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OpenType Font Format

What is OpenType? improvement in cross-platform portabili- supported at the system level, and any
ty for any documents that use type. program that gets its font support by
OpenType is a new font format cre- ❙ Better Language Support standard system calls can use OpenType
ated jointly by ADOBE SYSTEMS and MI- Based on Unicode, an international two- fonts.
CROSOFT that can be viewed as a superset
byte character encoding that covers vir- A few applications deal with fonts
of TrueType and PostScript, with added tually all of the world’s languages, more directly, bypassing some of the
capabilities for advanced typography. It OpenType fonts can make multilingual standard system functions, in which
is based on Unicode, which gives it a typography easier by including multiple case the system-level support may not be
model to support any of the world’s language character sets in one font. necessary. Some Adobe applications
languages. ❙ Exciting typographic capabilities via work this way and you can install
OpenType fonts may include an ex- OpenType features: arbitrary ligatures, OpenType fonts for that program’s use
panded character set and layout features real (not scaled) small caps, old-style fig- in the application’s private “fonts” fold-
to provide richer linguistic support and ures, arbitrary fractions, alternates and er--regardless of OS and ATM versions.
advanced typographic control. many more, all in a single font. This is true with InDesign (all versions),
Technically, a cross-platform Open- ❙ “Wide” fonts: OpenType fonts may Photoshop 5.5 and higher, and Imag-
Type font is similar to a Windows-style have up to 64K glyphs, instead of being eReady 2.0 and higher.
TrueType font, with additional tables. limited to 256 encoded glyphs (as with However, it is likely that you will
An OpenType font with PostScript-style today’s Type 1 fonts). With a typical want to use these fonts in multiple ap-
outlines has an “.otf” extension and Western PostScript fonts you are forcing plications.
uses a different table for the outline to install and manage two or more style- Requirements for this depend on
data than one with TrueType outlines. related fonts in order to access “expert your operating system.
An OpenType font with TrueType out- set” characters. OpenType significantly ❙ Windows 95, 98, or NT4: ATM 4.1
lines normally has a “.ttf” extension. simplifies font management and the Light or Deluxe;
Note that using OpenType does not publishing workflow by ensuring that all ❙ Windows 2000: ATM not required;
mean one has to abandon one’s existing of the required glyphs for a document ❙ Mac OS 8.1 through OS 9: ATM 4.6
fonts. OpenType fonts can co-exist with are contained in one cross-platform font Light or Deluxe Application.
Type 1 and TrueType fonts on a com- file throughout the workflow.
puter. ❙ the “.otf” flavour of OpenType fonts
uses Adobe’s “Compact Font Format”
Advantages of Open Type (CFF, or Type 2) to represent the font
❙ Cross-platform fonts! Use the same outlines. As a result, the individual fonts
font file on Mac or Windows as easily are only 50-200K in size, despite their
as you move document files back & large character sets (some have over
forth. Any OpenType font uses a single 1,000 glyphs).
font file for all of its outline, metric,
and bitmap data, making file manage- Additional Software Requirements
ment simpler. In addition, the same font (ATM, OSes, applications)
file works on Macintosh and Windows Just like any other kind of font, ap-
computers (Picture 1). As a result, Open- plications must have a means of access-
Type lets you move font files back and Picture 1. Macintosh PostScript Type 1 Font;
ing OpenType fonts. The OpenType Windows PostScript Type 1 Font; OpenType Font
forth between platforms with noticeable fonts are added to the kinds of fonts Macintosh & Windows;
Compatibility

General:
If you are using an OpenType-savvy
ATM, or an OS such as Windows 2000,
which has native OpenType support,
OpenType fonts should work just as
well as Type 1 fonts with almost all ex-
isting applications. Additionally, to ac- Picture 3. Small Caps feature from Character
palette in InDesign.
cess automatic features of the fonts
requires an OpenType-savvy application.
Currently, Adobe InDesign is the only Цифров печат
such application.

