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Font Types
| Type 1 | Type 3 | TrueType | Type 42 | OpenType | Multiple Masters |
What you can do with fonts
| Modify | Convert | Originate | Reproduce | Embed |
Legal Matters
| Copyright | Ownership |
Movable type was invented c. 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz. Or was it? As with most things, there is evidence to suggest that the Chinese got there first, with Bi Sheng producing results in AD 1041. There is also talk of a Dutchman who preceded Gutenberg by a few years. However, Gutenberg certainly perfected the whole process, from casting the metal to printing the page. We know very little of his life, other than that he was (like all good printers) both the instigator and the subject of a number of law suits.
The history of type is as rich as that of the literature which it displayed, and a nod should be made in the direction of Aldus Manutius, Ottaviano Petrucci, Claude Garamond, William Caslon, Giambattista Bodoni, John Baskerville, William Morris, Konrad Bauer, Adrian Frutiger and Hermann Zapf. (so that's why...)
In 1985, Adobe introduced PostScript to the world. With it came the PostScript Type 1 font format.
A Type 1 font is composed of two elements: one for the computer containing the information for drawing the font on the screen, and one holding the PostScript information which is sent to the printer. The format also contained 'hinting' technology, which made the output look better on low-resolution devices like the original 300-dpi Apple LaserWriter.
Although Adobe released the PostScript specifications, they kept the hinting technology to themselves. Anyone else who wanted to make PostScript fonts would have to make a Type 3 font.
These were essentially Type 1 fonts, but without the hinting technology. On imagesetters, they looked fine, but they appeared a bit ropey on 300-dpi devices. Eventually, Adobe released the specifications for hinting, and so Type 3 fonts became obsolete.
Fearful of Adobe's monopoly on font technology, Apple decided to create its own font format, called TrueType. Support for TrueType was built into Apple's System 7 in 1991. A TrueType font is a single file that contains all the information needed for both screen and printer. It is also scalable, so that type can be displayed at any point size. (Type 1 fonts only carried screen information for particular point sizes - a shortcoming remedied by Adobe Type Manager software.)
Apple traded the TrueType technology with Microsoft, who incorporated it into Windows 3.2 in 1992.
TrueType fonts are by far the most prevalent, but Type 1 fonts are still favoured in the professional print and graphics industries.
This is simply a TrueType font in a PostScript wrapper! This format was a way of getting PostScript devices to cope with TrueType fonts, before TrueType was supported in PostScript Level 3. There are also Types 4 and 5, but these are essentially Type 1 fonts in special circumstances. Don't ask about Type 2.
In 1996, Adobe joined with Microsoft to create a new font format. This incorporates both TrueType and PostScript technology into one font. Previously, each font file could only hold 256 characters. OpenType fonts can contain several thousand characters. This allows for features such as non-lining numerals, small caps, fractions, ligatures, swash and alternates, as well as support for extended character sets and the Unicode character system. It is also the first font format to use the same files across different platforms.
In the late 1990s, Apple created a font format with many of the same features, called GX, but it sank without a trace owing to a lack of support. With Adobe's and Microsoft's software supporting OpenType, its future looks certain, so you will probably have to buy your font collection all over again.
Adobe also created a type of font (not strictly a format) called a 'Multiple Master'. MM typefaces have dimensions, (e.g. weight, body width) that can be adjusted across a range of values. 'Instances' of the MM font are created with any possible combination of the variables. Although Adobe discontinued it, the technology is still used in Acrobat's font substitution. When a PDF does not contain the necessary font, Acrobat 'creates' something that is roughly of the same dimensions.
Most word-processing and printing applications can modify an existing font by using a combination of Extend or Condense, Italic or Bold, from the Style Menu. Some typefaces take to it better than others; a stretched 9 point Times or 8 point Helvetica makes an interesting body text, but all too often the result makes typographical purists weep into their bed-time cocoa.
There are a number of programs for converting fonts between format and platform. However, be aware that font manufacturers may well frown upon this practice. If you have Type 1 fonts on a PC, it's probably better to install Adobe's PostScript driver and ATM than to convert the font. OpenType fonts work on any supported platform.
Fontlab is a leading commercial software company of font editors and utilities.
FontForge is an open source Unix project. (OS X, Linux, etc.)
Making original typefaces takes two commodities most of us haven't got: Time and Patience. Time, because, according to Monotype, it takes nine months to give birth to a comprehensive family of individual roman, italic, bold and bold-italic fonts, each with its full complement of characters. Patience, because the weight and stress of every character has to look similar on the printed page, rather than on the screen, and the many combinations of each letter are best adjusted by eye. If you must release yet another font onto an uncaring world, first try your hand at a set of Titling Capitals.
One area of typeface construction many find attractive is the reproduction of historical typefaces. There have been so many variations over the years that your version is bound to match one of them. The difficulty is finding a suitable original to scan; many sample books of typefaces are illustrated with early twentieth century sharp-serifed letterpress versions. You may also wonder how authentic to be, and whether to include the 'ink-squash' effect of the screw-press blanket on dampened paper. Whatever you produce, typographical historians will drop disdain and typos on you from a lofty height.
Fonts can be embedded into PDF and EPSFs. This allows type to be displayed correctly on another computer, but without passing on the font in its native form that can then be corralled into an illegal font menagerie.
The TrueType (and OpenType) specification includes a flag which, if set, disables the embedding of that particular font into a PDF. Luckily, few font manufacturers choose to set this flag. Font creators should be warned: a font that cannot be embedded into a PDF is like meat that cannot be put into a pie. Why would you want it?
You need to beware of copyright law. The individual letters of a text alphabet once printed on the page are not in themselves copyrightable, but the font name and the software programme that created them are. In other words, whilst you may modify a font you own, you may not give it a new name, nor swap copies with that nice man you met in the pub. You can, of course, give it a new family suffix to distinguish your modification from the original, such as Garamond-MyFractions, derived from Garamond-Regular.
Some modern artistic display typefaces are sufficiently tortured to carry a design patent, and you may not copy nor scan these from the printed page. You may try your own mousehand reconstruction of the original by eye alone, but you would have to ensure that your version is what is know in legal jargon as 'colourably different'. This has nothing to do with colour, but implies at least twenty points (no pun intended) of difference between the copy and its original. There have been many lengthy (and therefore expensive) court cases dealing with the similarity of artistic endeavours.
Judging from the legal halitosis on the packaging, all typeface manufacturers want you to believe that when you buy computer software you are not purchasing the program but merely a licence to use it. However, in the UK, such 'vapourware' may well come under the Unfair Contract Terms Act.
The Law Society Circular of December 1994, entitled 'Your Business and the Law', states on page 3 that...
"For years, customers of computer companies have laboured under a number of delusions. They imagine that software, although physically tangible, is some magic commodity which cannot be treated as goods. If that were so, software would not need to be of merchantable or satisfactory quality or fit for its particular purpose under the Sale of Goods Act."
In the UK, all software can be returned if unsatisfactory for its purpose, (St. Alban's District Council v ICL, 1990) and, like other goods, can be resold secondhand. Copying it to pass on to someone else is, of course, very naughty and will give you bad karma.
TrueType™, PostScript™, OpenType™ and Acrobat™ are all registered trademarks of their respective owners.