Should I pick PostScript, TrueType or OpenType fonts?

By On · 9 Comments
Fonts

Photo: Stephen Coles on Flickr

Question: There seem to be three known formats for fonts. TrueType, OpenType and PostScript. If I need to use or buy any, which should I pick?

Answer: There is nothing simple in the wonderful world of fonts. All of it is very complex, but let’s try to sum things up.

A great font has to look nice on a computer monitor, and reflect its printed equivalent well. It has to be smooth enough on-screen, but sharp enough on paper. The problem is that the two media use different technologies. The strength of a font is to make those separate technologies work together flawlessly.

PostScript fonts have been a very popular format for graphic designers, especially on Mac with laser printers. PS fonts were developed by Adobe. Their files have two parts: the printer font and the screen font. The print version usually is flawless on paper. The screen part can have its shortcomings.

TrueType fonts were invented by Apple in the late 1980′s, and released in 1991 with a new version of the Mac OS. They combine the screen and printer font in a single file. Classics such as Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier were pioneers of that cross-platform format.

TrueType gives a high level of control to its creator for proper display on the screen. Normally, they look nice on your end.

OpenType fonts put a wrapper around the screen and printer font, making them look like a single file. They work very well in all situations. The format is very much cross-platform for the Mac and Windows.  It is a registered trademark of Microsoft, developed with Adobe.

Which should you use and buy? Adobe says that OpenType “improves cross-platform portability, rich linguistic support, powerful typographic capabilities and simplified font management requirements”.

This says a lot from the company that created PostScript and could try to stick by it. It also recoups what we hear from a lot of Macintosh and Windows users who do design for a living.

So, should you make a choice between formats, go for OpenType.

  • Tonypratt

    For what ever reason you missed/left out an enormous amount of digital type history. “The font wars,” “bit map vs. scalable font,” “Apple Royal Fonts,” “Adobe laser printer font licensing scheme,” “Microsoft True Type Purchase” to mention a few…

  • Come on

    And all that history was needed to answer the question posed in the headline? Man, I get sick of people using comments to show off what they know, even when it’s irrelevant.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=637261638 Mike Benda

    I agree.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=637261638 Mike Benda

    Without any history it would be a very short article consisting of the headline and one word: “OpenType”.

    As it is, the article is 99% about the history. A more complete explanation of the history, plus some technical details — like how the different systems render fonts onscreen (bitmap vs. vector) — would have been interesting.

  • http://www.facebook.com/desktopguy David Stone

    Hi,
    The answer is a little simplistic – along with some of the background.

    Adobe did make postscript fonts and the first device they were useable on was the Apple Laserwriter. With the huge fees Adobe were charging Apple and Microsoft to licence fonts for their respective OS’s Apple and Microsoft teamed up to create the TrueType spec.
    Later on, Adobe teamed up with Microsoft to create OpenType.

    As for which is best – there is NO correct answer.
    You can get quality fonts in ANY format. Those cheap DVDs you can buy with 1000 OpenType fonts are garbage – the fonts have no hinting and virtually no extended character sets.

    If you are involved in print production, I recommend Postscript or OpenType if you buying new fonts (there is NO need to repurchase existing fonts in Opentype format – you are simply throwing money away).

    Whilst there is NOTHING wrong with TrueType, historically some older equipment used in the print industry along with some of the advertising delivery networks would not accept TrueType.

    For everyone else, I recommend TrueType or OpenType.
    There are lots of small boutique type foundries producing really interesting fonts. Most give away some fonts weekly or at a steep discount.

    Steer clear of the cheap collections.

    PS: I am a prepress tradesperson working in the industry for 22 years.

  • Raiyan Kabir

    You’ve never mention about support of other languages like Hindi and Bangla. Actually, there is no such cross platform solution if you think about international language support. If you are a Mac user you should go for AAT (Apple Advance Typography) based truetype fonts. But AAT is not platform independent. Although OpenType supports all these languages, Apple didn’t supported indic script before Lion. iOS still does not support OpenType. Adobe, who touts OpenType as a cross platform solution, has worst OpenType support in their software when you come to International language support. Microsoft on the other hand provides by for the best support of the font format. Linux goes second.

    But that means if you are a Web developer and if you have to support these indic languages, you cannot just choose the font you like, you have to be careful about the choice. Because, vast majority of the Mac users (not using Lion) don’t have support for OpenType and iOS users do not have support of any kind.

    In that case, you don’t set any custom font for your website, assuming that users will have their own font to view the page, or you may use a AAT-OpenType Hybrid font (which is very very rear). The first option will not work for all; specially Apple does not provide default font for all languages.

    If you are not doing Roman languages, you are still in a big mess.

  • http://www.fcbayerncentral.com/ Michel

    Sorry, writing long “type history” was not the point here. Rather, I target more basic answers for users who are less familiar with the Mac.

  • Land_of_Fonts

    Hi, I am currently using linotype font explorer. I have downloaded fonts and all fonts which are not AAT (Truetype) do not show up on any applications? The examples of the ones that DON’T show up are opentype (postscript) and Truetype (MAc). Its all so confusing with so many variants. Please help>

  • Land_of_Fonts

    Hi, I am currently using linotype font explorer. I have downloaded fonts and all fonts which are not AAT (Truetype) do not show up on any applications? The examples of the ones that DON’T show up are opentype (postscript) and Truetype (MAc). Its all so confusing with so many variants. Please help>