: What advantages/disadvantages do specific font formats have for print production? Fonts can be purchased or downloaded in several formats: TrueType OpenType Postscript Type 1 Postscript Type 3 Multiple

@Eichhorn212

To add to DA01's excellent answer and to provide additional context, OpenType comes in two flavors: TrueType and PostScript.

So way back in the day, when Adobe created PostScript, they defined curves in a certain way mathematically. PostScript became wildly popular because it could accurately take things on screen and print them onto paper and it could describe art via mathematical equations (which is where we get Illustrator from). And thus was born the digital prepress and font era.

But there was a problem. Adobe charged a licensing fee for PostScript. And Apple and Microsoft didn't like the idea of paying this licensing fee for every single Operating System they sold for something that was pretty essential to WYSIWYG operating systems (rendering fonts). So Apple and Microsoft worked on an alternative to PostScript - but they had to make sure they didn't step on any patents that Adobe held for PostScript. Thus was born TrueType, which defined curves with a different mathematical formula.

So now the world had two different ways to define curves for fonts, one which required paying Adobe and the other was, I believe, released freely as a technical specification. See www.truetype-typography.com/tthist.htm for more historical details.

And now we come to OpenType. As both PostScript and TrueType matured, the world started noticing some gaps that neither technology could really address adequately. So the TrueType and PostScript worlds came together and developed OpenType which would wrap either TrueType or PostScript font curves and provide these missing features.

So in today's modern digital font world, OpenType generally is the preferred file format because it has more features and capabilities.

TrueType probably continues being popular because most Operating Systems have built-in TrueType renderers compared to PostScript. Also many non-high-end typetools and workflows are still built around TrueType.

To conclude, I echo DA01's answers:


OpenType has great support and provides additional features and is generally the go-to font format.
There's no need to avoid PostScript fonts if they still work for you and your systems.
Format doesn't really matter as long as it works for you. Some say PostScript curves are more accurate but I haven't seen anything conclusive for this statement.

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@RJPawlick971

What specific advantages or disadvantages can be found in the various font formats in today's technological setting??


As you stated, today's main advantage is with OpenType being able to support a much larger set of glyphs as well as other things like alternate characters and automatic character swapping.


Should I be avoiding Type 1 and Type 3 whenever possible?


IIRC, Type 3 fonts required Adobe software installed on the OS. Not sure if that's true anymore.

If you have the font and it still works with your software and your printer's prepress system, then there's no reason to stop using it.


Does format even matter as long as the font contains the glyphs I want and outputs properly?


Nope. Doesn't really matter.

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