDkeyed fonts for storing Types 1, 3, 42 respectively.
Type 14
Type 14, or the Chameleon font format, is used to represent a large number of fonts in a small amount of storage space. The core set of Chameleon fonts consists of one Master Font, and a set of font descriptors that specify how the Master Font is to be adjusted to give the desired set of character shapes for a specific typeface.Adobe does not document the Type 14 format.
Type 32
Type 32 is used for downloading bitmap fonts to PostScript interpreters with version number 2016 or greater. The bitmap characters are transferred directly into the interpreter's font cache, thus saving space in the printer's memory.Type 42
The Type 42 font format is a PostScript wrapper around a TrueTypeTrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font, allowing PostScript-capable printers containing a TrueType rasterizer (which was first implemented in PostScript interpreter version 2010 as an optional feature, later standard) to print TrueType fonts. Support for multi-byte CJK TrueType fonts was added in PostScript version 2015. The out-of-sequence choice of the number 42 is said to be a jesting reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the title of the first of six books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy" by Douglas Adams . The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in...
, where 42 is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Core Font Set
In addition to font types, PostScript specifications also defined the Core Font Set, which dictates the minimum number of fonts, and character sets to be supported by each font.In original PostScript, there are 35 base fonts:
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic (Book, Book Oblique, Demi, Demi Oblique)
- ITC BookmanBookman (typeface)Bookman or Bookman Old Style is a serif typeface derived from Old Style Antique and designed by Alexander Phemister in 1858 for Miller and Richard foundry. Several American foundries copied the design, including the Bruce Type Foundry, and issued it under various names. In 1901, Bruce refitted...
(Light, Light Italic, Demi, Demi Italic) - CourierCourier (typeface)Courier is a monospaced slab serif typeface designed to resemble the output from a strike-on typewriter. The typeface was designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler in 1955...
(Regular, Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique) - HelveticaHelveticaHelvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
(Regular, Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique, Condensed, Condensed Oblique, Condensed Bold, Condensed Bold Oblique) - New Century Schoolbook (Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic)
- PalatinoPalatinoPalatino is the name of a large typeface family that began as an old style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf initially released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry.In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype...
(Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic) - SymbolSymbol (typeface)Symbol is one of the four standard fonts available on all PostScript-based printers, starting with Apple's original LaserWriter . It contains a complete unaccented Greek alphabet and a selection of commonly used mathematical symbols...
- Times (Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic)
- ITC Zapf Chancery (Medium Italic)
- ITC Zapf DingbatsZapf DingbatsZapf Dingbats is one of the more common dingbat typefaces. It was designed by the typographer Hermann Zapf in 1978 and licensed by International Typeface Corporation....
The precise font names are: "AvantGarde-Book", "AvantGarde-BookOblique", "AvantGarde-Demi", "AvantGarde-DemiOblique", "Bookman-Light", "Bookman-LightItalic", "Bookman-Demi", "Bookman-DemiItalic", "Courier", "Courier-Oblique", "Courier-Bold", "Courier-BoldOblique", "Helvetica", "Helvetica-Oblique", "Helvetica-Bold", "Helvetica-BoldOblique", "Helvetica-Narrow", "Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique", "Helvetica-Narrow-Bold", "Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique", "NewCenturySchlbk-Roman", "NewCenturySchlbk-Italic", "NewCenturySchlbk-Bold", "NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic", "Palatino-Roman", "Palatino-Italic", "Palatino-Bold", "Palatino-BoldItalic", "Symbol", "Times-Bold", "Times-BoldItalic", "Times-Roman", "Times-Italic", "ZapfChancery-MediumItalic", "ZapfDingbats".
In PostScript 3, 136 fonts are specified, which includes the standard 35 fonts; core fonts in Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh; selected fonts from Microsoft Office and the HP 110 font set. New fonts include:
- AlbertusAlbertus (typeface)Albertus is a glyphic, serif typeface designed by Berthold Wolpe in the period 1932 to 1940 for the Monotype Corporation type foundry. Wolpe named the font after Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth-century German philosopher and theologian....
(Light, Roman, Italic) - Antique Olive (Roman, Italic, Bold, Compact)
- Apple Chancery
- ArialArialArial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with Microsoft Windows, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS X and many PostScript 3 computer printers...
(Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic) - BodoniBodoni-Cold Type versions:As it had been a standard type for many years, Bodoni was widely available in cold type. Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Harris, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper, Hell AG, Monotype, all sold the face under the name ‘’Bodoni, while Graphic...
(Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Poster, Poster Compressed) - Carta
- ChicagoChicago (typeface)Chicago is a sans-serif typeface designed by Susan Kare for Apple Computer. It was used in the Macintosh operating system user interface between 1984 and 1997 and was an important part of Apple’s brand identity. It is also used in early versions of the iPod user interface...
- ClarendonClarendon (typeface)Clarendon is an English slab-serif typeface that was created in England by Robert Besley for Thorowgood and Co. , a type company formerly known as the Fann Street Foundry until approximately 1838. The font was published in 1845 after Besley, an employee of the foundry since 1826, was made a partner...
(Light, Roman, Bold) - Cooper BlackCooper BlackCooper Black is a heavily weighted, old style serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1921 and released by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry in 1922. The typeface is drawn as an extra bold weight of Cooper Old Style. Though not based on a single historic model, Cooper Black...
, Cooper Black Italic - Copperplate GothicCopperplate GothicCopperplate Gothic is a typeface designed by Frederic W. Goudy and released by the American Type Founders in 1901. While termed a "Gothic" , the face has small glyphic serifs that act to emphasize the blunt terminus of vertical and horizontal strokes...
(32BC, 33BC) - CoronetCoronet (typeface)Coronet is an American typeface designed in 1937 by R. Hunter Middleton. It is also sometimes known as "Ribbon 131".-Uses in Popular Culture:*Andy Warhol's "signature" on the cover of Velvet Underground and Nico is done in this font....
- EurostileEurostileThe Eurostile type font style is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. Novarese originally made Eurostile for one of the best-known Italian foundries, Nebiolo, in Turin....
(Medium, Bold, Extended No.2, Bold Extended No.2) - GenevaGeneva (typeface)Geneva is a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Susan Kare for Apple Computer. It is one of the oldest fonts shipped with the Macintosh operating system. The original version was a bitmap font, but later versions were converted to TrueType when that technology became available on the Macintosh...
- Gill SansGill SansGill Sans is a sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill.The original design appeared in 1926 when Douglas Cleverdon opened a bookshop in his home town of Bristol, where Eric Gill painted the fascia over the window in sans-serif capitals that would later be known as Gill Sans...
(Light, Light Italic, Book, Book Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Extra Bold, Condensed, Condensed Bold) - Goudy (Oldstyle, Oldstyle Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, Extra Bold)
- HelveticaHelveticaHelvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
(Narrow, Narrow Oblique, Narrow Bold, Narrow Bold Oblique) - Hoefler TextHoefler TextHoefler Text is a contemporary serif Antiqua font that was designed for Apple Computer to demonstrate advanced type technologies. Hoefler Text was created to allow the composition of complex typography; as such it takes cues from a range of classic fonts, such as Garamond and Janson.Designed by...
(Roman, Italic, Black, Black Italic), Hoefler Ornaments - JoannaJoanna (typeface)Joanna is a transitional serif typeface designed by Eric Gill in the period 1930–31, and named for one of his daughters. The typeface was originally designed for proprietary use by Gill's printing shop Hague & Gill. The type was first produced in a small quantity by the Caslon Foundry for hand...
(Roman/Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic) - Letter GothicLetter GothicLetter Gothic is a monospaced sans-serif typeface. It was created between 1956 and 1962 by Roger Roberson for IBM in their Lexington plant. It was initially intended to be used in Selectric electric typewriters. It is readable and is recommended for technical documentation and for sheets including...
(Regular, Slanted, Bold, Bold Slanted) - ITC Lubalin Graph (Book, Oblique, Demi, Demi Oblique)
- ITC Mona Lisa Recut
- Marigold
- MonacoMonaco (typeface)Monaco is a monospaced sans-serif typeface designed by Susan Kare and Kris Holmes. The face shipped with all versions of Mac OS X and was already present with previous versions of the Mac operating system...
- New YorkNew York (typeface)New York is a transitional serif typeface designed in 1983 for the Macintosh computer by Susan Kare, Charles Bigelow, and Kris Holmes. It was originally titled “Rosemont.” The typeface was the standard bitmap serif font for the early Macintosh operating systems...
- OptimaOptimaOptima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf between 1952 and 1955 for the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, Germany.-Characteristics:...
(Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic) - Oxford
- Stempel GaramondGaramondGaramond is the name given to a group of old-style serif typefaces named after the punch-cutter Claude Garamond . Most of the Garamond faces are more closely related to the work of a later punch-cutter, Jean Jannon...
(Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic) - Tekton (Regular)
- Times New Roman (Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic)
- UniversUniversUnivers is the name of a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954.Originally conceived and released by Deberny & Peignot in 1957, the type library was acquired in 1972 by Haas. Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei was later folded into the D...
(45 Light, 45 Light Oblique, 55, 55 Oblique, 65 Bold, 65 Bold Oblique, 57 Condensed, 57 Condensed Oblique, 67 Condensed Bold, 67 Condensed Bold Oblique, 53 Extended, 53 Extended Oblique, 63 Extended Bold, 63 Extended Bold Oblique) - WingdingsWingdingsWingdings are a series of dingbat fonts which render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes...
In PDF, the following 14 fonts are defined:
- Courier (Regular, Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique)
- Helvetica (Regular, Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique)
- Symbol
- Times (Roman, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic)
- ITC Zapf Dingbats
However, in recent versions of Adobe Reader, Helvetica and Times were internally replaced by Arial and Times New Roman respectively.
Character sets
Although PostScript fonts can be encoded in any character set, there are character sets specifically developed by Adobe, which are used by fonts developed by Adobe.Adobe Western 2
It includes a basic character set containing upper and lowercase letters, figures, accented characters, and punctuation. These fonts also contain currency symbols (cent, dollar, euro, florin, pound sterling, yen), standard ligatures (fi, fl), common fractions (1/4, 1/2, 3/4), common mathematics operators, superscript numerals (1,2,3), common delimiters and conjoiners, and other symbols (including daggers, trademark, registered trademark, copyright, paragraph, litre and estimated symbol). Compared to the ISO-Adobe character set, Western 2 also adds 17 additional symbol characters: euro, litre, estimated, omega, pi, partialdiff, delta, product, summation, radical, infinity, integral, approxequal, notequal, lessequal, greaterequal, and lozenge.Fonts with an Adobe Western 2 character set support most western languages including Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Sami, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish.
This standard superseded ISO-Adobe as the new minimum character set standard as implemented in OpenType fonts from Adobe.
Adobe CE
Fonts with an Adobe CE character set also include the characters necessary to support the following central European languages: Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian and Turkish.Adobe-GB1
This Simplified Chinese character collection provides support for the GB 1988-89, GB 2312-80, GB/T 12345-90, GB 13000.1-93, and GB 18030-2005 character set standards. Supported encodings include ISO-2022, EUC-CN, GBK, UCS-2, UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32, and the mixed one, two- and four-byte encoding as published in GB 18030-2005.Adobe-CNS1
This Traditional Chinese character collection provides support for the Big-5 and CNS 11643-1992 character set standards. It also includes support for a number of extensions to Big-5, which contain characters used mainly in the Hong Kong locale. Primary supported Big-5 extensions include HKSCSHKSCS
The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set is a set of Chinese characters -- 4,702 in total in the initial release—used in Cantonese, as well as when writing the names of some places in Hong Kong . It evolved from the preceding Government Chinese Character Set or GCCS...
.
Supported encodings include ISO-2022, EUC-TW, Big Five, UCS-2, UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.
Adobe-Japan1
It is a series of character sets developed for Japanese fonts. Adobe's latest, the Adobe-Japan1-6 set covers character sets from JIS X 0208JIS X 0208
JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. The official title of the current standard is...
, ISO-2022-JP, Microsoft Windows 3.1 J, JIS X 0213
JIS X 0213
JIS X 0213 is a Japanese Industrial Standard defining coded character sets for encoding the characters used in Japan. This standard extends JIS X 0208. The first version was published in 2000 and revised in 2004 . As well as adding a number of special characters, characters with diacritic marks,...
:2004, JIS X 0212-1990, Kyodo News
Kyodo News
is a nonprofit cooperative news agency based in Minato, Tokyo. It was established in November 1945 and it distributes news to almost all newspapers, and radio and television networks in Japan. The newspapers using its news have about 50 million subscribers. K. K. Kyodo News is Kyodo News' business...
U-PRESS character set.
