Digital Typefaces, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1994 Description and Formats

Summary his book was written primarily for people who intend or wish to develop new machines for the output of typefaces. It is practical to categorize equipment into three groups for which digital alphabets are required - 1) display devices, 2) typesetting machines and 3) numerically controlled (NC) machines. Until now, development of typefaces has been overly dependent upon the design of the respective machine on which it was to be used. This need not be the case. Digitization of type should be undertaken in two steps: the preparation of a database using hand-digitization, and the subsequent automatic generation of machine formats by soft­ scanning, through the use of a computer-based program. Digital formats for typefaces are ideally suited to system­ atic ordering, as are coding techniques. In this volume, various formats are investigated, their properties discussed and rela­ tive production requirements analyzed. Appendices provide readers additional information, largely on digital formats for typeface storage introduced by the IKARUS system. This book was composed in Latino type, developed by Hermann Zapf from his Melior for URW in 1990. Compo­ sition was accomplished on a Linotronic 300, as well as on an Agfa 9400 typesetter using PostScript. v Preface Preface his book was brought out by URW Publishers in 1986 with the title «Digital Formats for Typefaces;). It was translated into English in 1987, Japanese in 1989 and French in 1991.

1. Introduction.- 2. Typeface terminology.- 3. Display of typefaces.- 3.1 Visual display devices.- 3.2 Typesetting machines.- 3.3 NC machines.- 4. Requirements of typesetting.- 4.1 Type structure.- 4.2 Form setting.- 4.3 Hierarchical format structure.- 5. Formats.- 5.1 Review of formats.- 5.1.1 Bitmaps (bytemaps).- 5.1.2 Run lengths.- 5.1.3 Open vectors.- 5.1.4 Closed vectors.- 5.1.5 Curved lines.- 5.2 Other concepts.- 5.3 Special coding techniques.- 5.4 Listing of a selection of type manufacturers.- 6. The URW concept.- 6.1 IKARUS.- 6.2 Format hierarchy at URW.- 6.3 IK interpolation.- 6.4 Nimbus.- 6.4.1 Core-fonts.- 6.4.2 Hard scanning.- 6.4.3 Scaling.- 6.4.4 Selection.- 6.4.5 Descriptive elements.- 6.4.6 Intelligent font-scaling.- 6.4.7 The resolution funnel.- 7. The preparation of rasters.- 7.1 Soft-scanning.- 7.2 Manual corrections.- 7.2.1 Corrections on stems.- 7.2.2 Corrections on serifs.- 7.2.3 Corrections on segments of letters.- 7.2.4 Intersection of diagonals.- 7.2.5 Stems with slight slopes.- 7.2.6 Ink traps.- 7.2.7 Tails.- 7.3 SC formats for laser printers.- 8. Industry Standards.- 8.1 Type 1 (by Jochen Lau).- 8.2 Intellifont (by Jochen Lau).- 8.3 TrueType Format (by Hartmut Schwarz).- 8.3.1 How the TrueType File is Structured.- 8.3.2 TrueType Tables.- 8.3.3 Outline Representation.- 8.3.4 Scan Converter.- 8.3.5 The Instructions.- 8.4 F3 Unix (by Jochen Lau).- 9. Conclusions.- 9.1 Properties of formats.- 9.1.1 Electronic requirements for the generation of control signals.- 9.1.2 Storage requirements.- 9.2 Requirements to be met by formats.- 9.3 Recommendations for manufacturers.- 9.4 Time required for producing type.- Appendices.- A Type classification.- B Characters of a typeface.- C Accents for Latin type.- D Dingbats.- E Explanation of optical effects.- F Short dictionary of type terminology.- G Data structure for typefaces.- H Description of the IK format.- I Description of the BE, CN and QQ format.- J Description of the II format (by Jochen Lau).- K Description of the DI format.- L Description of the VC format.- M Description of the BS format.- N Description of the VE format.- O Description of the SC format.- P Description of the SN format.- Q Description of the BI format.- R Description of the GS format.- S Data structure for spacing.- T Width table.- U Kerning table.- V Touching and Overlapping table.- W Programs for converting IK ? DI.- X Marking and digitizing rules.- Y References, on typefaces in particular.- Z Index.