Re: AFM files

[Reimer Behrends]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 09:35:47PM +0200, Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado wrote:
[...]
> >For the printer, if it is new enough, the font needs only be packaged
> >as Type 42 font (avoid conversion to Type 1 if possible).
> 
>     What's the bad point in converting to Type 1? And , what's that
> 42 type? I only know about Type 1 fonts. Obviously I'm obsolete ;))

Type 42 fonts are TrueType fonts with a PostScript dictionary wrapped
around them, so a PostScript interpreter can understand them. They can
only be processed by PostScript interpreters with TrueType rasterizers
(which by now should be the majority of devices).

When converting from TrueType to Type 1, two things have to be
considered: First, the conversion of outlines. Type 1 fonts are
described by lines and cubic bezier curves, TrueType fonts are described
by lines and quadratic bezier curves. Since quadratic beziers are a
strict subset of cubic beziers, it is always possible to convert
TrueType outlines correctly to Type 1 outlines (modulo rounding errors,
which are usually negligable).

The second and real issue is hinting, which I've explained in my
previous posting in sufficient detail, I think. Basically, TrueType
hints cannot be converted to Type 1 hints at all, so fonts will look
much uglier at low resolutions.

[...]

                        Reimer Behrends