Font and Font size for 8x11 book
Graham W:
Could you explain why OpenType/TrueType is the best? Assertions aren't very helpful by themselves.
Graham
btrc:
I've been partial to Century Gothic for a while as a nicely readable sans serif. One other point that is worth noting is that some fonts show up better on screen than others, which is relevant if you are doing a pdf and expect some people to use it on their computer rather than print it off. I guess the most important thing is that the font helps convey the theme of the book. A spy book should have something that goes with the spy motif, while retaining readability. I'd expect a different font than you would use for say a Victorian Era game or a Classical Greece game.
Greg Porter
BTRC
Eero Tuovinen:
The font format is actually only indicative of the font's quality - all font formats are complex, they by themselves do not guarantee much of anything about the actual contents of the font file. And then there's the fact that even if the font has the right type of information, who's to know how well-done the font's kerning, special glyphs and such details are?
In other words, saying that "opentype is best" or "type1 is best" or such is meaningless; you have to be able to trust the creator of the font to do quality work all over, or be able to verify the work yourself. The font wrapper format is a relatively inconsequential issue in comparison, as both Truetype and Type1 can be used to describe fonts pretty reasonably. Opentype is of course best, being a newer generation of format, but all three of those can be used for professional work - unless your printer tells you that they only handle certain font formats or something, of course.
Carnifex:
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on May 08, 2009, 04:52:55 AM
The font format is actually only indicative of the font's quality - all font formats are complex, they by themselves do not guarantee much of anything about the actual contents of the font file. And then there's the fact that even if the font has the right type of information, who's to know how well-done the font's kerning, special glyphs and such details are?
In other words, saying that "opentype is best" or "type1 is best" or such is meaningless; you have to be able to trust the creator of the font to do quality work all over, or be able to verify the work yourself. The font wrapper format is a relatively inconsequential issue in comparison, as both Truetype and Type1 can be used to describe fonts pretty reasonably. Opentype is of course best, being a newer generation of format, but all three of those can be used for professional work - unless your printer tells you that they only handle certain font formats or something, of course.
First you state that "saying that "opentype is best" or "type1 is best" or such is meaningless" and then you say that "Opentype is of course best"...
I'm only talking about the technical format of the font - not how well the font is made or how good a font looks.
TrueType is not compatible with earlier versions of PostScript (level 1 and 2) - which some print shops might still use. That's why I avoid TrueType formatted fonts. When I started working as a graphic designer you could not print a document with truetype fonts at all (as PostScript level 3 came 1997). PostScript fonts, on the other hand might cause some other problems when printing to a non-postscript printer.
OpenType format is clearly a superior format. A OT font can have more than 65000 characters and supports advanced typography features. You don't have to have separate font files for italic, bold, heavy etc. It's the ISO-format font. The same font file can also be used both on PC and Mac.
Note that most fonts are made in several different formats. Times New Roman, for example, exists in both TrueType, Type 1 and OpenType format.
The only reason not to use OpenType is when you're working with old versions of Word or Windows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenType
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_1_Font
Eero Tuovinen:
And, of course, because the font you have happens to be in an older format and you don't want to rebuy your font library in Opentype. My point was that it is likely better to use the typographically best font you have available, making the wrapper format a secondary concern. Some rare printers might not be able to handle Truetype, but I've yet to encounter that in practice, myself.
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