Description of common font types in graphic design

Description of common font types in graphic design

Text is our important element in the design, the rich font to provide a broad creative space, the following we have a detailed understanding of the commonly used font, such as GBK, PostScript, CID, TrueType fonts and so on.

One, GB font

Full name GB2312 or gb2312-80 is a Chinese national standard of Simplified Chinese character set, the full name is "Chinese character coded character set for information interchange--Basic set", issued by China National Standards Administration, May 1, 1981. GB2312 codes are used in mainland China, and in Singapore and other fields. Almost all Chinese systems and international software support GB2312.

GB2312 Standard contains 6,763 Chinese characters, GB2312 in the collection of Chinese characters "Partition" processing, each area containing 94 characters/symbols. This representation is also called Location code.

Area 01-09 is a special symbol. The 16-55-level Chinese characters have 3,755 Chinese characters, sorted by pinyin, 56-87 are two-class Chinese characters 3,008, sorted by radical/stroke, 10-15 and 88-94 are not encoded.

Second, GBK font

GBK full name for Chinese character code extension specification, English name Chinese Internal code specification. K is the "extension" of the corresponding "expansion" in the initials of the word "Kuozhan". In 1993, the Unicode1.1 version, which included Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, has a total of 20,912 characters in the common character set. The Chinese mainland has set the equivalent of Unicode 1.1 version of the "gb13000.1-93" information technology universal eight-bit coded character set (UCS) The first part: Architecture and basic Multilingual plane.

Since gb2312-80 only contains 6,763 characters, there are many Chinese characters, such as the Chinese characters (such as "Hello"), which are simplified after the introduction of gb2312-80, and some names (such as "Rong" of former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji), the traditional characters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean characters are not included. The Chinese mainland thus exploited the gb2312-80 coding space, which included all Chinese characters appearing in Unicode 1.1 and gb13000.1-93, and developed the GBK code. Microsoft uses the GBK code in its Windows 98. Within Microsoft's system is called the CP936 codewords table.

According to western sources, GBK was originally extended by Microsoft to GB2312, the CP936, which originally appeared in the Windows 95 Simplified Chinese version, as a result of the widespread use of Windows products in the mainland and the national authorities as technical specifications. Note that GBK is not a formal national standard, but a "technical specification guidance document" issued by the Department of Standardization of the State Technical Supervision Bureau and the Division of Science and Quality Supervision of the Ministry of Electronics. Although GBK contains all the characters in Unicode 1.1 and gb13000.1-93, the encoding is different from Unicode 1.1 and gb13000.1-93. is merely a transition between GB2312 and gb13000.1-93.

The China National Standards Administration introduced the GB18030-2000 standard in 2000 to replace GBK. In addition to retaining all the GBK encoded Chinese characters, gb18030-2000 also adds about 100 Chinese characters and four-bit tuple encoding space. Please refer to gb18030-2000

Three, 748 font

748 font is founder-specific font, is based on the GB font and added a number of commonly used words. 748 coding refers to the code of Simplified and Traditional Chinese library which is implemented and developed by founder system in the long term application process. Simplified compatible with GB2312 and has expanded, a total of 7156 words, traditional compatible GB12345 and expand all BIG-5 Chinese characters, a total of 14943 words, remove simplified common words 4,954, 748 encoded by the simple traditional total of 16,144 words. In addition, founder 748 encoding also contains a rich symbol library. 748 code is only used in founder electronic publishing system.

　　

Four, True type font

The True type, TT, is a new digital glyph description technology jointly presented by Apple and Microsoft Inc.

TT is a set of rich instruction sets that describe the shape of the font contour by a color digital function, including the font construction, color filling, digital description function, process condition control, raster processor (TT processor) control, additional hint information control, and other directives.

