What are Type 1 Fonts?
Type 1 fonts is a deprecated Adobe technology which was widely used in the desktop based publishing software and printers that could use PostScript. Although Type 1 fonts are not supported in many modern platforms, web browsers and mobile operating systems, but these are still supported in some of the operating systems. The insufficiency of Unicode information Support in Type 1 fonts also restrict their ability to support extended language character sets.
Brief History
The Type 1 fonts technology was launched in 1984 for use with PostScript page description language of Adobe. In the mid of 90s, the Adobe decided to concentrate on the use of more flexible OpenType fonts rather than Type 1.
When will support of Type 1 end?
Users will no longer be able to write content using Type 1 fonts beginning January 2023. Until that time, no changes will be made. Some products like, Document Cloud applications, will continue to use Type 1 fonts as they have all along.
Limitations of Type 1 Fonts
Some of the known limitations of Type 1 are as given below:
- It does not allow for more than 256 glyphs to be included in a single font. The CID fonts can do this many output devices may not handle CID fonts properly.
- Type 1 fonts are not cross-platform. A complex conversion is required while converting one platform fonts to others.
- Sticking of the font names to the 8 character limit of the old DOS days, which make it difficult to determine which typeface is stored in a file.
Type 1 Fonts on a Windows machince
The Type 1 font data consists of two separate files in windows:
- The file with extension “.PFB” consists of outline data.
- The file with extension “.PFM” contains the metrics data .