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Outline font
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An outline font (or "vector font") is one defined as vector graphics, i.e. as a set of lines and curves to define the border of glyphs, as opposed to a bitmap font, which defines each glyph as an array of pixels. Examples are PostScript (Type 1 and Type 3 fonts), TrueType and OpenType. Outline font characters can be scaled to any size and otherwise transformed with more attractive results than bitmap fonts, but requires considerably more processing and may yield undesirable rendering, depending on the font, rendering software, and output size, especially with TrueType fonts and hinting. Likewise, a bitmap font may yield an undesirable pixelated appearance when scaled or printed. Incompatibility with software or output devices may occur with either bitmap or outline fonts. The result of transforming a character in an outline font in a particular way is often saved as a bitmap in a font cache to avoid repeating the calculations if that character is to be rendered again.
An "outline font" is also a style setting in some desktop publishing software. It allows for just the outline of a font to be printed with a shadow for a 3d effect.
Article based on outline font at FOLDOC.
