Two kinds of digital fonts, Raster and Vector
Raster
Fonts we see on the monitor or screen are rasterized. You can see the individual pixels, which look like stairsteps. This stairstepping is also called jaggies or aliasing.
You can set your Operating System to smooth out the jaggies with anti-aliasing.
Vector
Fonts that are sent to a printer or imagesetter are vector based.
A brief history of font standards
Adobe invented a page-description language called Postscript. This language is just a set of instructions or codes that describes a page in computer language before it is rasterized and the printed on an imagesetter or laser printer.
So, Adobe also created fonts using Postscript language. Vectors, not rasters or bitmaps, describe the shape of each character. The happy ending...smooth fonts and less computer memory than raster.
The best known Postscript font is Adobe Type 1. It has two separate files, a screen font and a printer font. Since there are multiple sizes, plus regular, bold, italic, bold italic, light....and more....styles, your font files must be given to the Graphic Arts Service Provider (GASP) for output or printing.
Adobe Type 1 fonts are preferred for printing.
Apple invented TrueType fonts which were licensed to Microsoft. So TrueType fonts are typically found on PC's, but Macs have them as well.
TrueType fonts are vector based and have only one file. The computer OS rasterizes the font to display it on screen or to send to a printer.
Adobe and Microsoft developed OpenType fonts which have over 65,000 glyphs (or characters....the letter A is a glyph). So, OpenType has multilingual capability, not just English.
OpenType fonts are cross-platform, working on both Macs and PC's.
Comparing TrueType and Postscript
Postscript
TrueType
Postscript for imagesetters and printing
TrueType for monitor display
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange
An early (the 60's) encoding (sorta like Morse code) that creates text files that can be sent anywhere. Similar to plain text, but not exactly the same.
Unicode
ASCII was designed for English, limiting usage with other languages.
So, in 1991, Unicode encoding was developed with over 100,000 codes. This makes it "the computer industry standard for consistent encoding of text in most of the world's writing systems".
Where OSX looks for Fonts
1. First, in the Font Folder of the Application you are using. This is in the Operating System Fonts folder. Applications>Fontbook.
With CS5 and CS6, consider 1 and 3 the same.
2. Then, in the User's Library's Font folder. If more than one user has an account, that user will have a library folder which also has a font folder. These may be different since users can install their own fonts in this folder. User>Library>Fonts.
3. The root level Font folder. This is yet another folder in the base level of the hard drive. HD>Library>Fonts
4. The Font folder on any shared network.
5. The OSX System folder's Font folder. Used to display dialog box text, icon names, and menus. System>Library>Fonts.
6. Classic System folder's Font folder. Usually found on G3's and G4's.
Why is this important? Because the OS searches in this order, finds a font with a matching name, and stops, whether it is TrueType, Postscript, or OpenType. This might be the incorrect font. Postscript Times and TrueType Times are not the same, and could cause printing or display problems if the wrong one is chosen. The solution? Know where fonts are located and "package up" the correct one for your GASP.
See also, Extension Fusion_Font Locations, under Font Management, below.
Virtual Keyboards and other font stuff
Useful for type like ® © Ω ñ á ™
Virtual Keyboard and Character Viewer
Adding a glyph to character palettes
http://imagingtechnologies.blogspot.com/2011/07/adding-glyph-to-character-palettes.htmlFont issues and problems
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-fonts-mac-os-x.html
Four categories of typeface designs
Cross Platform Font Issues
Fonts with the same name are not necessarily the same font.
Solutions:
Put your "to be used" fonts in a folder for that usage....printing, PowerPoint, etc.
Embed fonts if this is an option.
Use fonts common to both platforms. See the Contents page. Arial, Times, Tahoma, Comic Sans, Webdings (dingbats) are cross platform.
Use unique faces for headlines and rasterize them, or turn them in to a picture.
Fonts for the Web
TrueType and Sans-Serif are preferred.
Use Web-safe fonts, but also specify a list of alternative fonts that may be safely substituted. This is called a font-stack.
<p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Here, Verdana will be used if it is in the OS. If not, the browser will look for Arial and use it, etc. Don't mix serif and sans-serif in a font-stack.
Font Management
Lots of fonts slow the Operating System and the designer.
Font management utilities let you:
Organize fonts you use repeatedly into sets.
Manage font conflicts among fonts with the same name and ID.
Some utilities use automatic activation to find missing fonts in a document.
Apple's Font Book does not support automatic activation.
Extensis Fusion_Font locations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziTwmXIrQoo
