:.· The history of the truetype format

In the 80s all major producers of operating systems were aware that scalable fonts technology would become an important part of future operating systems. Until then, only bitmap fonts had been used which had to be pixeled onto the screen. Without a Postscript printer your hardcopies were also pixeled.

Adobe tried to convince Apple and Microsoft to use Postscript for rendering fonts on the screen. This solution (known as Display PostScript) would have been able to produce flawless results, but neither Apple nor Microsoft wanted to have to purchase licenses for such an essential part of their operating systems from another company. Only NeXT licensed Display PostScript for their operating system NeXT Step.

Apple and Microsoft signed a contract and cooperatively developed a solution that was to benefit both companies. Microsoft had a graphical kernel similar to Postscript in mind (TrueImage), Apple wanted to design a font subsystem that was better than that from Adobe.

In 1989 the cooperation gave birth to TrueType, TrueImage never saw the light of day. It was buggy and instable. Apple later went on to develop a system that was beautifully capable of handling graphics and typography: QuickDraw GX. Nevertheless the developer community did not adopt the technology so its functionality was never used.

Adobe observed the development of TrueType with concern. As they came to the conclusion that their font system would not be needed, they initiated a 2-step plan. Mid 1989 Adobe announced a program that had not even been developed yet, the "Adobe TypeManager". A year later customers were finally able to by "ATM" and use Adobe Type 1 fonts on Macintosh computers without the help of Apple. ATM was priced aggressively and bundled with several Adobe software packages.

The second step in Adobe's 2-step plan was - looking back from today - very modern: Adobe released the specifications of Type 1 fonts. Until then you were forced to pay Adobe if you wanted to create Type 1 fonts, because the font files were encrypted. The only way to using Type 1 fonts was through Adobe's PostScript engine.

Adobe was actually forced to release the specs. First of all the TrueType specs were public from day 1. Secondly, Bitstream had cracked the Type 1 format and was releasing hundreds of Type 1 fonts and an ATM clone named FaceLift.

In August 1989 the development of TrueType was almost complete. Apple and Microsoft announced their strategic alliance against Adobe. Apple's job would be to develop the font system and Microsoft would be responsible for the printing engine. Apple deployed TrueType for the first time ever in March 1991. It came in the form of a 60kb extension for MacOS 6.0. Microsoft shipped Windows 3.1 with TrueType, two of the first fonts were "Arial" and "Courier".

As with all developments there were not only strategic problems, but also technical obstacles to overcome. Windows 3.1 by design ran on 16-bit systems, so the Windows TrueType sytem, being 32-bit, had to be reimplemented in 16-bit. This produced problems with display performance and memory allocation. More complex fonts tended to be rendered inaccurately. Complex characters often resulted in the whole font not being displayed, or the font was displayed but not printed.

Additionally, the situation for font developers didn't get easier. Complex font descriptions had to be simplified in order to comply with the 16-bit barrier. This resulted in fonts that worked on MacOS but did not work on Windows. This in turn resulted in many font vendors not producing TrueType fonts, thus creating a TrueType market noone was willing to serve. As a consequence the market was flooded with cheap copies of fonts that had been simply scanned and converted. Many of these fonts were defective, of bad quality and had poor outlines and useless hints (hints are algorithms for displaying fonts at lower resolutions (72-600 dpi) more properly). In effect, all these problems resulted in the TrueType format gaining a bad reputation among professional users.

In August 1995, with the release of Windows 95, Microsoft finally had a 32-bit TrueType engine in the market. It tried to rehabilitate the format by offering a multitude of free downloadable fonts from their website.

In Oktober 1997 Adobe released a series of TrueType fonts from its original Adobe Collection. The hints were manually corrected and proved to be of excellent quality. Adobe also came to the conclusion that the Type 1 technology was unsuitable for the creation of web pages. A cooperation with Microsoft resulted in the release of "OpenType". The goal was to embed fonts in web pages and display them in the browser. The twelve fonts specially converted by Adobe (Minion, Myriad, Caflisch Script, Mezz, Penumbra and several variations of GiddyUp) became a part of Internet Explorer.