What is OpenType Fonts.
OpenType “.otf” fonts are compact single-file cross-platform fonts, which can have extended language support based on Unicode, and enhanced typographic layout features. For OpenType information, including the OpenType User Guide, the OpenType Readme (application compatibility notes), and OpenType Specimen Book PDFs, visit Adobe’s Web site. OpenType is a font format developed by Adobe and Microsoft. OpenType extends the TrueType format to support PostScript font data in a single font file. OpenType is cross-platform compatible with Unicode support for extensive typographic and multilingual character sets.
OpenType fonts come in two flavors:
- OpenType TT fonts contain TrueType outlines, and have a .TTF file extension.
- OpenType PS fonts contain PostScript outlines, and have a .OTF file extension.
Advanced OpenType Features
OpenType fonts may or may not have advanced typographic features or multilingual characters. The feature set can vary from font to font, and the support of those features will vary from application to application and across different platform. For example, older operating systems and application programs may not provide access to advanced typographic features or multilingual characters that are built into the font.
About Optical Sizes
Typefaces with optical size variants have had their designs subtly adjusted for use at specific point size ranges. This capability reintroduces one of the features of hand-cut metal type, which uses a separate font for each point size and is often optically adjusted. This is an advantage over the current common practice of scaling a single digital type design to different point sizes, which may reduce legibility at smaller sizes or sacrifice subtlety at larger sizes.
The objective of optical sizing is to maintain the integrity and legibility of the underlying typeface design throughout a range of point sizes. The adjustments typically made to the design to optimize it for different sizes are: for larger point sizes, the space between characters (letter fit) tightens, the space within characters (counterforms) closes up (i.e., the letters are slightly more condensed), the serifs become finer and the stroke contrast becomes greater, the overall weight becomes lighter, and the x-height gradually diminishes; for smaller point sizes, opposite adjustments are made.
Smaller optical sizes are also useful when output resolution is very limited, such as for on-screen display. One might choose to use a smaller optical size design for creating text on buttons for a Web page, or when doing a presentation intended for on-screen display, for example.
These adjustments can improve the legibility of intermediate point sizes further if there is a greater change in design at smaller sizes than at larger sizes. For example, the difference in design between the Caption and Regular optical sizes, which may have a difference in size of only 4 points, is almost as much as the difference between the regular and display sizes, which have a difference of 10-60 points.
Style Links & Font Menus.
The weight links in this family are: Regular to Bold, and Light to Semibold. The Medium weight is not linked. In both Windows and Mac OS applications, using the bold style button on weights that do not link to a heavier weight is not recommended.
In many Windows applications, instead of every font appearing on the menu, italic styles and the bold weight are accessible only by use of the italic and bold style buttons. For example, you could have all five weights of Brioso Pro installed, but in your font menu you might see only the Light, Regular and Medium; the Semibold and Bold weights would be accessed by selecting the Light or Regular (respectively) and using the bold style button.
On the Mac OS, although each font appears as a separate entry on the font menu, users may also select fonts by means of style links. Selecting the “base weight” and then using the style links (as described above for Windows) enhances cross-platform document compatibility with many applications, such as Microsoft Word and Adobe PageMaker, although it is unnecessary with more sophisticated Adobe applications such as recent versions of Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. One should not, however, select a weight which has no style-linked bolder variant (such as the Medium for Brioso Pro), or is itself the style-linked bold (such as the Semibold or Bold for Brioso Pro) from the menu, and then additionally use the bold styling button; doing so will either have no effect, or result in “faked” further bolding, which will usually produce inferior screen and print results. (The same is also true for italics; never select an already italic font and then apply an italic style.)
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