TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Apr 15 05:36:42 EDT 2024
FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE
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David Glenn on the sparseness of OT fonts
David Glenn from the Microsoft type group, explains why there are so few OpenType fonts "out there" (by February 2002):" There are a few main reasons why you don't see a lot more Latin fonts with richer typography using OT. Popular applications (besides InDesign&a few others) don't use OT for Latin text. A lot of apps use it for complex scripts since it the only way to fully support some of these languages. It takes a lot of work to make an application use OT. You have to figure out a good UI to present the OT functionality to users. Also, what do you do about backwards compatibility? Ligatures and other nice features will change line layout. Shipping "pro" versions of all your fonts takes time, money, disk space, etc. Secondly, font makers have invested a lot of money in tools and knowledge to make fonts. OT is a new skillset and format. If users aren't banging down their door, they're not going to put a lot of time and money into it as fast as if apps and users we're screaming for it. Most users--- regardless of OS--- don't really require richer typography to write letters, read email, etc. That's not to say richer typography isn't better or it's the right thing to do, but right now things work for "most" people. These two reasons--- coding apps to expose OT to users and font makers learning the art--- are the two main reasons why OT isn't prevalent. If the operating systems and applications supported (used) OT starting a few years ago I'm sure you would see a lot more OT fonts out there by now. MS shipped Palatino Linotype with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Palatino Linotype is fully OpenType, with ~1200 glyphs. This is in addition to our many complex script typefaces we've shipped to enable and support many languages. Microsoft is working on delivering more OpenType via fonts, apps and technologies with each release we do. I'm sure Apple and Adobe are working on these issues as well. " |
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Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html |