Adobe InDesign™ and OpenType Ц



InDesign™, Adobe’s flagship page Pictures 3–1, 2. InDesign automatically uses the
layout program, was the first Adobe ap- small caps designed as part of the font, if
plication to provide advanced OpenType available and changes the case of selected text.
feature support. Other Adobe applica-
tions are expected to follow suit in the
future. With InDesign and other Open- ЦИФРОВ ПЕЧАТ
Type-savvy applications, you can turn Picture 3–3. Mathematical scaled caps substitute
Picture 2. Adobe InDesign lets you select and
on OpenType layout features that auto- insert any alternate glyph of an OpenType font the case of selected text if not exist true small
matically substitute alternate glyphs, the using the Insert Character palette. caps integrated in OpenType font.
ligatures, and old-style figures in an
OpenType Pro font. In addition, all
glyphs in an OpenType font can be ac-
cessed in InDesign, whether or not a
layout feature through the Character tioning, or substitute a different glyph. When you use the standard feature
palette in InDesign covers them, and To access alternate glyphs in an Open- “Small caps” to the text via the Charac-
any alternate glyphs in OpenType fonts Type Pro font, an application provides a ter palette in InDesign it would substi-
may be selected manually via the Insert user interface that allows end users to tute the small caps for the usual
Character palette (Picture 2). apply OpenType layout features to text. lowercases but this substitution is not
Applications that don’t support Unicode valid for the caps. There is another fea-
OpenType feature support or advanced OpenType layout features ture “Caps to Small Caps” for both Lat-
Central to a discussion of OpenType can still access the basic glyph sets of in and Cyrillic support (Picture 4). To
feature support lies the distinction be- OpenType Pro fonts, which are analo- use this feature in InDesign you need
tween characters and glyphs. Characters gous to the glyph sets in today’s Post- the Plug-In-module “Apply OpenType…”
are the code points assigned by the Uni- Script Type 1 fonts.
code standard, which represent the The “all alternates” feature is sup-
smallest semantic units of language, ported via the “Insert Character” func-
such as letters. Glyphs are the specific tion, with alternates available in a flyout
forms that those characters can take. from the initial character within the In-
One character may correspond to several sert Character palette (Picture 2).
glyphs; the lowercase “a” character can All automatic ligatures in an Open
be represented by multiple glyphs in an Type font are on by default (Picture 3).
OpenType font >> a cap “A” and a “Small caps” feature is available by
small cap “
” are all the same character, default in the Character palette in InDe-
but they are three separate glyphs. One sign (Picture 3). Applying the feature to
glyph can also represent multiple charac- the text would substitute the small caps
ters, as in the case of the “ffi” ligature, glyphs for the usual lowercases glyphs.
which corresponds to a sequence of Note: Original designed small caps ТИПОГРАФИЯ
three characters: f, f and i. must be integrated in the OpenType
OpenType layout features can be font styles. HermesSOFT has also devel-
used to position or substitute glyphs.
For any character, there is a default
oped original designed small caps for
both Cyrillic and Latin support. Origi-
  

glyph and positioning behaviour. The nal designed small caps (Picture 3-2) Picture 4. Small caps that are included as part of
application of layout features to one or compared with mathematical scaled caps the OpenType style change the case of selected
more characters may change the posi- (Picture 3-3). text.
from the Type menu (Picture 5). The se-
lected caps change in small caps
(Picture 4).
“Old Style” feature is available by de-
0123456789
fault in the Character palette in InDe-
sign (Picture 6). InDesign automatically
uses the oldstyle figures, if available in
an OpenType font and as result the se-
lected numerals change in old styles.
“Cyrillic vowel letters with accents”
– OpenType feature developed from
HERMESSOFT that add unique typographic
capability in OpenType Pro fonts and is
very useful for the high-end typography
in Bulgarian language. To access this
feature you need the Plug-In-module

