Monotype Imaging’s core XHTML FCO contains the following 13 typefaces.

0 Arial
1 Arial Italic
2 Arial Bold
3 Arial Bold Italic
4 Courier
5 Courier Italic
6 Courier Bold
7 Courier Bold Italic
8 Times New
9 Times New Italic
10 Times New Bold
11 Times New Bold Italic
12 ITC Zapf Chancery Medium Italic

All the fonts except ITC Zapf Chancery support the Windows® Microsoft® WGL4 character set. ITC Zapf Chancery supports the standard PCL character set (Latin 1, 2, 5, 6).

Many of our OEMs are also including our stroke font data to support the CJK languages in XHTML-based products. We are not aware if there are any defined standards for CJK XHTML. Most likely the standards will most likely be set as companies bring XHTML products to market.
 

Our GDI Font Sets

Monotype Imaging’s Raster Printer Font Set is available for raster-based laser, inkjet and multifunction printers,
devices that can accommodate Monotype Imaging’s industry-standard PCL® (Printer Command Language) or dual-emulation PCL and PostScript® compatible fonts – the same fonts that operate in millions of office printers worldwide.

In today’s connected world, fonts are assumed to interchange consistently within documents. Yet, if a document created at the office is printed at home on a raster printer, the intended fonts may not print as expected. Frustrating problems can result, such as font substitution, differing line breaks, page breaks and character spacing. Why such disparities? The home PC that drives the printer typically does not contain all the fonts used in the office. Today, with Monotype Imaging’s Raster Printer Font Set, the same fonts used at the office can now be used at home. Manufacturers are able to promote and deliver fully HP-compatible raster printers.

Features and Benefits

              Option 1                                             Option 2
    PCL compatible fonts                   PCL/PostScript compatible fonts

Raster Printer Font Set
• TrueType® fonts are included on CD or bundled with drivers.
• Each font includes Latin 1, 2, 5 and 6 character sets.
 

Options
• Raster Printer Font Set may be bundled with the Monotype Imaging Font Manager, a utility to install,
  uninstall, find and manage every font available within Windows environments.
 

Our 708B (closed caption) fonts

Monotype Imaging’s closed caption font set supports FCC requirements for closed captioning display on digital and analog television sets. When used with UFST or iType, the fonts also conform to FCC mandates for character edge effects, pen styles, character offsetting and pen sizes.

Closed captioning font requirements:
 

Closed captioning capabilities provide access to TV programming for individuals with hearing disabilities. The technology allows for the audio portion of programming to be displayed as text, super-imposed over the video portion. To display closed captions, viewers must use either a set-top decoder or a TV receiver that contains integrated decoder technology.

Requirements for closed captioning have existed since the 1990 passage of the Television Decoder Circuitry Act. With the advent of digital broadcasting, the FCC has updated its rules with instructions for the encoding, display and delivery of closed captioning information for digital TV.

Manufacturers are now required to include compliant DTV closed captioning decoder circuitry in digital TVs. Devices affected by the rules include digital sets with wide-screen displays measuring at least 7.8 inches vertically, digital TVs with conventional displays measuring at least 13 inches vertically, and stand-alone digital TV tuners, whether or not they are marketed with display screens.

Our TV core font set

Consisting of 16 weights that comprise the Agfa Screen family, the Monotype Imaging TV core font set is designed especially for low-resolution devices such as TV screens. Agfa Screen outperforms alternatives because of its readability. Characters are easy to distinguish and easy on the eyes, regardless of screen resolution.

Agfa Screen is an excellent example of “transparent type” – when words themselves must make the statement – not the type. Clarity is critical when displaying messages that need to be read and understood quickly. Anything less draws attention to the product as inferior, perhaps even difficult to use.

Agfa Screen – Designed for Ultimate Readability
Agfa Screen’s sans serif, serif and monospace weights were designed to overcome conditions that compromise on-screen readability. Text – especially small characters – is subject to ambiguity or blurriness when displayed on TV and other low-resolution screens.
 

