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What
is OpenType?
OpenType is a cross-platform font format created by the combined
efforts of Microsoft and Adobe. In addition to allowing you
to use the same font file on your Mac or PC, using OpenType
means you no longer have to make the sometimes confusing decision
between whether to use TrueType or PostScript. Enhanced OpenType
fonts are often distinguished by the designation "Pro."
How is Enhanced OpenType Different
from TrueType and Postscript?
Basic Opentype, TrueType and PostScript fonts usually contain
standard character sets with a maximum of 256 glyphs. The
OpenType format, however, is capable of supporting expanded
character sets containing thousands of characters or glyphs.
This allows for the inclusion of many extra features such
as ligatures, small caps, swashes, and ornaments within a
single font. In addition to providing layout features for
good typography, OpenType offers support for greater linguistic
support. Pro fonts can add a full range of accented characters
to support central and eastern European languages, such as
Turkish and Polish. Some Pro fonts also contain Cyrillic and
Greek character extensions in the same font.
What Programs Use OpenType?
OpenType-compatible programs such as Adobe CS products and
the most recent releases of Quark Xpress can access OpenType
features. However, users without full OpenType support can
substitute OpenType fonts for TrueType or PostScript, may
not necessarily have access to some features, or all the glyphs
in the font. For an up-to-date listing of OpenType-savvy applications
and which features they support, check here: http://www.typotheque.com/fonts/opentype_feature_support/
Using OpenType and accessing
its features:
In Adobe CS products, features are accessed through the Type
Palette [window/ type and tables/ character]. The small arrow
in the upper right shows options for small caps, ligatures,
etc., and, in the OpenType sub-menu, you can access other
features such as contextual alternates (which is turned on
by default), ornaments, swash, etc. To activate a feature,
click on it (a check mark will show it has been activated);
clicking it again will turn it off. Features that are grayed-out
or in brackets are not available. You can apply features to
a single character or to an entire document, depending on
what is selected when the feature is checked. Even among applications
that do support OpenType features, there is some disparity
between applications in what features are supported. Another
way of accessing glyphs is through the glyph palette. In Adobe
CS products, this is located in windows/ type and tables/
glyphs. The glyph palette can show you all the characters
in a font, which glyphs are accessed by a particular layout
feature or available alternates to a selected glyph. For more
information of how to use OpenType in Adobe CS programs, check
here:
http://store.adobe.com/type/opentype/main.html
http://desktoppub.about.com/od/fonts/a/opentype.htm
OpenType fonts for OSX:
Some enhanced OpenType fonts may show up in an odd place in
the font menu in various versions of Mac OSX when using Adobe
CS products. If a font shows up at the bottom of your font
menu, you May try unistalling the font, running it through
OFT File Typer (a free utility), and reinstalling the font.
You can download OTF File Typer here: OTF File Typer. To be sure all
OpenType features function properly for Adobe CS application,
it is best to install the fonts into the: MacHD->Library->Application
Support->Adobe->Fonts folder.
For more information, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/OpenType/OTSpec/otover.htm
http://www.myfonts.com/info/opentype-advanced-typography/
http://store.adobe.com/type/opentype/qna.html
OpenType Feature Definitions
Lining Numerals (lnum)
Modern style numerals where all figures are of the same height and rest on the baseline.
Oldstyle Numerals (onum)
Style of Arabic Numerals where the characters appear at different positions and heights.
Proportional Numerals (pnum)
Numerals spaced in varied widths depending on the character.
Tabular Numerals (tnum)
Monowidth numerals where all figures have identical widths.
Superior Figures (sups)
Letterforms that replace lining or oldstyle figures primarily for footnote indication and French abbreviations.
Scientific Figures (sinf)
Letterforms which sit lower than the standard baseline, primarily for chemical or mathematical notation.
Subscript (subs)
A function that substitutes either upper or lowercase characters with
Subscript characters (letters or numerals) that are positioned lower than
the text on the line.
Ordinals (ordn)
This features creates Superscripted glyphs when using ordinal numbers such 1st or 2nd as well as the Spanish Segunda/Segundo.
Fractions (frac)
A feature that creates fractions in place of common slash characters.
Numerators (numr)
The top part of a fraction. This feature substitutes designed numerator glyphs for numbers.
Denominators (dnom)
The bottom part of a fraction. This feature substitutes designed numerator glyphs for numbers.
Slash Zero (zero)
A character useful in cases where the figure zero might be confused with the letter O.
Ligatures (liga)
A ligature is a special character that combines two (or sometimes three) letters into a single character. This feature automatically substitutes ligature glyphs for letter combinations where characters might otherwise "collide". Common ligatures are: fi, fl, ffi, ffl.
Discretionary Ligatures (dlig)
Preferred Ligatures for typographical purposes and user defined ligatures used for special effect such as ct, st, Th
Contextual Ligatures (clig)
a ligature glyph which is preferred for typographical purposes. This feature will substitute specific combination of letters in a script font which overlap awkwardly with a more pleasing combination.
Historical Ligatures (hlig)
Ligatures that were in common use in past, but appear out of date such as the long s combinations.
Case-Sensitive Forms (case)
Feature that positions punctuation marks to work better with all caps or lining figures and changes oldstyle figures to lining figures.
Capital Spacing (cpsp)
Feature that adjusts spacing for use with all-capital text.
