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Bringing the desktop experience to consumer electronic products is not simply a
matter of downsizing existing technology. Specialized expertise helps to bring
industry-leading innovations to market. Some of these supported by the
iType® font engine include:
Edge Technology (new)
An optional plug-in for the iType font engine, Monotype Imaging’s Edge™
Technology adds advanced capabilities to overcome difficult challenges of
displaying text on memory-constrained devices. Edge Technology can be catered
to the needs OEMs and developers to deliver stylistic font choice, legibility
at small sizes, and low-memory footprint.
Linked Fonts (newly enhanced)
A grouping of fonts can be “linked” and therefore treated as a single font,
without having to merge font files. This feature improves flexibility in
managing the font resources embedded in a device. Monotype Imaging has also
added the ability to adjust the relative vertical alignment and scale of fonts
with respect to each other, ensuring proportional vertical alignment of
displayed characters sourced from multiple fonts. In addition, a new run-time
feature enables the dynamic linking of fonts downloaded to the device, enabling
the combined data to perform as a single, cohesive file.
Rendering Support for Scalable Multicolored Icons
Scalable, multicolored icon data can be stored in font files, simplifying the
implementation of icons into text-heavy applications. The iType font engine
retrieves the icon data for rendering by an SVG (scalable vector graphics) or
other graphics engine.
Font Management and Discovery Tools
Increased support for font downloading on mobile phones has prompted the need
for font management capabilities. The iType font engine now enables application
execution environments to restrict access to fonts from applications that have
not been properly licensed to use them. Additionally, new verification
capabilities can ensure the validity of downloaded font files. Font discovery
functionality allows applications to select a font based on style criteria. For
example, if an application specifies a sans serif font, iType will return a
list of available sans serif fonts.
Support for the Khronos OpenVG hardware acceleration specification (new with
iType 4.0)
The iType font engine supports outlines and bitmaps that are compatible with
the OpenVG™ specification.
ESQ (Enhanced Screen Quality) Mobile Fonts
Tailored for crisp readability on small screens, ESQ® Mobile™ fonts lend
personality to applications, user interfaces and content.
SmartHint Technology for East Asian Fonts
A challenging issue for scalable solutions involves rendering East Asian
characters at small sizes. As type scales to smaller sizes, spaces between
character strokes may disappear or look blotted. SmartHint™ technology
preserves spatial relationships while removing strokes, if necessary, to
safeguard legibilty while not changing the meaning of affected characters.
Font Support for Both Scalable and Bitmap Typefaces
Using a Monotype Imaging utility, bitmaps can be created that have the same
quality and appearance as scalable fonts rendered through the iType font
engine. The resulting bitmaps, based on scalable equivalents, are also able to
leverage innovations such as Monotype Imaging’s Fonts in a Box and SmartHint
technologies.
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