Digital Font Formats

Lesson 2: Windows Font Basics for New Font Users

Digital fonts are like mini-programs. Each font file contains information that describes what characters are in the font and how they should look on-screen and when printed. TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts come in both Macintosh and Windows formats. You can't use TrueType or Type 1 fonts for the Mac on a PC running Windows. The newer OpenType font format is cross-platform. You can use the same OpenType fonts on both Macintosh and Windows PC computers.

TrueType fonts
Under Windows, a dog-eared page icon with two overlapping Ts (for TrueType) represents TrueType fonts. All Windows TrueType fonts have a .ttf extension.

PostScript Type 1 fonts
Each Windows Type 1 font has two files that work together -- a .pfm (Printer Font Metrics, your screen font) and a .pfb (Printer Font Binary, your printer font) file. A dog-eared page icon with a lower case script a (for Adobe) represents both files. The file with the .pfm extension contains information for displaying the font on your screen. The file with the .pfb extension contains information to print the font. To display and print properly you must have both of the font files installed for each Type 1 font.

OpenType fonts
The OpenType font format is an extension or new version of TrueType that can also contain PostScript data. OpenType fonts can contain many more glyphs (characters) than other font formats. In Windows, OpenType fonts can have an .otf or .ttf suffix. The .otf fonts contain PostScript data. TrueType fonts converted to OpenType to take advantage of the cross-platform capabilities retain the .ttf extension. The icon for an OpenType font is a dog-eared page icon with an O (for OpenType).

Best Font Format
If you become involved with professional graphic design and desktop publishing and work extenwith commercial printers, you may hear that most printers prefer PostScript Type 1 fonts or that Type 1 fonts are superior to TrueType. Despite some resistence, today Type 1 has no real advantage over TrueType fonts in most cases. However, it is still a good idea to check with your printing service to see if they have a preference, this includes the use of OpenType fonts as well.

While you can have TrueType, OpenType, and Type 1 fonts all installed at the same time, it can cause problems (display or printing errors, for example) if you:

1. Have two fonts with the same name in two different formats installed at the same time;
2. Use more than one font format in the same document, even if they are different fonts.

It is best to use only one font format (all TrueType/OpenType or all Type 1) in a document, especially for documents destined for commercial printing.

This lesson is part of a free e-course on Windows Font Basics for New Font Users