A Font Primer

Overview of the font formats. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Battle of the formats

Apostrophe explains why type 1 is a superior font format. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Daniel S. Dunnam
[Daniel S. Dunnam]

Daniel S. Dunnam's opinion on Truetype versus PostScript. His recommendation: use PostScript fonts, buy ATM. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Daniel S. Dunnam
[Daniel S. Dunnam]

[More]  ⦿

Edward G.J. Lee
[LGJ Font Notes]

[More]  ⦿

Fonts TrueType

A comparison of truetype and type 1, in Italian. [Google] [More]  ⦿

James Shimada
[The Font Wars]

[More]  ⦿

Jig

Comparison of truetype and type 1 by Jigal van Hemert. [Google] [More]  ⦿

José Ramón Penela
[unostiposduros.com]

[More]  ⦿

Judy Litt compares T1 and TT

An article by Judy Litt comparing PostScript&TrueType fonts. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Laurence Penney
[Truetype and Type 1 fonts]

[More]  ⦿

Laurence Penney
[Truetype, PostScript Type 1&OpenType]

[More]  ⦿

LGJ Font Notes
[Edward G.J. Lee]

Taiwanese type designer Edward Lee has some font information pages (in Chinese). He has useful technical discussions on Metafont, OpenType, Truetype and type 1. Downloadable full CJK fonts include cwHBMono (2008, Tsong-Min Wu, Tsong-Huey Wu and Edward G.J. Lee).

This archive contains about 30 free full Chinese fonts in the WT, WTS, WP, and WCL series created in 2004 by Taiwanese type designer Edward G. J. Lee. The font names are: HanWangMingMediumChuIn, HanWangKaiMediumChuIn, HanWangMingMediumPoIn1, HanWangKaiMediumPoIn1, HanWangMingMediumPoIn2, HanWangKaiMediumPoIn2, HanWangMingMediumPoIn3, HanWangKaiMediumPoIn3, HanWangMingLight, HanWangMingMedium, HanWangMingBold, HanWangMingHeavy, HanWangMingBlack, HanWangYenLight, HanWangYenHeavy, HanWangHeiLight, HanWangHeiHeavy, HanWangLiSuMedium, HanWangFangSongMedium, HanWangKanDaYan, HanWangKanTan, HanWangZonYi, HanWangYanKai, HanWangShinSuMedium, HanWangCC02, HanWangCC15, HanWangGSolid06cut1, HanWangGB06, HanWang-KaiBold-Gb5, HanWang-WeiBeiMedium-Gb5, HanWang-FangSongMedium-Gb5, HanWang-SinSongThin-Gb5. All fonts are copyright Dr. Hann-Tzong Wang, 2002-2004. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Postscript versus truetype

Discussion, in Russian. [Google] [More]  ⦿

PostScript versus Type 1

Dave Bastian discusses PostScript versus Type 1. [Google] [More]  ⦿

The Font Wars
[James Shimada]

A wonderful article written in 2006 by James Shimada that tells the story of PostScript, parametric fonts, TrueType and OpenType. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Truetype and Type 1 fonts
[Laurence Penney]

Comparison of formats by Laurence Penney. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Truetype, PostScript Type 1&OpenType
[Laurence Penney]

Comparison of formats by Thomas Phinney, February 2001. Older version (October 1997). [Google] [More]  ⦿

TrueType, PostScript Type 1,&OpenType

TrueType, PostScript Type 1,&OpenType: What's the Difference? is the title of a comparative article by Thomas W. Phinney, written in 2002. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Truetype, type 1 or OpenType

Discussion at Typophile in December 2005 regarding which font format will survive. Some say PostScript (type 1) will be around for a long time as many print shops are still using it. Truetype is preferred for applications on screen, it seems. There is agreement that Truetype outlines are harder to get right. But no one mentioned the fact that we should have a different font model altogether--one based on many inking paradigms including drawing and image-based formats, in which all data can be altered in ordinary text editors. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Truetype versus type 1