Adobe-Japan2
It was originally as an implementation of JIS X 0212-1990 character set standard and the Macintosh extensions, but with the introduction of Adobe-Japan1 supplement 6 (Adobe-Japan1-6) standard, Adobe-Japan2-0 became obsolete.Adobe-Korea1
This Korean character collection is provides support for the KS X 1001:1992 and KS X 1003:1992 character set standards, and their selected corporate variations. Supported encodings include ISO-2022-KR, EUC-KR, Johab, UHC, UCS-2, UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.ISO-Adobe
Fonts with an ISO-Adobe character set support most western languages including: Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Sami, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish. This is the standard character set in most PostScript Type 1 fonts from Adobe.CID
The CID-keyed font (also known as CID font, CID-based font, short for Character Identifier font) is a font structure, originally developed for PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
font formats, designed to address a large number of glyphs. It was developed to support ideographic East Asian character sets, as these comprise many more characters than the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.
Adobe developed CID-keyed font formats to solve problems with the OCF/Type 0 format, for addressing complex Asian-language (CJK
CJK
CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which is used in the field of software and communications internationalization.The term CJKV means CJK plus Vietnamese, which constitute the main East Asian languages.- Characteristics :...
) encoding and very large character sets. CID-keyed internals can be used with the Type 1 font format for standard CID-keyed fonts, or Type 2 for CID-keyed OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
fonts.
CID-keyed fonts often reference "character collections," static glyph sets defined for different language coverage purposes. Although in principle any font maker may define character collections, Adobe's are the only ones in wide usage. Each character collection has an encoding which maps Character IDs to glyphs. Each member glyph in a character collection is identified by a unique character identifier (CID). Such CIDs are generally supplemental to other encodings or mappings such as Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
.
Character collections are uniquely named by registry, ordering and supplement, such as "Adobe-Japan1-6." The registry is the developer (such as Adobe). The so-called "ordering" gives the purpose of the collection (for example, "Japan1"). The supplement number (such as 6) indicates incremental additions: for a given language, there may be multiple character collections of increasing size, each a superset of the last, using a higher supplement number. The Adobe-Japan1-0 collection is 8284 glyphs, while Adobe-Japan1-6 is 23,058 glyphs.
CID-keyed fonts may be made without reference to a character collection by using an "identity" encoding, such as Identity-H (for horizontal writing) or Identity-V (for vertical). Such fonts may each have a unique character set, and in such cases the CID number of a glyph is not informative; generally the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
encoding is used instead, potentially with supplemental information.
CID-keyed fonts internally have their character sets divided into "rows," with the advantage that each row may have different global hinting parameters applied.
In theory it would be possible to make CID-keyed OpenType versions of western fonts. This would seem desirable for some such fonts because of the hinting advantages. However, according to Adobe, much of the software infrastructure (applications, drivers, operating systems) makes incorrect assumptions about CID-keyed fonts in ways that makes such fonts behave badly in real-world usage.
Adobe ClearScan technology (as from Acrobat 9) creates custom Type1-CID fonts to match the visual appearance of a scanned document after optical character recognition (OCR). ClearScan (in Acrobat 9) does not replace the fonts with your system fonts or substitute them by Type1-MM (as in Acrobat 8 and earlier versions), but uses these newly created custom fonts. The custom fonts are embedded in the PDF file (this is obviously mandatory).
Compact Font Format
Compact Font Format (also known as CFF font format, Type 2 font format, or CFF/Type 2 font format) is a lossless compaction of the Type 1 format using Type 2 charstrings. It is designed to use less storage space than Type 1 fonts, by using operators with multiple arguments, various pre-defined default values, more efficient allotment of encoding values and shared subroutines within a FontSet (family of fonts).The so-called PostScript or Type 1 flavor of OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
fonts, also called OpenType CFF, contains glyph outlines in a CFF table.
CFF fonts can be embedded in PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
files, starting with PDF version 1.2. It is the usual approach to representing a Type 1 font within PDF.
CID-keyed fonts can be represented within CFF with Type 2 charstrings for CID-keyed OpenType fonts.
A Type 1 font can be converted into CFF/Type2 format, and back to Type 1 again, without any changes.
Multiple Master
Multiple master fonts (or MM fonts) are (or, rather, were) an extension to Adobe SystemsAdobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
' Type 1 PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
font
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
s, now mostly superseded by the advent of OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
. Multiple master fonts contain one or more "masters" — that is, original font styles — and enable a user to interpolate these font styles along a continuous range of "axes."
