Talk:Vector fonts

This page proffers the claim that "outline font" and "vector font" are synonyms. As discussed in a recent (Sept. 15, 2005) thread on comp.fonts (entitled "vector font and outline font"), this is not exactly true. A Google search on 'define:"outline font"' will find considerable evidence for the claim that an outline font is a font defined by points on the outline of the glyph (thereby having two sets of points -- one on each side -- for each font "stroke"). There also exist "stroke fonts" in which the font is defined by pen strokes, and thus one typically has only one set of points for each stroke, going down the middle of the stroke. According to the comp.fonts thread, stroke fonts used to be included in windows ("Script" being one of them); similarly, they also existed in many early CAD systems -- particularly ones which used pen-based plotters for paper output. It would be very strange to consider the term "vector fonts" to exclude stroke fonts, but they are very definitely not "outline fonts".

This conflation of terms has led to some confusion on the Metafont page as well; METAFONT fonts are a sort of combination of stroke fonts and outline fonts; most METAFONT fonts consist of a stroke with a finite-width pen to form an outline, which is then filled. (These strokes can be additive or subtractive, too!) Because the pen is of finite-size, and because of the possibility of subtractive strokes, the points in the METAFONT file do not lie on the outline of the black region of the glyph -- and thus calling it an "outline font" (as that page did before I edited it) is quite misleading. (See the "METAFONT tutorial" linked to on the Metafont page for documentation of the format.)

I propose to edit this page to clarify this issue, at some point when I get around to it after a suitable time for comments has passed. Since I'm new to Wikipedia, and this is a fairly significant change of the meaning of the page, it seemed appropriate to me to put up this discussion first, and allow others to comment before I do so. I'd welcome any input.

--BrooksMoses 04:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)