Digital Typography:
Screen fonts: Bitmapped or raster fonts which are used only for display on the computer screen. Will not reproduce well on printers (ragged, uneven results).
Printer fonts: Outline or vector fonts. Print well on all printers at all sizes. Must be resident in the computer sending the file to the printer or sent to the output location in the same file as the print job. Printer font incompatibility is one of the major sources of output problem in digital printing. As Postscript fonts, they are composed of Bezier curves which link in seamless joints. They contain size and shape information for all characters and allow clear, precise printing of type in any size, angle, resolution or shade of gray.
Postscript fonts: The original digital fonts and still the printing industry standard. All Postscript fonts require both screen and printer fonts. Generally, when setting up a professional-standard graphics system, standardize to Postscript fonts, with all printers having Postscript drivers.
Postscript Type
Postscript Type
Postscript Type
Adobe Type Manager (ATM): Allows printer (outline) fonts to be used as screen fonts, and automatically downloads the correct font information to printers. An essential program for managing digital type. Available for both Apple and Microsoft platforms
Multiple Master fonts:
Most digital typefaces generate different sizes and treatments by
mathematical scaling of a master font. This does not produce the most
desirable type face result. Adobe’s Multiple Master fonts, an
enhancement of Postscript Type
OpenType: OpenType® is a new cross-platform font file format developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe now offers hundreds of fonts in the OpenType format. The two main benefits of the OpenType format are its cross-platform compatibility (the same font file works on Macintosh and Windows computers), and its ability to support widely expanded character sets and layout features, which provide richer linguistic support and advanced typographic control. (See OpenType)
TrueType:
An outline digital type format
developed jointly by Apple and Microsoft which does not require separate
screen and printer fonts. TrueType interpreters are built into both
Apple and Windows systems, and are compatible with Postscript Type
Bitstream:
Another major digital type
provider, popularized by HP printers (so as not to include the more
expensive Postscript drivers and license the Postscript PDL (Page
Description Language) from Adobe). Requires screen and printer fonts the
same as Postscript Type
Troubleshooting font incompatibility problems:
When the type in the final output, usually laser prints, does not match the screen font, one of two things is happening:
1) 1: The output device is defaulting to a default typeface, usually a uniform rather than proportional letter spaced font or a “City” font. Typically, the type will not fit into the same space because the uniform letter spacing takes up much more width; OR
2) 2: The type will be bitmapped, with the “jaggies.”
The problem usually occurs because the output device does not have the necessary printer font to correspond with the screen font the job is calling for. This can be caused, for example, by downloading bitmapped fonts from the web without their corresponding printer fonts (fonts designed for the web are bitmapped and don’t require printer fonts for display.)
The solution is to include the printer font in the same folder as the output file so that the output printer can access and download the printer font. Also, avoid downloading unique fonts from the web unless they include a printer font file OR are Truetype compatible. ATM helps to eliminate font incompatibility problems, but still requires the printer font. If a Truetype font displays properly on the screen, it should print properly.
Department of Communication, Seton Hall University