History

• True Type fonts were developed by Apple to avoid paying royalty payments to the owners of other font technologies. The format was designed to be efficient in storage and processing and also allow the use of "hinting" approaches, which let other fonts be converted to True Type. Apple first incorporated True Type fonts in its systems in 1991, followed by Microsoft in 1992.
  
  

Character Description

• The True Type fonts are stored as an outline, and this one outline is used to produce a full range of sizes. This saves on disk space. The outline is never seen by the user, as the True Type rasterizer converts the font's size to a bitmap. True Type fonts appear the same on both Mac and Windows computers, but some fonts are developed specifically for one system and unavailable on the other.
  
  

Using True Type

• To use True Type, you need the font files themselves and a True Type font rasterizer for displaying and printing the fonts. The rasterizer comes pre-built into the Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The interaction between the font files, the rasterizer and the computer software determines the final appearance of the font letterforms.
  
  

Getting True Type

• A number of True Type fonts, such as Times Roman, Helvetica and Courier, come pre-installed on operating systems. If you wish to get more fonts, many are available for download online (see Resources). The fonts can be installed on your operating system for use in documents and Web productions.