The Evolution of Font Technology

 

In general, fonts are of three types: PostScript Type 1 (Type1) or TrueType (TT), which came along about six years later, and then a blending of the two previous fonts called OpenType (OT). 

 

 

Type1 Fonts

 

PostScript font formats Adobe Type 1 fonts are stored in two common formats:.pfa (PostScript Font ASCII) and.pfb (PostScript Font Binary). These contain descriptions of the character shapes, with each character being generated by a small program that calls on other small programs to compute common parts of the characters in the font. In both cases, the character descriptions are encrypted. Before such a font can be used, it must be rendered into dots in a bitmap, either by the PostScript interpreter, or by a specialized rendering engine, such as Adobe Type Manager, which is used to generate low-resolution screen fonts on Apple Macintosh and on Microsoft Windows systems.

The Type 1 binary files (.pfa and.pfb) contain character information, while the metric files (.afm (Adobe Font Metric) and.pfm (Printer Font Metric)) contain the metric information to form the character. These metrics files are ASCII files with a well-defined easy-to-parse structure.

TrueType Fonts

The personal computer brought about a need for scalable font technology, thought to be an important part of any future operating system. TrueType is this scalable font technology that enables you to view the same output without the jagged aliasing caused by scaling that is apparent when bitmapped fonts are used.

This technology involves two parts:

• The Rasterizer
• TrueType fonts

The Rasterizer is an application that is included in both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It acts as an interpreter and translates the font information into a form that the video display can render.

The TrueType fonts themselves contain information that describes the outline of each character in the typeface. Higher quality fonts also contain hinting codes. Hinting is a process that makes a font that has been scaled down to a small size look its best. Instead of simply relying on the vector outline, the hinting codes ensure that the characters line up well with the pixels so that the font looks as smooth and legible as possible.

Adobe wanted both Apple and Microsoft to license its PostScript code, which was capable of handling this role, but both companies were concerned about having a third party control key parts of their operating systems. Apple and Microsoft agreed to a cross-licensing and product development deal, with Microsoft creating a PostScript-style graphics engine and Apple creating a font system. Apple developed what was to become TrueType, which proved superior to other competing technologies on performance and rendering quality. Apple and Microsoft announced their strategic alliance against Adobe, where Apple would do the font system, Microsoft the printing engine. Apple released TrueType in March 1991 and the first TrueType fonts:

• Times Roman
• Helvetica
• Courier

Microsoft introduced TrueType into Windows with version 3.1 in early 1992. They created a core set of fonts:

• Times New Roman
• Arial
• Courier

Both Apple's and Microsoft's TrueType fonts showed that scalable fonts could generate bitmaps virtually as though each size had been designed by hand.

Unicode Fonts

Unicode is a global character set that allows multilingual text to be displayed in a single application. This enables multinational corporations to develop a single multilingual application and deploy it worldwide.

Global markets require a character set that:

• Allows a single implementation of a product for all languages, yet is simple enough to be implemented everywhere.
• Contains all major living scripts.
• Supports multilingual users and organizations.
• Enables worldwide interchange of data through the Internet.

OpenType is a font format developed jointly by Microsoft and Adobe as an extension of Apple’s TrueType font format. The OpenType 1.0 font specification was released in 1997. Since that time Adobe and Microsoft have continued to work together updating and refining the specification. Several other companies, including Apple and Monotype, have also contributed to the specification over the years. Currently, every major font foundry and most minor ones are developing fonts in OpenType format.

OpenType provides several advantages over older font technologies:

·         Larger glyph limit (64k)

·         Cross-platform support (Win and Mac)

·         Support for both PostScript Type 1 or TrueType outlines

·         Support for advanced typographic features

OpenType, like TrueType, is based on Unicode, the system for encoding all of the world’s writing systems. OpenType fonts can potentially contain many thousands of characters. This means that an OpenType font may contain multiple alphabets (such as Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic; or Kanji, Kana, and Romaji for Japanese use). OpenType fonts can also include typographic refinements such as true small caps, different styles of figures, and extensive sets of ligatures and alternates, as well as complete sets of accented characters and diacritical marks. Different applications have differing levels of support for all the OpenType features.

OpenType version 1.4 was contributed to ISO and became the foundation for the development of ISO/IEC 14496-22 “Open Font Format” standard. The standard was published in 2007, and is now freely available for download from ITTF website. OpenType version 1.6 is identical to the “Final Draft International Standard” version of ISO/IEC 14496-22 FDIS “Open Font Format” (second edition).

The latest version for the Unicode Standard, Version 14.0. 0, supersedes all previous versions of the Unicode Standard. The Unicode Character Database, Code Charts, and Annexes for Version 14.0 will be released in September, 2021. The standard, which is maintained by the Unicode Consortium, defines an astounding 143,859 characters covering 154 modern and historic scripts, as well as symbols, emoji, and non-visual control and formatting codes.

 

The Way Forward

Since Indian languages consist of lots of conjuncts unlike English, only Unicode fonts can accommodate all the permutations & combinations. Unicode fonts are also bilingual, so that users can also type in English using the same font. Also, new conjuncts can be added as per user requirements.

Unfortunanately, many users still use Non-Unicode fonts for their multilingual Print/Publishing applications, forcing them to compromise on the number of conjuncts, special characters, numerics, etc. This is because of their adherence to outdated versions of applications which support Non-Unicode fonts only. For sharing matter on the Internet, they use Converters which can convert files from Non-Uncode to Unicode either supplied by their Vendor or freely downloadable from the Internet, which are in turn not error-free. Even for Web-based & On-Air Channels, usuage of Unicode fonts are a must in order to avoid such complicated scenarios. In fact many applications used currently support Unicode fonts only.

After the start of the pandemic last year, E-Publishing has seen a boom as never before. For employees working from home & students attending online classes, the only way they can exchange multilingual files which are readable & editable at both ends is with the usuage of Unicode fonts.

 

If you wish to know more about Multilingual Unicode fonts & how they can help you in your work, contact

Chandan Datta, Compu Care Infotech

Address: B'C'#3, Block-II, 2nd Floor, 'Calcutta Greens Commercial Complex', 1050/2, Survey Park, Kolkata-700 075 (Mob.:+9198300 40811; E-Mail:dattachandan1960@gmail.com; Website: http:\\compucare4u.business.site)