Letters and low-resolution display screens are generally an unfriendly combination. Delicate character components – such as stems and hairlines – often break up or fade out against the high-contrast backgrounds of display screens. Also, characters can look muddled and indistinguishable when displayed on screen because lowercase letters typically have a small x-height (the height of the letter excluding ascenders and descenders). To dismiss these and other issues that lead to unpleasant reading experiences, Agfa Screen was designed.

Agfa Screen features a large x-height to improve clarity and to more sharply define lowercase letters – a welcome modification since over 95 percent of text in any correspondence is lowercase.
Additional thickness has been applied to stems and serifs to offset contrast and to increase readability on mobile phones, PDAs and TVs – especially when viewing TV at a distance.
More importantly, each character has been designed to be easily recognizable and unambiguous.
 

Our Tioga font

Monotype Imaging’s Tioga is a font intended for use by people with low vision. It was developed to be metrically compatible with Tiresias, a font designed by Dr. John Gill and recommended by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). With Tioga, Monotype Imaging improved on the aesthetics and the readability of the Tiresias design while maintaining metric compatibility. Additionally, Tioga is available in a true bold face thus allowing for design optimization, rather than general-purpose emboldening.

Tioga was also developed in the True Type format, an industry standard font format  used in most PC’s and a majority of embedded platforms.

Metric compatibility ensures compatible word spacing and line breaks



Note the “splayed” shape of the capital M in the Tiresias example below. The slightly angled stems render poorly on low-resolution devices such as TV’s and cell phones. Not only do the stems look jaggy but also the interior becomes filled in and blocky-looking. The Tioga example, with its straight stems and more precise diagonal, results in a sharper, clearer image.
 

            Tiresias left          Tioga right

If you have an interest in evaluating or licensing any of the specialty fonts described above please contact your Monotype Imaging account manager.


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Our Feature

The Principles of Type Design

Fonts have been around for over 550 years. They've been made of metal, wood, plastic, photographic film and digital bits and bytes. The process of making a font has changed dramatically since Gutenberg formed his idea to print copies of the Bible. The process has changed – but not the underlying concepts.

Whether it’s an early type designer creating fonts in metal or an internal type designer at Monotype Imaging or an independent designer working in a small studio, virtually all typeface design begins with a specific design problem. Whether it is designing a new text face that is space economical, creating a display design that stands out from the crowd, or combining the best attributes of two existing typefaces to satisfy the wishes of a corporate art director, practically every new typeface, and clearly every successful typeface, is the result of an imposed design problem. If it isn’t supplied by an outside source in the form of a design brief, it is imposed by the type designer.

The First Rules of Typeface Design:
If there is one rule for developing a financially successful commercial typeface it is to create a design that is both distinctive and versatile. The idea is to develop a typeface that stands out from the crowd – and one that can be used in a variety of different documents. This isn’t as easy a proposition as it may sound. Just about anybody can draw a distinctive typeface; the problem is that the more distinctive a typeface design becomes, the less versatile it tends to be. Standing out in a crowd, by itself, is not good enough to insure font sales – the typeface also needs to be a design that will be used in many applications.

If there is a second rule, it is that typefaces should have “legs.” While there is a place for fonts that follows short-term design trends, the typefaces that bring in the most money are those that are consistently popular over the long-haul. Think: “Paul Newman vs. Pee-Wee Herman.”

Many times, the first design step a designer takes is the creation of just four characters: H, O, n and o. These characters become the cornerstone of the new typeface design. They establish the spacing relationship of round-sided characters to straight-sided characters, the proportions of the caps and lowercase letters and the weights of straight strokes, round strokes, hairlines and their transitions.

Key Words:
When the designer is satisfied with the cornerstone characters, the next step is normally to test their validity and establish the foundation for the rest of the typeface design. In the days of metal and phototype fonts, designers working in America would draw the letters to set “Championed HOME8.” The word “Hamburgerfons” was used by most European foundries. Today, the virtual standard is “Hamburgerfonts.”

Up to this point, the design process can either take place on-screen or in the more traditional media of pencil, ink and paper. When the designer is satisfied with the design foundation, the rest of the letters, figures and punctuation are created in a software application. These are then made into a font so that the design can be edited in a real-world environment. In the days of metal type, it could take weeks or even months for a test font to be made. Phototype shortened this process to several days. Today, changes to test fonts can take a matter of minutes.

