Article 366440 of alt.binaries.fonts: From: "Jig" Newsgroups: alt.binaries.fonts Subject: Re: I Can't See The Difference. Can You See The Difference? Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 05:44:33 +0100 Somebody wrote in message news:gV508.19806$9u4.1180877@news1.calgary.shaw.ca... > I'm no font expert but whenever I've needed to use a Type1 font I've just > simply converted to TrueType with FontLab. I don't care to get into the mess > of dealing with installing Type1's. I haven't had any serious problems with > doing this (losing character quality or anything). So, I wanted to know > specifically why the experts admonish such a practice. Thanks. "The mess of dealing with installing Type1's" with ATM (light version is free) is no mess at all. Activating and deactivating fonts is very easy and for the rest ATM works in the background and simply adds the fonts to the fontlist of most programs. The fundamental differences between T1 (Type1) and TTF (TrueType) are the reason why experts don't like automatic conversions. T1 and TTF have different types of curves to build the outline. A conversion will lead to more control points to get the same shape in the other system. This makes the font needlesly complex and will most certainly ruin the hinting system (see below). In the T1 the outline is not included in the resulting shape, in TTF it is. In other words: in T1 the outline is always outside the area the is painted. A conversion results in a different shape. The hinting mechanism of T1 and TTF is very different. Hinting is a way to correct the resulting shape on low resolution devices when using small font sizes; to fontographers anything below 600dpi is a low resolution device. Font converters use "auto-hinting" to try and correct this. If you look at the difference between well hinted (manually hinted) fonts on screen and converted fonts you can appreciate the hard work this implies. You can also see the difference on 300dpi laser prints when you use 10-12 pt font sizes. The not- or auto-hinted fonts always look a little unbalanced; some parts of some characters are thicker or thinner than the corresponding parts of other characters. Some conversions also get the kerning pairs wrong. I don't think I need to explain why it doesn't look good to have some characters too close together and some characters too far apart. Converting fonts automatically from one format to the other is a bit like making a water colour painting by using a photoshop filter on a photograph. At first the result seems OK, but if you take a closer look you will see that the automatic process has removed details where a painter would have included the details and that the process has left details in places where they are unnecessary or even distracting. It's just a matter of trying to get a result that pleases the eye. No automatic process can determine what our mind likes in every situation. In the case of font conversions it's a matter of making imperfect copies of a well balanced collection of little pieces of art. For the grunge type of fonts conversion may not matter that much; most of these fonts were made by scanning shapes that were abused by filters. The effect that the author wanted is most of the times still present in the converted font. In the case of fonts that were meant for easy reading conversion is a different cup of tea. Many of the characteristics of a letter shape are lost in the conversion. If you like the result of a conversion, go ahead. If the people you work for like the result, go ahead. But there are lots of people who like to see what the author meant. Getting a conversion right takes so much effort that it is easier to install ATM and just use the T1 font. Grtz, Jig.