Re: New font developments: OpenType Font Specification

["Berthold K.P. Horn" <bkph@ai.mit.edu>]

Nelson Beebe wrote:

   People on this list may be interested in a new announcement about a
   major development in the font industry dated today, 23-Apr-1997, at
   this URL:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/publicrelations/HTML/9704/970423.admictyp.html

   It begins:

   >> Adobe Systems and Microsoft Deliver OpenType Font Specification

This has been in the works for quite some time (originally just as
`spec arw' or vapourware to try and kill GX on the Mac) and in some
sense puts to rest the corporate font wars (TT versus T1) between MS
and Adobe (and leaves Apple out in the cold with GX?).

It's main effect I think will be many more fonts with reasonable
glyph complements (at least 400 to cover all Latin alphabets and
probably 665 to cover WGL4).  Where will TeX stand? It is ironic that
TeX bitmap fonts finally arrived in the 8 bit world with EC fonts,
just at a time when people are getting ready to take the next step...

(The Lucida Latin font set already goes in the direction of supporting
a more reasonable glyph complement, by the way, and under ATM for NT
provides access to 403 glyphs in each of the twelve fonts).

Another important side effect that I expect is that ATM may very
well go away and just become part of the operating system - at
least in Windows NT (which is the 32 bit platform of choice in the
Windows world since its WIN32 API is more powerful than the
one in Windows 95, and since UNICODE support in Windows 95 is just
a wink and a nod).  That will put an end to the nonsense about
wanting everything in TrueType form - even when inferior - simply 
because you then don't have to install ATM.

As for web authoring.  I am not holding my breath.  There is no valid
security method in the current OpenType spec.  Hence no protection for
fonts, hence few vendors will participate - other than the parties
pushing OpenType technology.  I expect MS in particular to give away
some fonts to promote this.

Regards, Berthold.