Test, Edit and Re-test:
The font is used to generate “test copy.” While it can take many forms, the text copy usually has individual letters set between “control” characters such as H, O, n and o to determine spacing consistency. In addition, blocks of copy are set at various sizes to reveal how characters work together to form words, lines of type, and blocks of copy. The designer will then study this printout and, similar to the editing of a written manuscript, make decisions on how to improve the final product. This can be to both the shapes of the letterforms, and how they space in relation to other characters. (Letter spacing and kerning are just as important to character legibility and readability as are the shapes of the letters.)

Then it’s back to the drawing board (actually, computer) to make the design modifications. This is followed by more test and more edit. The number of times a design is tested and modified can vary dramatically from designer to designer and design project to design project. It is, however, always more than once and can be up to a dozen – and more. Sometimes the designer will even put the design aside for a period of time and revisit it later with “fresh eyes.”

More Than 26 Letters:
Much of this development work is done on the basic character set of caps, lowercase, figures, punctuation and a few diacriticals. It is usually when the work on these characters is completed to the designer’s satisfaction, that the rest of the character set is developed. This can be as few as 256 and as many as a thousand or more individual glyphs.

Even when the typeface is completely designed, more work is required. Fonts (usually PostScript Type 1, TrueType – and now OpenType®) are made. These also go through an extensive test procedure to ensure they will perform well in a variety of environments and software applications.

The process of designing a typeface can sometimes take weeks, often months and, in some cases, years. There are also typefaces that have been designed and made into fonts in less than a day – and they look it.

The Same – But Different:
While the process of making and testing fonts has changed several times since Gutenberg invented the craft of typography, the underlying concepts have remained the same. When Gutenberg designed his first typeface, it was to satisfy the needs of a very specific design problem. He created a few test characters to see if he could replicate the work of scribes. When he was happy with the results he created a basic font and printed sample pages. The design was tested and changed several times until Gutenberg had exactly what he needed to print his Bible. Some things change. Some don’t.

If you're interested in obtaining more information regarding type design, please contact your Monotype Imaging OEM application engineer.

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FAQ's Answered

What is the standard symbol set support for FCO data?

UFST and our standard FCOs support the full LaserJet 4 or 5 character sets. As you probably know, a symbol set provides a mapping from the implementing application’s character codes into a particular subset of a LaserJet ®(4 or 5) character set. All currently popular symbol sets are provided in our UFST SDK. The standard FCO data sets, also provided in the SDK, (PCL45, PCLPS2, PCLPS3, PS2, and PS3) support the following MicroType® symbol sets:

HP LaserJet 4 Symbol Sets		HP LaserJet 5 Symbol Sets
SS ID:	Description:	SS ID:	Description:
DN	ISO 60: Danish/Norwegian	DN	ISO 60: Danish/Norwegian
DT	Desk Top	DT	Desk Top
E1	ISO 8859/1 Latin 1	E1	ISO 8859/1 Latin 1
E2	ISO 8859/2 Latin 2	E2	ISO 8859/2 Latin 2
E5	ISO 8859/9 Latin 5	E5	ISO 8859/9 Latin 5
FR	ISO 69: French	E6	ISO 8859 Latin 6
GR	ISO 21: German	FR	ISO 69: French
IT	ISO 15: Italian	GR	ISO 21: German
LG	Legal	IT	ISO 15: Italian
M8	Math-8	LG	Legal
MC	Macintosh	M8	Math-8
MS	PS Math	MC	Macintosh
PB	Microsoft Publishing	MS	PS Math
PC	PC-8 Code Page 437	PB	Microsoft Publishing
PD	PC-8 D/N, Code Page 437N	PC	PC-8 Code Page 437
PE	PC-852 Latin 2	PD	PC-8 D/N, Code Page 437N
PI	PI font	PE	PC-852 Latin 2
PM	PC-859 Multilingual	PI	PI Font
PT	PC-8 TK, Code Page 437T	PM	PC-850 Multilingual
R8	Roman-8	PT	PC-8 TK, Code Page 437T
SP	ISO 17: Spanish	PU	PC-1004
SW	ISO 11: Swedish	PV	PC-775
TS	PS Text	R8	Roman-8
UK	ISO 4: United Kingdom	SP	ISO 17: Spanish
US	ISO 6: ASCII	SW	ISO 11: Swedish
VI	Ventura International	TS	PS Text
VM	Ventura Math	UK	ISO 4: United Kingdom
VU	Ventura US	US	ISO 6: ASCII
W1	Windows 3.1 Latin 1	W1	Windows 3.1 Latin 1
WE	Windows 3.1 Latin 2	WE	Windows 3.1 Latin 2
WO	Windows 3.0 Latin 1	WL	Windows Baltic
WT	Windows 3.1 Latin 5	WO	Windows 3.0 Latin 1
		WT	Windows 3.1 Latin 5