TT uses two B-spline curves and lines in geometry to describe the contour of the font, and two B-spline curves have first-order continuity and tangent continuity. The parabola can be accurately represented by the two B-spline curve, and the more complex font shape can be represented by the mathematical characteristics of the B-spline long curve and the two times B-spline curves and lines connected by several lines. Files that describe TT fonts (containing TT font descriptions, instruction sets, various tag forms, and so on) may be common to Mac and PC platforms. On the Mac platform, it is stored as a "sfnt" resource and appears on the Windows platform as a TTF file. In order to ensure the cross platform compatibility of TT, the data format of the font file is stored in the Motorola type structure (High level in front, low after). The TT interpreter for all Intel platforms is preceded by proper preprocessing. The TT interpreter for Windows is already contained in its GDI (Graphics device interface), so any output device supported by Windows is already contained in its GDI (Graphics device interface), so any output device supported by Windows can be exported in TT font.

TT technology has the following advantages:

1 The real WYSIWYG effect.

Since TT supports almost all output devices, for the target output device, regardless of the system's screen, laser printer or imagesetter, all the TT fonts installed in the operating system can be output at the specified resolution on the output device, Therefore, most typesetting class applications can be based on the current target output device resolution and other parameters, to the precise layout of the page.

2 Support font embedding technology to ensure the transmission of documents across the system. The TT technology embedding technology solves the problem of consistency between files and fonts across systems. In an application, a saved file can be stored in a file by embedding all the TT fonts used in the file. Makes the entire file and the fonts it uses easy to pass to the same system on the other computer. The font embedding technique ensures that the computer receiving the file maintains the original format of the file, using the original font's print and modification, even if the font used for the transferred file is not installed.

3 compatibility of operating system platform.

Currently, both Mac and Windows platforms provide system-level TT support. So application files with the same name between different operating system platforms have cross-platform compatibility. If PageMaker on a Mac can use all the TT fonts that are used in a file if it is installed, the final output effect on the Mac will be consistent with the output under Windows.

4 ABC Word width value.

Each character in the TT font has its own word width value. The Word width description method used for TT is already contained in its GDI (Graphics device interface) than the traditional PS T's TT interpreter, so any Windows-supported output device can be exported in TT font.

In Windows 98, the most frequently used system is the *. TTF (True Type) contour font file, which can both display and print, and support the infinite times, in no case will not appear sawtooth problem. and *. Fot is the same as *. The font resource file for the TTF file, which is the resource pointer to the TTF font file, indicating the exact location of the TTF file used by the system without having to be specified in the Fonts folder. *. FNT (vector font) and *. FON (display font) of the scope of applications are relatively wide. In addition, users who have used the old version of WPS may be able to *. PS file also has a certain impression, *. PS is actually a form of DOS profile font, its performance and *. TTF is basically similar, with some special methods, we can even implement these * directly in Windows. PS Font (*. PS1, *. PS2 are all PS fonts).

　　

Five, PostScript font

Also known as the PostScript Language (PS), PostScript was created by Adobe on the basis of a previous three-dimensional graphic language, and the page description language developed in 1985, which is the interface language of desktop system output to the imagesetter device, Designed specifically to describe images and text. The effect is to put the image text on the page, recorded and run on a computer using a digital formula, and then translated into the desired output through a PostScript decoder, such as on the screen, or in print, and finally through a PostScript decoder, translated into the desired output, such as on the screen, Or on the printer, imagesetter output.

PostScript language is the most popular form of page description in the world, it has a large number of graphic operators can be used in any combination, can describe and process the text, geometry and external input graphics, theoretically can describe any complex layout. The successful design of this page description language has become a choice for many manufacturers.

Its rich graphics function, efficient description of complex layout, attracted many publishing system typesetting software and graphics software support it, almost all prepress output devices support PS language, and the success of PS language, also makes open electronic publishing system in the international popular.

The end of the 80 was also a factual industry standard. After years of experience accumulation and many PS product feedback, 1990 launched PS2, in 1990 and then launched PS3.