What Is True Type Font?

Fonts are used for the presentation of text on a computer. In the early history of computers, bitmap fonts were used for screen display and printing; these fonts were created individually for different size requirements. Unexpected results appeared with size variations of fonts, especially in printing. Type 1 fonts were introduced by Adobe in the late 1980’s, they were based on vector graphics which when scaled showed better results than other fonts. Microsoft and Apple joined hands in the development of vector graphics, and in the end the result was True Type fonts developed by Apple Computer.

Evolution Of True Type Font

The true Type technology uses True Type Rasterizer and True Type font.  Rasterizer is software embedded in operating systems. Different information about size, color, orientation and location is gathered and converted to bitmap so that graphics card identifies it.

• It actually interprets the mathematical data to a form necessary for video display.
• Fonts contain data about the outline of each character of the typeface.
• Hinting codes are also present in some True Type fonts, they ensure that the font is properly displayed in different sizes.

The empire of True Type Fonts is vast; there are thousands of such fonts available, many of them are free to download. The majority of such fonts has been just right but an improperly created font can have adverse effects to your system, so it is better to download free True Type fonts from a reliable source. Many websites are dedicated to providing free fonts, go for those who have greater credibility. Look for those fonts that are properly hinted and properly tested. Professional users may require more professional Type fonts, having features required for advertising and publishing, but free True Type fonts work fine for most of us.

Microsoft also offers a variety of free True Type fonts to download. Fonts presented by Microsoft are of high quality and are not troublesome.  Like any other software, fonts can harmful code and there is also a possibility of virus in them. Always make sure your antivirus programs are up to date before downloading any type of software. Make sure that the fonts are compatible with the printing process; True Type fonts show best results in printing. It is worthy to mention that Microsoft Publisher can only embed True Type fonts, postscript or other fonts are rejected.

True type font is the most common font format for different operating systems today and a wealth of free fonts makes them more popular day by day.