Our SDK also includes the extended FCO data sets (PP2XTND1 and PP2XTND2) that contain additional language support for Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic.

Hebrew Symbol Sets:		Arabic Symbol Sets:
Description:	SS ID:	Description:
CP-862 Latin/Hebrew	10V	CP-864 Latin/Arabic
ISO-8859/8 Latin/Hebrew	8V	HP Arabic-8
HP Hebrew-8	9V	Windows Arabic (Windows 3.1)
HP Hebrew-7
Cyrillic Symbol Sets:		Greek Symbol Sets:
Description:	SS ID:	Description:
CP866 PC-Cyrillic	12G	PC-8 Greek
ISO-8859/5 Latin/Cyrillic	10G	CP-851 PC Latin/Greek
Windows Latin/Cyrillic	9G	Windows Latin/Greek
	12N	ISO 8859/7 Latin/Greek
	8C	HP Greek-8

We’ve also included the following table that contains each data set and its corresponding filename shipping with our most recent version of UFST, version 4.6.

MicroType 1 Format		MicroType 2 Format
Standard Data Set:	FCO File Name:	Standard Data Set:	FCO File Name:
PCL45	pcl____i.fco	PCL45	pcl___zi.fco
PCLPS2	pclp2__i.fco	PCLPS2	pclp2_zi.fco
PCLPS3	pclp3__i.fco	PCLPS3	pclp3_zi.fco
PS2	ps2____g.fco	PS2	ps2___zg.fco
PS3	ps3____g.fco	PS3	ps3___zg.fco
Extended Data Set:	FCO File Name:	Extended Data Set:	FCO File Name:
PP2XtND1	pp2x1__c.fco	PP2XtND1	pp2x1_zc.fco
PP2XTND2	pp2x2__c.fco	PP2XTND2	pp2x2_zc.fco

If you need additional information on our FCO data and symbol set support please contact your OEM applications support engineer.

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Patch Info

Patch kits allow you to upgrade your current version of UFST or iType to take advantage of bug fixes and new enhancements. The following is a list of patches that are available.
  
The UFST 4.4 patch contains:

- Fix for rotated stroke-based DIMM_DISK fonts
- Fix for stroke-based fonts and MAT0 mode
- Fix for pseudo-bold issue with mixed contour polarity
- Disable-plugins option for stroke-based fonts
- Enhanced embedded bitmap performance
- Font purge of downloaded data
- PCLXL CharClass 2 fix
- Fix for vstem and hstem operators
- Fix for no plugins with DL_SYMSET
- Fix for initializing outputPtr->stik_char in fs_NewSfnt()
- Fix for pifb->index cast requirement in CACbmLookup()
- Fix for initializing outputPtr->stik_char in fs_NewSfnt()

The UFST 4.5 patch contains:

- Fix for the space character with EF_SUBSTHOLLOWBOX_TYPE defined 
- Fix for bouncing baseline when stroke data is used with
  TT_SCREENERES
- Fix for no plugins with DL_SYMSET
- Error checking for the INVALID_GLYPH_INDEX in sfnt_ReadSFNT()
  routine
- Modifications on computation techniques for advanceWidth output
  structure members
- Fix for initializing outputPtr->stik_char in fs_NewSfnt()
- Fix for spotty boldness after a space char when using contour checking
- Fix for memory leak in maker.c (contour checking)

The UFST 4.6 patch contains:

