🚀 go-pugleaf

games@max.u.washington.edu writes

> Now, what exactly are adobe type 1 (truetype) and adobe type 3 fonts.

The Type 1 font format has nothing to do with TrueType,
which is another font format defined by Apple.  The Type
1 font format has been around quite a while, and is used
on a wide variety of platforms to obtain scalable fonts.

The Type 1 font format is a compact way of describing a
font outline using a well-defined language that can be
quickly interpreted.  The language contains operations
to provide the rasterizer with additional information
about a character, known as hints.  The Type 1 font format
is defined in the book "The Adobe Type 1 Font Format",
also known as the black-and-white book, for the colors
on it's cover.

The Type 3 font format is a way of packaging up PostScript
descriptions of characters into a font, so that the
PostScript interpreter can rasterize them.  It is often
easier to create a Type 3 font program by hand than to
create the corresponding Type 1 font program.  Type 3
font programs have access to the entire PostScript
language to do their imaging, including the 'image'
operator.  They can be used for bitmapped fonts, although
that is certainly not a requirement.  The Type 3 font
format contains no provisions for 'hinting', and as such
Type 3 font programs cannot be of as high a quality at
low resolutions as the corresponding Type 1 font program.

Both formats are scalable formats, and both can be run
on any PostScript interpreter.  However, because of the
requirement that a Type 3 font program have a full
PostScript interpreter around, Type 3 font programs cannot
be understood by the Adobe Type Manager.  Only Type 1
font programs can.

Because of Adobe Type Manager's wide availability on a
large number of platforms (PC, Mac, and Unix), the Type 1
font format makes an excellent cross-platform scalable
font standard.

Scott Byer                                   NeXTMail: byer@adobe.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated               These are *my* opinions, and  
1585 Charleston Road, P.O. Box 7900        do not necessarily reflect
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900             the opinions of my employer.
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