OpenType is a scalable computer font format initially developed by Microsoft, later joined by Adobe Systems. OpenType was first announced in 1996, with significant number of OpenType fonts starting to ship in 2000-2001. Adobe completed conversion of their entire font library to OpenType around the end of 2002. As of late 2004, there are over 6,000 fonts available in OpenType format, with Adobe's library making up for about 1/3 of the total.

OpenType was intended by Microsoft to be the successor to the TrueType font format developed by Apple Computer and licensed by Microsoft. Microsoft tried to license Apple's advanced typography technology, "GX Typography", and upon being refused turned to develop its own technology dubbed "TrueType Open" and later on "OpenType". Adobe Systems joined the OpenType camp later, adding support for its PostScript Type 1 fonts.

OpenType uses the general structure of a TrueType font, but adds several unique options which enhance the fonts typographical abilities. An OpenType font can include both TrueType outlines or PostScript-style outlines (though stored in the CFF/Type 2 format).

OpenType has several distinctive features:

• the font encoding is based on Unicode and can support any language (or multiple languages at once)
• OpenType fonts can have up to 65,536 glyphs
• fonts can have advanced typographic features, which allow proper typographic treatment of complex languages, and advanced typographic effects for simpler languages, such as English.

Compared with Apple Computer's "GX Typography" now called Apple Advanced Typography, or AAT, OpenType is slightly inferior with most typographical options, but offers superior language-related options and support. As the demand for most advanced typography options remained rather feeble among professional graphic designers, OpenType's language support contributed significantly to its being more successful than GX/AAT in the marketplace.

As of 2004, OpenType is supported by Microsoft's Office 2003 for Windows, by most of Adobe Systems applications on both Windows and Macintosh, and by the built-in text editing system in Mac OS X.

OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

See also

• Uniscribe (Windows multilingual text rendering engine)
• Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging (New Macintosh multilingual text rendering engine)
• WorldScript (Old Macintosh multilingual text rendering engine)
• Pango (Open source multilingual text rendering engine)
• Graphite (SIL's advanced rendering technology for complex scripts)

External links

• Adobe main OpenType page: http://www.adobe.com/type/opentype
• The OpenType Specification (Adobe): http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/opentype/main.html
• The OpenType Specification (Microsoft): http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/default.htm
• Main Microsoft Typography site: http://www.microsoft.com/typography
• Microsoft information about font development: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/creators.htm

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