“Apply OpenType…” (Picture 5). Picture 5. The function “Apply OpenType Picture 6. The selected numerals change in old
Note: The Cyrillic letters with accents Features...” from menu Type in InDesign. styles that are included in any OpenType style.
must be integrated in the OpenType
font styles. InDesign automatically uses
the definition for this feature in an
OpenType font and as result the select-
ed vowel letter changes in appropriate single code page, and they will just In Mac OS 8 and OS 9, the support
letter with accent (Picture 7). function like a typical Western or Cyril- for “.otf” fonts via ATM 4.6 is at the
lic or Central European PostScript fonts same level as in MS Windows 95/98. An
OpenType “Pro” fonts with almost all existing applications. OpenType Pro font in this environment,
in a non-OpenType-savvy app, will just
Some HERMESSOFT font packages are Language support with OpenType function like a regular Type 1 font. Mac
available in OpenType. We are focused OS 8.5 and higher have a new frame-
on the wide OpenType fonts that we are Under Windows NT 4 and Windows work for Unicode support, called Apple
calling “Pro” fonts. These are OpenType 2000 Professional, you can simply switch Type Services for Unicode Imaging (AT-
fonts with extended language support. keyboard/language settings, and access SUI), but at this time there are no 3rd-
Because of the limitations of previ- the appropriate characters of your wide party applications we know supporting
ous font technologies, support for expert OpenType fonts in many Windows ap- ATSUI, and Apple has made no public
character sets and multiple languages re- plications (for NT 4, you need ATM 4.1 announcements regarding support for
quired separate font files. OpenType or better). Additionally, the NT and OpenType in an ATSUI framework.
fonts provide far more typographic capa- Windows 2000 Professional character
bilities by combining base character sets, map accessory is Unicode-aware, and al-
lows you to directly access any glyph
expert sets, and extensive additional
glyphs into one file.
All HERMESSOFT Pro fonts include
the standard range of Latin characters
that is encoded in the font. To make it
easier to use OpenType fonts with appli-
cations that support Unicode but not
формата
used in the Western world, and several OpenType features, all the glyphs have a
international characters including the Unicode and will show up in the Win-
symbols for cent , dollar , euro €, co- dows NT/2000 Charmap, allowing di-
lon ₡, florin ƒ, franc ₣, lira ₤, sterling rect copy/paste insertion.
£, yen ¥, currency ¤, peseta ₧, and ru- Under Windows 95/98 you can
piah . OpenType Pro fonts from switch language settings to get at the
HERMESSOFT add a full range of accented different language sections of a wide
characters to support Central and East- TrueType font, but ATM 4.1 does not
ern European languages, Baltic languag- support this functionality for “.otf”
es, plus the Slavonic languages and OpenType fonts. These operating sys-
Turkish. Many of the Pro fonts but not tems do not fully support Unicode, and
all also contain Greek character exten-
sions, or true small caps, old styles and
other in the same font (Picture 8 – Full
the Charmap utility will only show a
single-byte encoding from an OpenType
font. Essentially, an OpenType Pro font
in this environment, in a non-OpenTy-
формата
set of supported characters in OpenType
font HS GaramondPro). pe-savvy app, will just function like a Picture 7. The selected Cyrillic vowel letter
Note: OpenType fonts may have a regular Type 1 font. changes with the appropriate vowel with accent.
Adobe InDesign’s Unicode Keyboard input ❙ In Mac OS 8 and OS 9 environments,
and language support ❙ Under Windows NT 4 and Windows InDesign supports direct input of text
2000 Professional, InDesign supports di- only in a single-byte encoding from an
The language support in ADOBE rect input of Unicode text in different OpenType font. Direct input in differ-
InDesighn is independent of the OS. languages with your wide OpenType ent languages within InDesign is possi-
InDesign uses fonts more directly, by- fonts. You need to activate only the ap- ble only with single code pages Open
passing some of the standard system propriate keyboard driver. Type fonts. You will need to select the
functions, in which case the ATM and ❙ Under Windows 95/98, InDesign sup- font in the appropriate code page -
system-level support may not be neces- ports direct input of Unicode text in CYR, TUR, and CE etc. and to install
sary. different languages with your wide the appropriate System Language Script
Import of Unicode text OpenType fonts, but OpenType fonts for Mac OS.
Both Windows and Mac InDesign activated with ATM 4.1 on Windows 98 For more information on the soft-
support import of Unicode text files, (only) do not appear in the InDesign ware requirements for OpenType sup-
and Windows Word files containing font menus. This is an InDesign bug. port, please refer to the WEB sites of
Unicode. This makes it possible to im- Workaround: copy the fonts to the In- the respective companies.
port a file with (for example) Roma- Design fonts folder of the
nian, Russian and Greek text into ://.../Adobe/InDesign/Fonts.
InDesign, even if editing and direct in- – Elena Neytcheva
put in these languages is difficult within This bug only occurs on Window 98, POLYGRAFIA Magazine, issue 5/2000
InDesign. InDesign’s Insert Character no problems on Windows NT 4 or
function allows access to any glyph in Windows 2000.
the font, like the Windows Charmap ac- You will need to activate only the appro-
cessory. priate keyboard driver.

Picture 8 - Full set of supported characters in

OpenType font HS GaramondPro.
*The characters in red are original designed
small caps (not scaled) for Western and Cyrillic
support and old-style figures, and are accessed
only in the Open Type font.
*The characters in raster are the Cyrillic vowel
letters with accents that are necessary for the
high-end typesetting in Bulgarian language.

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