Fonts - The History And Basics

By Author: Lillian Riley
Total Articles: 17
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Fonts history dates back to nineteen eighties, when Adobe started developing PostScript fonts, and by following Adobe others came to the fore either. At the time, Adobe started devising PostScript fonts in 1984 it offered two types of fonts; Type 1 and Type 3.

The type of fonts Adobe had launched, that were primarily giving different nature of fonts; Type 1 were high standardized, yet the Type 3 weren't that much highly standardized. Type 1 supported hinting, a technique to improve the output quality on lower resolution devices or at smaller font sizes and it also supported a more efficient compression algorithm of font data. The Type 3 specs offered some functionality that was not present in Type 1 but it was clearly a less sophisticated format.

At the time of designing the fonts, Adobe has made a plan, under which it employed the Type 1 fonts for itself. They build an entire library of Type 1 fonts that customers could buy. Every PostScript output device included 36 of these fonts which in those days when fonts were still expensive compensated somewhat for the steep price of PostScript printers.

Contrary ...
... to the Type 1 fonts, it decided to publish the Type 3 fonts, in order to sell in the commercial houses or to the buyers were published and soon tools to create Type 3 fonts emerged. Type foundries like MonoType released entire libraries of Type 3 fonts. The fact that Adobe kept the superior font format to itself made all these companies very angry but at the same time PostScript became a runaway success that led to a much larger market in which everyone could sell fonts.

Then again Adobe made a headway by designing a new version of PostScript that could run (albeit slowly) on personal computers so these could visualize PostScript data on-screen. This technology was christened Display PostScript.

During the stage of promoting display PostScript, it suggested to Apple and Microsoft, yet they appear not ready to lend the control over a vital part of their operating system. They were also unwilling to pay the stiff royalties that Adobe demanded. Realizing that they both shared a common problem, Apple and Microsoft decided to join forces. Apple would provide a font technology while Microsoft would come up with an imaging technology, similar to PostScript.

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