- Free unused pre-allocated memory in bitmap_dyn() for space char
- Fix for initializing outputPtr->stik_char in fs_NewSfnt()
- Fix for embedded bitmaps when bit_map_width member of IFCONFIG is
  not equal to one
- Correct potential overflow problem in outline processing for large chars
- CGIFfont_metrics() fix when using MicroType (some members not
  returning consistent information)
- Stroke data bounding box fix; black_width member of IFBITMAP not
  consistent with actual bitmap
- Memory leak in FIX_CONTOUR functionality
- Correction for spotty boldness for chars that follow the space char when a
  pseudo-bold effect is being applied
- Fix incorrect constant in math processing that causes problems in 16-bit
  environment
- Processing coverage 2 GSUB table
- Disable Missing Pixel recovery when processing stroke data
- Initialization issue of orThreshold member of IF_STATE due to conflict in
  use between IF and PS
- Vertical writing fix to correct inconsistency in positioning between outline
  and bitmap output
 

The iType 2.1 patch contains:

- Fix for compiler issues
- Fix for composite embedded bitmaps
- Changes to sbit.c for composite embedded bitmaps
- Change to sbit.c for embedded bitmap bug when pseudo_bold was non zero

The iType 2.2 patch contains:

- Fix for composite embedded bitmaps
- Fix for generation of characters with negative side bearings
- Change to sbit.c for embedded bitmap when pseudo_bold was non zero
- Change to sbit.c when pseudo bold is undefined
- Change to api.c and sbit.c to trim white rows and columns from the bitmap without affecting
  the glyph

To receive a patch kit or for information on kits of earlier product releases, contact your Monotype Imaging OEM application engineer. When you receive your patch kit, please make note of its number in case you need to reference it when contacting us. The naming convention is simple. The first two digits represent the UFST or iType version number. The final six digits represent the mm/dd/yy it was released.

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you need to know

This section describes areas in the API of UFST and iType that will be revised to provide a more efficient interface layer for the application. Examples of changes to the UFST or iType API that may be included in this section are: the addition of members of interface structures and the revision of interface function parameters.
 
Changes discussed in this section will not be implemented until the next version is released. This gives you sufficient notice for revising the code layer that interfaces with our product.

Upcoming Changes in UFST 4.7:

The next release of UFST will contain a format change in our three symbol set files: uif.ss, utt.ss and umt.ss. We will be adding support for PCL character requirements in symbol sets, along with character complements in our MicroType font data. This format change will require that you rebuild UFST's '.ss' files using a new version of our ixssmak program.

UFST 4.7 will also contain a method of enabling/disabling NO_SYMSET_MAPPING at runtime. This will provide more flexibility to applications that currently implement a NO_SYMSET_MAPPING system, but want to also use symbol sets for specific tasks. However, the API for the interface function CGIFwidths() is different for either case.

The multi-instance functionality in UFST 4.7 will also be revised, in order to provide more sharing of data between clients of UFST. For example, resources, bucket and cache lists, symbol sets will all be able to be shared in UFST 4.7. To accommodate this system, several members of the if_state structure will need to be relocated inside of the structure

There will be a runtime flag required for NO_SYMSET_MAPPING in UFST 4.7.

The NO_SYMSET_MAPPING version of the CGIFwidth() function will need to be enabled by a new compile-time switch in UFST's cgconfig.h file.

This functionality is still in development and few details are available at this point. Examples that we do have include the if_state.mem_fund[] and if_state.mem_avail[] members, as well as the lists if_state.hBUCKlru() and if_state.hBMlru(). As a general statement, please expect any OEM-specific functionality that directly communicates with the if_state structure to be invalid with UFST 4.7.

More details for each of these items will follow in the next version of the Dispatch.

Please feel free to pass along any comments about this information to your Monotype Imaging OEM application engineer.

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Copyright © 2000-2005. All rights reserved, by Monotype Imaging Inc., Woburn, MA. The software described in these documents is confidential and is the property of Monotype Imaging Inc.(MTI) for the express use of MTI customers. It cannot be reprinted, redistributed, copies in whole or in part without written permission from MTI. It may be used only in accordance with the terms of your NDA and with the inclusion of the above copyright notice.