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Typefaces on the Mac began with the bitmapped set of designs that came with the Mac 128K back in 1984. These pixel-based fonts, called bitmaps because they were literally a 'map of bits' in lego-like arrangements, were provided in a number of different type sizes. These were generally a specific set of point sizes; 9, 12, 18, 24, and 36pt were the most common. The fact that the sizes went up in a clear mathematical progression was no accident. The Mac's first printers, the dot-matrix ImageWriter and ImageWriter II, printed at 144 dots to the inch, exactly double the 72 pixels per inch of the Mac's internal resolution standard. When 12pt text was printed the ImageWriter's printer driver would use the 24pt bitmap form scaled in its place in order to get a cleaner, less crude-looking result. The ImageWriter LQ (which stood for 'letter quality') was a 288dpi device, and it shipped with a set of fonts with bitmaps going up to four times the normal text sizes rather than just double. Right from the start Apple's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) vision for display and print was balanced - very astutely - with the understanding that people also want the best a device can provide as well as a replica of their on-screen work.

Clever though this approach was, it was a bit of a cul-de-sac. Adobe showed the way forward when it produced the PostScript page description language and the PostScript type format. This teamed bitmap typefaces - for on-screen display - with precise maths-based vector shapes for recreating the typeface characters on PostScript-compatible devices. This allowed font designs to be printed with all the precision and grace of traditional typesetting. Well, in terms of basic character sets and setting control at least. With PostScript-driven laser-based imaging devices, all the ingredients for the DTP revolution were in place, and the publishing world was never the same again.

The problem was, PostScript was Adobe's crown jewels, and the licensing costs for producing PostScript Type 1 fonts, and PostScript engines for printers for that matter, were kept high. (PostScript Type 3 fonts were less costly, but they didn't contain the all-important hints for improving results at small text sizes.) In a bid to break Adobe's grip on the professional font world Apple developed the TrueType font format while Microsoft worked on their TrueImage page description language. The TrueType format was championed by Apple and, to an even greater extent, by Microsoft, and the specifications were published for anyone to use. The world was soon flooded with TrueType fonts of all kinds - some well made, others decidedly less so. In response, Adobe made the PostScript Type 1 specifications more generally available. The professional design world generally opted to stick with the PostScript format, in part because of problems encountered with lower-quality forms of TrueType fonts.

The next step, the development of the OpenType format, was driven by Microsoft's desire to claim the design market and Adobe's desire to extend the PostScript format's abilities beyond the increasingly restrictive 256 character per font file limit. OpenType is a format which borrows directly from both PostScript and TrueType, and offers type designers the possibility of having many thousands of different characters (or, more strictly, glyphs, the proper term for each item within a typeface design) in a single font file. For Western language type designs at least this might seem excessive. After all, once you've covered the upper and lower case letters, numbers, punctuation, and a pocket full of extras, what more is needed? Actually, a huge amount. For example ligatures, the customised combination of two or more characters in a font design, can be included no matter how many are created in a typeface's design. All sorts of character alternates, such as swash capitals, special character designs for the end of lines and sentences, small capitals, non-ranging numeral options, and more can be stored in a single font file rather than split across multiple confusing 'expert set' fonts. Some fonts have been designed with more than 1,500 different glyphs, and designers are able to use these extras in more and more applications via intelligent formatting palettes and similar options. True typographic finess is becoming easier to achieve; the typographic limits are now more likely to be the designer's own creative abilities rather than blindly learned technical knowledge and patience.

OpenType, the best of both worlds

With well-crafted and well-endowed OpenType typefaces and the right software you'll be able to set type which can be the envy of die-hard traditional typographers. You'll have to decide which options are appropriate for the work in question, and not all applications yet support these abilities. However, middling or better OpenType support can be found in design-oriented packages such as InDesign, Illustrator, Freeway and Photoshop, although not FreeHand as yet.

Further info

The Linotype Opentype type library

OpenType information from Microsoft

Information on the OpenType format and Adobe's new OpenType font libraries