The rough and the smooth: bitmap and vector fonts

The TrueType revolution


For the rest of us, Apple developed another kind of font, called 'TrueType', which works as a vector graphic

like Illustrator, FreeHand, or a Claris/AppleWorks drawing module

and so scales up or down seamlessly.

As with vector graphics generally, the font consists of a description of the angle of each curve, how long, proportionally, it goes on for before changing direction, and so on: the computer reads that information and follows the instructions, making a shape which looks as smooth as the screen can show, or the printer can print.

It can also skew them and/or make them fatter to produce the impression of bold, italic and bold italic, though if you look really closely you can see that these are 'cheat' solutions, they work fine for every day use but not for serious graphics - a properly-designed italic isn't simply a skewed Roman ...

The Fontographer team suggests that the TrueType technology means that bitmap fonts are almost a thing of the past. Professional designers working in some special modes still need them, and for them the bother of having lots of different fonts for different sizes is worth it.

there are lots of tips for fascinating further reading about TrueType fonts at the end here