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| Microsoft Typography | TrueType fonts and utilities | Font properties extension help | ||||||
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This page provides additional information and links to further reading. TrueType is a digital font technology designed by Apple Computer, and now used by both Apple and Microsoft in their operating systems. Over three billion TrueType fonts have been distributed with applications software in font packs, and on their own. TrueType fonts offer the highest possible quality on computer screens and printers, and include a range of features that make them easy to use. For more information see the articles contained in our Features of TrueType section. Hinting is an essential part of the production of a quality font. It is indispensable in every font intended to be legible at small sizes on low resolution output devices. A well-hinted font offers the quality only provided in the past by hand-tuned bitmaps - but with all the speed and reduced memory requirements which characterize outline font formats. Moreover, because the bitmaps are still produced by an outline font, text can be rotated, scaled and viewed at different sizes, and even printed out while maintaining high image quality.
For more information about this feature of TrueType please see our TrueType hinting article. Font smoothing is a process where intermediate colored pixels are used to smooth out the jagged edges of fonts on screen. It was originally one of several system enhancements included in the Plus! pack for Windows 95. The feature is also included as standard in more recent versions of Windows, and is available as a free download for Windows 95. For more information about this feature of TrueType please see our Smooth fonts in Windows article.
 The font properties extension lets you know if the type designer has specified at which type sizes smoothing is switched on. In older fonts or when the type designer hasn't added this information font-smoothing will switch on by default at 14 point and at sizes 0 to 6 point. Font embedding is a method of including fonts with the documents in which they are used. By embedding a font with a document, authors and designers are able to ensure that their text will appear correctly on other users' systems, even if that system doesn't possess the correct fonts. The font properties extension displays the embedding permissions for any given font, and explains the four possible levels of embedding. For more information about font embedding please see our Embedding article. Several Windows applications make use of font-embedding these include Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint. See these application's help files or manuals for details.
Think of a codepage or character set as being a list of all the characters required by a specific region or language. The characters required for writing in Russian, for example, are contained in the Cyrillic codepage 1251; those for writing in Greek are contained in the Greek codepage 1253; and for Western Europe they are contained in 1252 Latin 1. Each of these codepages contain 256 entries, of which the first 128 are the same in each codepage, and the second 128 are specific to the writing system they support. Most TrueType fonts only contain one specific codepage, but the fonts supplied with Windows include support for a range of codepages. Some East Asian codepages contain more than 256 characters. Unicode: Unicode is a system where every character is given a unique identifier. These characters are grouped in Unicode ranges. A Unicode range could contain any number of characters, and if enough characters are supported in a font it will be identified as supporting a particular Unicode range. The font properties extension lets you view the copyright and trademark information contained within a font. Unfortunately, it is possible for hackers and font-pirates to maliciously alter this information, in an attempt to pass off a commercial font as their own work or as public-domain. For this reason, it is important to acquire fonts from legitimate retailers, specialist font distributors or direct from the many type designers that have set up shop on the Web. Avoid Internet font archive sites as few have adequate vetting procedures. If you do acquire public domain, freeware or shareware fonts investigate their origin before passing them on as you could be unwittingly distributing pirated material. There follows an explanation of some of the common terms you might find: Shareware: These fonts will always be supplied with a read-me text file that explains exactly what you can do with them, and where to send a small registration fee. Usually you can use a shareware font for a few weeks before deciding whether you want to keep and pay for it. Always check the read-me document before passing the font on to a friend, and always pass on the complete package including the read-me text file. Public Domain: You can do whatever you like with these fonts. However, be aware that a large proportion of fonts marked as public domain and posted on Internet font archive sites are hacked versions of commercial fonts. Freeware: Unlike public domain fonts there may be restrictions on what you can do with freeware fonts. For example you might only be allowed to put them to non-commercial use. Freeware fonts will usually come with a read-me file explaining the rules.
You can't view or print a character: you view or print a glyph. A glyph is a representation of a character. The character 'capital letter A' is represented by the glyph 'A' in Georgia and 'A' in Verdana Bold. A TrueType font is a collection of glyphs. Glyphs can also represent combinations of characters and alternative forms of characters: glyphs and characters do not strictly correspond one-to-one. For example, a user might type two characters, which might be better represented with a single ligature glyph such as the 'fi' ligature. Conversely, the same character might take different forms at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, so a font would need several different glyphs to represent a single character. OpenType TM fonts contain a table that provides an application with information about possible glyph substitutions.
 Multiple glyphs for the ampersand character OpenType Tables are tables in a font containing additional information to tell Windows how to deal with the substitution of glyphs and the positioning of glyphs.
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| Microsoft Typography | TrueType fonts and utilities | Font properties extension help | ||||||
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