OpenType
- Title:
- OpenType
- File extension:
- otf
- MIME type:
- application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.formula-template
Format OTF is known as OpenType Format. It is also called only OpenType. It is file format created by Microsoft and Adobe Systems and it serves to create fonts using vectors. This file type was created to accession of TrueType file format, but it was derived from it. Thanks to its abilities it is one of the most used formats for creation of fonts today. Its main advantage is widespread of this file type. It is usable on Windows, Apple and even on Unix. We also must mention that one file can contain up to 65 536 chars. It means that it can contain all characters of Chinese Alphabet twenty times.
At the beginning was company Microsoft creating their TrueType format which was answer to formats by Apple and Adobe Systems. Because their format wasn´t good enough this company decide to affiliate with Adobe Systems to create better format. First basics were built in 1996 after connection of these two companies. Its latest version was released in 2009 and today it is marked as 1.6. It is interesting that immediately after release it was very popular. Already in 2001 there were thousands of fonts available to download and they were able to be then used in computers.
There aren´t so many applications able to edit these files, they´re mostly called tools or egines. Engine is set of tools allowing to creates these things. We msut mention engine Uniscribe by Microsoft. They released it 10 years ago and it is still very used tool. Then there is FreeType. It is application developed by David Turner, Robert Wilhelm and Werner Lemberg. Also to its creation helped many volunteer programmers, which are not so famous. We can also mention another tools, for example Pango, which is for free and from Apple we can found kit called Apple Type Services for Uniceod Imaging. To edit and create these files it would be the best to use FreeType.