After downloading the font of our choice you would have noticed that we don’t get one file but a few files. They are basically the same font but in different file formats and in today's article we will cover the common font file formats used which will help you decide on the right format to proceed with based on your use case.
TTF was developed in 1980 by Apple and later licensed to Microsoft. Therefore it can be used by both Mac and Windows operating systems. They only require a single file, but a separate file needs to be added for each instance of the font meaning a different file for normal, italic, bold, bold italic, etc. The TTF file format is primarily used to display fonts for screens and is cross compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems making collaborating easier.
PostScript is created by Adobe and they have two different parts, one contains information for printing, and the other is used to display the font on the screen. They are primarily used for printing because they help achieve high quality output. The issue with regard to using this format is that there isn’t a single version that is cross compatible with both Mac and Windows operating system hence there are two versions pertaining to each operating system respectively. This is a major drawback when designers are collaborating as the design won’t look the same when a file is handed over from one operating system to another.
OTF was jointly created by Microsoft and Adobe. It is a font format built on top of TTF which is capable of supporting advanced typesetting features like smallcap, ligatures, alternate styles, glyphs, etc all in one file. It is cross compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems making collaborating easier. They are suitable for displaying on screens as well as for printing purposes.
WOFF is a font format developed in 2009 to be primarily used in web pages. It is essentially OpenType and TrueType with compression which helps the web content to load quickly and is supported by all browsers.
It is the same as WOFF but with better compression.
SVG is a more recent font format and is a version of the OTF format that allows characters to be displayed in multiple colours, transparencies, and support animation. Since they contain more information, the file size can be bigger.
EOT is a compact form of OTF designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web pages primarily supported by internet explorer only. However, it is a font format that is not in use now.
To conclude, the most commonly used font file formats are the OTF and TTF as they are cross compatible on both Windows and Mac operating systems. Among the two both are widely used.
PostScripts aren’t used that often as they require two separate files for both Windows and Mac operating systems.
The WOFF file format is used in web pages as they have a quick load time. They are compressed version of OTF and TTF file formats. SVG fonts are the latest font file format allowing colours, transparencies and animation to be stored in the file.
With this we come to the end of this article. I hope the article was of value to you, thank you for reading.