OpenType
PostScript glyph data can be embedded in OpenType font files, but OpenType fonts are not limited to using PostScript outlines. PostScript outlines in OpenType fonts are encoded in the Type2 Compact Font Format (CFF).OpenType conversion
When Adobe converted PostScript Type 1 and Type 1 multiple master fonts to OpenType CFF format, they were made based on the last Type 1/MM versions from the Adobe Type Library fonts. In addition to file format change, there are other changes:- All alphabetic fonts had 17 additional characters included: the euro (some had already gotten this in Type 1), litre, estimated, and the 14 Mac "symbol substitution" characters. Symbol substitution was a scheme used on Mac OS to deal with the fact that the standard "ISO-Adobe" character set omitted certain characters which were part of the MacRoman character set. When one of these 14 characters was typed in a Type 1 font with standard encoding, both ATM and the printer driver would get a generic glyph in the Times style from the Symbol font. In the OpenType conversion, these characters were built into every font, getting some degree of font-specific treatment (weight and width).
- Fonts that had unkerned accented characters had additional kerning to deal with accented characters.
- Font families that included separate Type 1 expert fonts or Cyrillic fonts have these glyphs built in to the "base font" in their OpenType counterparts.
- Multiple master fonts were converted to individual OpenType fonts; each font consisting of a former Multiple Master instance.
For many Adobe Originals
Adobe Originals
The Adobe Originals program began in 1989, when Sumner Stone hired Carol Twombly and Robert Slimbach to create a new series of type families for Adobe Systems. At the time, the desktop publishing revolution was in full swing, and designers had a growing need for high-quality digital fonts. The...
fonts, particularly those designed by Robert Slimbach
Robert Slimbach
Robert Slimbach is a type designer, who has worked at Adobe Systems since 1987. He has won many awards for his digital typeface designs, including the rarely-awarded Charles Peignot Award from the Association Typographique Internationale, and repeated TDC2 awards from the Type Directors Club.-...
, Adobe did some degree of redesign along with the conversion to OpenType.
The typeface Helvetica Narrow was not converted to OpenType, because the Type 1 original was a mathematically squished version of Helvetica, rather than an actually designed condensed typeface. This was originally done to conserve ROM space in PostScript printers.
As a result of the above changes, Adobe no longer guarantees metric compatibility between Type 1 and OpenType fonts. However, Adobe claims the change is minimal for Adobe (not Adobe Originals) fonts, if:
- Text is written in English
- The formatted text contains only non-accented characters
- Only characters that were present in the old fonts are used, without the former Symbol substitution characters
- Applications are used which base line spacing solely on point size or leading, and not on the bounding box of the font
Original Composite Font
Original Composite Font format (which uses a Type 0 file structure) was Adobe's first effort to implement a format for fonts with large character sets, debuted with PostScriptPostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
level 2.
Adobe then developed the CID-keyed font file format which was designed to offer better performance and a more flexible architecture for addressing the complex Asian-language encoding and character set issues. Adobe does not document or support OCF font format.
OCF font metrics are described in Adobe Composite Font Metrics file.
Adobe Font Metrics, Adobe Composite Font Metrics, Adobe Multiple Font Metrics
Adobe Font Metrics (AFM), Adobe Composite Font Metrics (ACFM), Adobe Multiple Font Metrics (AMFM) filesComputer file
A computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is durable in the sense that it remains available for programs to use after the current program has finished...
contain general font
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
information and font metrics information for the font program. These files are generally used directly only in Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
environments.
An AFM file provides both global metrics for a font program and the metrics of each individual character.
The metrics of a multiple master font are described by one AMFM file, which specifies the control data and global font information, plus one AFM file for each of the master designs in the font.
An ACFM file provides information about the structure of a composite font. Specifically, the global metrics of the composite font program and the global metrics of each of its immediately descendent font programs. ACFM file does not associate with a base font, but act as the top-level structure of a composite font. The character metrics of individual characters in the composite font are described completely by one of more associated AFM files.
The formats are sufficiently similar that a compliant parser can parse AFM, ACFM, and AMFM files.
Printer Font ASCII
Printer Font ASCII (PFA) is an ASCIIASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
version of PFB, usually carrying ".PFA" file name extension. It contains a font's glyph data. PFA is the form of the font used by PostScript-language interpreters, and is also the preferred format for Type 1 fonts used in UNIX environments.
Printer Font Binary
Printer Font Binary (PFB) is a binary PostScript fontFont
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
format created by Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, usually carrying ".PFB" file name extension. It contains a font's glyph data.
