Talk:TrueType

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I removed the statements "Apple has little input on TrueType and seems to largely ignore it, while Microsoft aggressively pushes it". What is the evidence for these claims? Both companies use TT in their operating systems, right? AxelBoldt

It happens to be flat-out wrong... Apple is still putting a of development into TrueType, for example the 'Zapf' table. [1] — David Remahl 13:13, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] FreeType

There is a link to the FreeType article, yet that just redirects you to [TrueType], is this intended? FreeType, I assume can be written about enough to make an article... just link to TrueType as it naturally would in the text. JoeHenzi 11:03, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Definitely. There should be a separate article on FreeType. Feel free to write it :-) — David Remahl 13:09, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok, if and when I get a chance to write it can someone tell me how to start a new article if it already is redirected to TrueType? JoeHenzi 10:10, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Viewing the TrueType article, click "What links here" and then click the "Free Type" link (or whatever redirect article you want to replace). You'll be taken to a page saying "Free Type" at the top and then the article text actually says "#redirect TrueType", and you can click "edit this page", nuke the redirect, and write a new article. Tempshill 16:57, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "mathematically inferior"?

What does it mean to say that one kind of curve is "mathematically inferior" to another? Uucp 17:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the person who added that had it in mind that with quadratic beziers (used in the Truetype format), specifying the locations of a curve segment's two endpoints, along with the corresponding curve tangent angles at each endpoint, completely determines the shape of the curve. It's mathematically impossible to change the shape of such a quadratic bezier between the endpoints without changing the location and/or tangent angles of the endpoints. So in a great number of cases, the only way to change the shape of an outline specified in terms of quadratic beziers is to recut it (using different endpoints for one or more curve segments), and this may have a further chain-reaction effect on neighboring quadratic curve segments (the dreaded non-locality problem when attempting to edit Truetype fonts in native format). That's why the majority of font editors actually use cubic beziers for editing purposes, and only convert the cubic beziers to quadratic beziers at the last moment when writing out the Truetype font file.

Cubic beziers are convenient in fonts because if a curve segment has two specified endpoints, and a specified tangent angle at each endpoint, you can still have some control over the shape of the curve between the endpoints without changing the endpoint data. So cubic beziers don't manifest the same non-locality problem when editing font glyph outlines... AnonMoos (talk) 02:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)