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On a Mac, when I'm downloading fonts am often given the choice between OTF (OpenType Format) and TTF (TrueType Format). House party game download full.
Convert OTF (OpenType) to TTF (TrueType) online with CloudConvert. No registration required.
Is there any difference in the way ligatures work or anything between the two formats?
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Rich BradshawRich Bradshaw
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5 Answers
OTF is more likely to be a “better” font, as it supports more advanced typesetting features (smallcaps, alternates, ligatures and so on actually inside the font rather than in fiddly separate expert set fonts). It can also contain either spline (TTF-style) or Bezier (PostScript Type 1-style) curves, so hopefully you're getting the shapes the font was originally designed in and not a potentially-poorer-quality conversion.
On the other hand, if you're downloading free fonts from shovelware sites, you're unlikely to get any of that. Indeed, you may simple be getting a TTF font renamed to OTF.
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OTF is a more recent format than TTF, so OTF has some features that TTF doesn't. (Which is a moot point if the font's creator didn't use them.)
One note from personal experience however: depending on what you're going to be doing with these fonts, I've found it's much easier to get tools that work with TTF as opposed to OTF. If you're just using them for desktop publishing / word processing, either will work fine, but if you're going to be doing anything programmatic, I'd recommend TTF just due to the higher number of tools / libraries out there.
Electrons_AhoyElectrons_Ahoy1,88644 gold badges2626 silver badges3535 bronze badges
Please note that when file endings are converned, both
.otf
and.ttf
may denote fonts in the OpenType format. (See OpenType in Wikipedia – actually, this is more accurately pronounced in the German version.)This comes a little confusing as some
.ttf
font files may look as if they are in legacy ANSI-Windows TrueType format, whereas in fact they may be full featured OpenType fonts.The main difference between both flavours being that
.ttf
style fonts use quadratic Bézier splines whereas .otf
style fonts use cubic Bézier splines. (Historically, quadratic Bézier curves have been used for the ‘legacy’ TrueType format; cubic Bézier curves have come from a PostScript background.) Cubic Béziers are potentially more accurate (every quadratic Bézier curve can be exactly reproduced with a cubic Bézier curve) but may be approximated with smaller segmented sequences of quadratic Béziers. (Also note that neither cubic nor quadratic Bézier splines may exactly reproduce a circle. There is always some approximation error.)Another minor difference in the specification seems to be that
ttf
flavoured OpenType fonts may address the same glyph with several code points. Therefore, this saves some space, if e.g. the upper case versions of b, β and в (read: latin, greek and cyrillic ‘B’) have the same shape.DebilskiDebilski
I don’t agree with those who say that OTF is the best format. TTF offers the designer the possibility to change the details of the rasterization on screen and in print (if the designer knows how to do it).
For example:
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Fabrizio SchiaviFabrizio Schiavi
I found this useful, and it answered my questions enough to stop digging deeper.
MS: What's the difference between TrueType, PostScript, and OpenType fonts?
TrueType fonts can be scaled to any size and are clear and readable in all sizes. They can be sent to any printer or other output device that is supported by Windows. OpenType fonts are related to TrueType fonts, but they incorporate a greater extension of the basic character set, including small capitalization, old-style numerals, and more detailed shapes, such as glyphs and ligatures. OpenType fonts can also be scaled to any size, are clear and readable in all sizes, and can be sent to any printer or other output device that is supported by Windows.
PostScript fonts are smooth, detailed, and of high quality. They are often used for printing, especially professional-quality printing, such as books or magazines.
Which font format will work best for me?
It depends. If you want a font that prints well and is easy to read on the screen, then consider using a TrueType font. If you need a large character set for language coverage and fine typography, then you might want to use an OpenType font. If you need to print professional-quality print publications, such as glossy magazines or commercial printing, PostScript is a good choice. For more information, see Fonts: frequently asked questions.
Travis BemroseTravis Bemrose
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I'm not sure if writing a “universal font flavor converter” should be in scope of the fontTools library.
Would it convert a TTC into multiple TTFs? Would it convert a TTF+gvar into a set of static TTFs? Would it convert an OTF+SVG into a TTF+sbix? CFF2 to CFF and vice versa? With our without variations? And if not, why not?
I don't think it's so trivial anymore to define what exactly 'convert' means.
Such a converter would be great but I don't think it should be placed inside fontTools. It should be a separate lib and tool.
E.g. the OTF+SVG to TTF+sbix conversion obviously would require an SVG rasterizer, other conversions might require FreeType or other dependencies.
I think having a library and tool that would do that (some kind of fontmake v2) would be great.
It'd need to define exactly what kinds of conversions might need to happen:
- between the tables that hold the outline-based glyph data (glyf, CFF2, CFF, SVG)
- between the tables that hold the bitmap-based glyph data (SVG, CBDT, sbix, EBDT)
- between the outline-based and bitmap-based glyph data
- between outline flavors
- between variable and static glyph data
- between packaging formats (OTF/TTF, TTC, WOFF2, WOFF)
- between multicolor and monochrome glyph data
- possibly between some layout data
- possibly between the SFNT formats and development formats (DS+UFO, Glyphs etc.)
Then, at least for some of these conversions, we'd need to map out what exactly needs to happen at the conversion time.
Then, we'd need to be implement some of these conversions.
And we'd need to clarify what is out of scope, what's not implemented etc.
Compression schemes like compositization of TTF and subroutinization of CFF/CFF2 would need to be taken into account, and hinting.
Potentially, there would be a lot of dependencies, and more could appear over time. I'd prefer not to cram all this potentially complex logic into the fontTools lib.