Small Caps (smcp)
Proportional characters that are the same weight as the rest of the font and a bit wider proportionally from the Capitals.
Caps to Small Caps (c2sc)
Feature that replaces Capitals with Small Capitals.
Titling (titl)
Ornate alternate Capitals.
Swash (swsh)
Stylized letterforms with extended strokes.
Contextual Swash (cswh)
Feature that applies swash characters contextually or in a specified context.
Contextual Alternates (calt)
Feature that applies alternate variations contextually or in a specified context.
Stylistic Alternates (salt)
Alternate glyphs for a purely esthetic effect.
Historical Forms (hist)
Letterforms that were in common use in the past such as the 'long s'.
Stylistic Sets (ss01-ss20)
A set of stylistic alternate characters that correspond to portions of the character set.
Local Feature (locl)
Characters that are language specific or used by individual communities.
Access all Alternates (aalt)
A feature that makes all variations of a selected character accessible.
Ornaments (ornm)
Ornamental glyphs or Dingbats.
Glyph Count
The total number of glyphs or characters contained in a Pro
OpenType style font.
Latin A
Diacritics and Characters needed for latin languages including english. See chart for other languages.
Latin B
Diacritics and Characters needed for latin languages not including english. See chart for other languages.
Latin Extended Additional
Diacritics and Characters needed for extended Latin languages. See language coverage chart.
Central European (CE)
Diacritics and Characters needed for Central European languages including Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian...
Cyrillic (CYR)
Characters and Diacritics needed for Cyrillic.
Greek (GRK)
Characters and Diacritics needed for Greek.
For more information about Languages check here:
http://typophile.com/node/34854?
Language Coverage:
For fonts that contain either Central European, Cyrillic or Greek character sets, the full range of these languages is listed below.
Latin-1:
Albanian
Danish
Dutch
English
Faroese
Finnish
Flemish
German
Icelandic
Indonesian
Irish
Italian
Malay
Norwegian
Portuguese
Scottish Gaelic
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Latin Extended-A:*
Afrikaans
Basque
Breton
Bosnian
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Esperanto
Estonian
Fijian
French
Frisian
Greenlandic
Hawaiian
Hungarian
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Maltese
Maori
Polish
Provençal
Rhaeto-Romanic
Romanian
Moldavian
Romany
Sámi, Inari
Sámi, Luli
Sámi, Northern
Sámi, Southern
Samoan
Slovak
Slovenian
Serbian
Turkish
Welsh
Latin Extended-B:*
Azerbaijani (also requires some glyphs from Latin Extended-A)
Croatian
Pinyin (Mandarin Romanization)
Livonian
Sá
mi, Skolt
Latin Extended Additional:*
Sanskrit Transliteration
Vietnamese
IPA Extentions:
‚
†
International Phonetic Alphabet
Greek:
Greek, Monotonic
Greek Extended:**
Greek, Polytonic
Cyrillic:
Abaza
Abkhaz
Adyghe
Altay
Azerbaijani
Avar
Balkar
Bashkir
Belorussian
Bulgarian
Buryat
Central Siberian Yupik
Chechen
Chuvash
Chukchi
Dargwa
Dungan
Erzya
Evenk
Kabardian
Kalmyk
Karachay
Kazakh
Khakas
Khalka
Khanty
Koryak
Kumyk
Kyrgyz
Lak
Lezgian
Macedonian
Mansi
Mari
Moksha
Moldavian
Mongolian
Nanai
Nenets
Nogai
Old Church Slavonic
Ossetian
Russian
Rusyn
Sá
mi, Kildin
Selkup
Serbian
Serbo-Croatian
Tabassaran
Tatar
Tajik
Turkmen
Tuvan
Udihe
Udmurt
Ukranian
Uzbek
Yakut
Cyrillic Supplement:‡
Komi
Notes:
* Also requires Latin-1.
** Also require Greek.
†
Also require Latin-1 & Greek.
‡
Also require Cyrillic.
OpenType Installation Instructions
OpenType fonts will work in most instances where TrueType and PostScript font may have previously been preferred.
To Install in OSX:
Double click on the .otf font(s).
This will launch Fontbook in Mac OSX.
Click install.
That's it.
or
On your computer there are 3 possible locations to install fonts:
- /Users/yourusername/Library/Fonts
(Where 'yourusername' is your login user name)
- /System/Fonts
- /Library/Fonts
Drag the .otf fonts into one of the folders (Note: you may not have access privileges to install in the /System and /Library Fonts folders, in this case install in your /Users Fonts folder.)
To confirm installation, open the TextEdit application and open the fonts, the P22 fonts should be listed alphabetically (under "P") along with all other fonts.
or
Using a third party font management utility, please follow manufacturers instructions.
Pro Fonts
For full support of all OpenType Pro features in the Adobe Creative Suite applications, the OpenType fonts should be installed into the:
MacHD->Library->Application Support->Adobe->Fonts folder
for more detailed descriptions of OSX issues visit
http://www.p22.com/support/macinstall.html
------------------------
To Install in System 7, 8 or 9:
Quit any open applications
Drag .otf font(s) to your unopened system folder
A window will come up asking you if you want them installed. Click OK
When using OpenType fonts on Mac OS 9.x you must have the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) version 4.6.2 or later installed. You can download ATM Light free from the Adobe web site www.adobe.com
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