OpenType

A number of variations to these two main formats have also appeared, Multiple masters from Adobe in 1991 and GX from Apple a year later, but neither made significant impact on the market. Meanwhile, incompatibilities of the PostScript and TrueType formats across the Windows and Macintosh operating platforms, as well as commercial expediency, led to Adobe and Microsoft working together, and in 1997 OpenType was announced. OpenType can contain either PostScript or TrueType font outlines (font names are suffixed .otf or .ttf respectively) and each weight is supplied as a single, cross-platform file (fig. 7). The fonts can have an expanded character set based on the international Unicode™ encoding standard and, in addition, there is the capability for the type manufacturer to create many additional glyphs (fig. 8) (small caps, swash variants, alternative ligatures etc). A single OpenType font could therefore, contain ISO Latin set 1, Greek, Cyrillic and East-European character sets plus additional characters within a single file. Such capability promises much for multi-lingual companies and publishing, and possibilities for both type designers and graphic designers.

Whatever the advantages of the new format however, its success will depend on the ease with which it can be implemented and be seen at work. Although the fonts themselves have a rugged simplicity to them (the single cross-platform file), to fully reach their potential both the operating system and the applications must offer OpenType support for both their Unicode character sets and their advanced typographic features.

At the system level the intention is that all three font formats should function side by side. Windows 2000 provides native support for OpenType and Apple have integrated the PostScript and OpenType rasterizer into Mac OSX.

From a user’s perspective, there are two factors to consider. The *rst is the availability of the fonts themselves, and the second is the support within programs to support their extended character sets and advanced features.

As might be expected, Adobe has led the way with both of these. It’s library has been converted to the format and new and revised designs – including Chaparral, Myriad and Warnock – have appeared as Adobe Pro fonts. Their development tools have been licensed to over 100 designers or companies and over 3,000 people have licensed Microsoft’s Visual OpenType Layout Tool (VOLT). Adobe has also spent a considerable length of time ensuring that programs such as Photoshop and InDesign (fig. 9 & fig. 10) are able to fully support it. It is with InDesign, in particular, that the capabilities of new fonts may be fully exploited and help that program compete seriously with Quark XPress, which at the time of writing offers no OpenType or Unicode support.

The cross-platform nature of the OpenType font files cannot be praised highly enough and as regards large character sets, they are a welcome but optional addition which will suit some fonts more than others. At present there are aspects of the technology and its application which are far from ideal but OpenType will certainly take off if these bugs are ironed out quickly and the fonts are recognised for what they are: real practical and creative solutions for the future.


http://www.eyemagazine