Printer Font Metric
Printer Font Metric (PFM) is a binary version of AFM, usually carrying ".PFM" file name extension. It contains font metric information.The PFM format is documented in the Windows 3.1 "Printers and Fonts Kit" help file (PFK31WH.HLP). Some details are also covered in the Windows 3.1 "Device Drivers Adaptation Guide" help file (DDAG31WH.HLP). Both of those documents are part of the Windows 3.1 Device Development Kit (DDK), which is still available (October 2008) to MSDN subscribers.
.INF
.inf (INFormation) files contain application-specific information in plain ASCII text, such as font menu names for Windows and DOS-based applications. When a font is installed in Windows, the ATM Installer software takes the AFM and the INF file as input and generates the required PFM file at installation time. The AFM and INF files are not installed in the user's system..MMM
.MMM files are used for the metric data needed by multiple master fonts for the Windows environment..OFM
.OFM is the extension used by OS/2OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
for its version of binary font metrics file, starting from version 2.1.
Windows support
Windows 95Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
, Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
and Windows Me
Windows Me
Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
do not support Type 1 fonts natively. Adobe Type Manager
Adobe Type Manager
Adobe Type Manager is the name of a family of computer programs created and marketed by Adobe Systems for use with their Type 1 fonts. The current version is Adobe ATM Light 4.1.2, available from Adobe's FTP .-Apple Macintosh:...
is needed in order to use these fonts on these operating systems. Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
, Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
and Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
support Type 1 fonts natively through GDI
Graphics Device Interface
The Graphics Device Interface is a Microsoft Windows application programming interface and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers....
calls. The Windows Presentation Foundation
Windows Presentation Foundation
Developed by Microsoft, the Windows Presentation Foundation is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Rather than relying on the older GDI...
introduced in Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
, which is also available for Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
however drops support for Type 1 fonts, in favor of Type 2 fonts.
For Windows platforms that natively support PostScript, only binary PostScript and OpenType file formats are supported.
Windows Presentation Foundation
Windows Presentation Foundation
Developed by Microsoft, the Windows Presentation Foundation is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Rather than relying on the older GDI...
(formerly codenamed Avalon) in Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
supports rasterizing OpenType CFF/Type 2 fonts, whereas Type 1 fonts will still be supported in GDI
Graphics Device Interface
The Graphics Device Interface is a Microsoft Windows application programming interface and core operating system component responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers....
, but not in GDI+.
PostScript font utilities
The t1utils font utility package by I. Lee Hetherington and Eddie Kohler provides tools for decoding Type 1 fonts into a human-readable, and editable format (t1disasm), reassembling them back into fonts (t1asm), for converting between the ASCII and binary formats (t1ascii and t1binary), and for converting from Macintosh PostScript format to Adobe PostScript font format (unpost).See also
- Computer fontComputer fontA computer font is an electronic data file containing a set of glyphs, characters, or symbols such as dingbats. Although the term font first referred to a set of metal type sorts in one style and size, since the 1990s it is generally used to refer to a scalable set of digital shapes that may be...
- OpenTypeOpenTypeOpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
- TrueTypeTrueTypeTrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
- Page description languagePage description languageA page description language is a language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap. An overlapping term is printer control language, but it should not be confused as referring solely to Hewlett-Packard's PCL...
Type information
- PostScript Type 1 and Type 3 Fonts General Information
- Adobe Type 1 Font Format (PDF: 445 KB)
- Adobe Tech. Note 5176, The CFF (Compact Font Format) Spec., (PDF: 251 KB)
- Adobe Tech. Note 5177, Type 2 Charstring Format (PDF: 212 KB)
- The Type 42 Font Format Specification
File format information
- Adobe CID fonts
- Adobe Font Metrics File Format Specification v4.1
- Adobe Technical Note #5178, Building PFM Files for PostScript-Language CJK Fonts
- Font Formats, File Types and Q&A
Character set information
- Adobe Technical Note #5094 Adobe CJKV Character Collections and CMaps for CID-Keyed Fonts
- Adobe - Fonts : Character Sets
- Adobe Tech Note #5078 Adobe-Japan1-6 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts
- Technical Note #5097 Adobe-Japan2-0 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts
Core font information
- PostScript Type 1 fonts
- PostScript 3 Core Font Set Overview
- The Adobe PostScript 3 Font Set
- Apache FOP: fonts