Short piece by yours truly. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Truetype vs Type 1 hinting

Richard Kinch on the "hinting mess", and a comparison between type 1 and truetype hiting. A quote from his posting: "Type 1 vs TrueType hinting is like folk guitar versus classical violin. The former is relatively easy to play, rewards modest skills, yet has limited creative range. The latter is hard to play, sounds good only with a rather rare expert effort, yet has infinite creative possibilities." This was part of a usenet discussion. [Google] [More]  ⦿

TT versus T1: David Glenn

David Glenn from Microsoft's truetype team on truetype versus type 1: Back when the primordial ooze was settling, PostScript was the page description language. PS made it possible for font outlines (the letter design or shape) to be accurately described, displayed and printed. There were other formats but PS took off, especially when it was the page description technology put into a lot of printers, notably the 1985 Apple LaserWriter. Excel and PageMaker and the LaserWriter virtually made the Mac and desktop publishing take off. Adobe owned PostScript so they got to charge a royalty for the technology. Apple eventually wanted to save money and not pay a big hit each time for each laserwriter. Nor did they want to get into the situation where they would have to pay Adobe for each Mac if display PS took off as the onscreen display technology. That was the economic reason for the search for another font technology. A guy named Sampo Kaasila invented TT. Apple included the rasterizer with system 7 and Microsoft licensed the technology. It first shipped in a Microsoft product in Windows 3.1 spring of 1992. Since then, it has taken off in the PC world. In the highend design world, there is still a lot of bias against TT since they spent years learning how to get their proprietary equipment to output PS. Technically, TT is a better format but the bottom line is that your particular needs may be more of a factor as to which format you use. If you need to work with mostly Mac designers or output to imagesetters, or work in a PS environment, then you may find it easier to use Type 1 fonts. There's a big myth that Type 1 fonts are of better quality. The truth is that you can find well made, well designed fonts in both formats. In the early days of TT, a lot of foundries simply took their Type 1 fonts and converted them to the TrueType format to sell them to the PC users. Back then, there weren't a lot of good tools or understanding on how to do this correctly. This led to a lot of crappy TT fonts out there. Plus, bundles by folks trying to pack 1000s of fonts onto a CD without regard to quality gave TT a bad name, which it's still trying to shake to this day. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Type 1 vs. TrueType discussion

Discussion on Type 1 versus TrueType by Nicholas Fabian. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Typophile

Discussion on typophile regarding truetype versus type 1. Some teasers:

• John Hudson: "... we don't want to support Type 1 fonts any longer but don't have time or much inclination to make OpenType versions of all our retail fonts."
• John Hudson: "I never liked the Type 1 font format, even when it was still pretty much the only game in town (when there were no decent tools for making TT fonts). Two, three files to ship, maintain and support for each platform? <256 character limit? No way to use ligatures without breaking text strings? Seriously, Type 1 is one stone-age technology whose demise is long overdue."
• Hrant Papazian: "Mathematically, TT does actually need slightly more points even in native mode, but it's not that much more; on the other hand, some people feel that the way in which TT's quadratic beziers behave is less friendly (to a human editor)."
• John Hudson on ligatures and type 1: "Let's say I want to use the full range of standard f-ligatures in a document. With my Type 1 fonts, I'm getting the ligatures either from psuedo-standard Adobe expert set layout or from totally-non standard and widly diveregenbt hacked layouts used by different font foundries. Whichever layout I use, I am obliged to change the text strings of the document in order to display ligatures so that, for example the word 'office' ends up being spelled 'oWce' (using the Adobe expert set layout). The document can no longer be spell-checked, sorted or published to the web; changing fonts will likely result in corruption even of the display. Effectively, I've killed my document by typesetting it." [Note: Not true if people use TeX, by the way.]

unostiposduros.com
[José Ramón Penela]

Very didactic and insightful Spanish language web site devoted to typography and its history. Pages by freelance graphic designer José Ramón Penela from Madrid. Check Penela's comparison of truetype and postscript. [Google] [More]  ⦿