Editing Typeface (section)

==Digital type==
{{Main|Computer font}}
[[File:Comparison of printed and digital versions of Perpetua.png|thumb|Comparison between printed (top) and digital (bottom) versions of [[Perpetua (typeface)|Perpetua]].]]
Digital type became the dominant form of type in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Digital fonts store the image of each character either as a [[bitmap]] in a ''[[bitmap font]]'', or by mathematical description of lines and curves in an ''outline font'', also called a ''[[vector font]]''. Bitmap fonts were more commonly used in the earlier stages of digital type, and are rarely used today. These bitmapped typefaces were first produced by [[Casady & Greene|Casady & Greene, Inc.]] and were also known as Fluent Fonts. Fluent Fonts became mostly obsolete with the creation of downloadable PostScript fonts, and these new fonts are called Fluent Laser Fonts (FLF).

When an outline font is used, a [[Raster graphics|rasterizing routine]] (in the application software, operating system or printer) renders the character outlines, interpreting the vector instructions to decide which pixels should be black and which ones white. Rasterization is straightforward at high resolutions such as those used by [[laser printer]]s and in high-end publishing systems. For [[computer display|computer screen]]s, where each individual pixel can mean the difference between legible and illegible characters, some digital fonts use [[Font hinting|hinting algorithms]] to make readable bitmaps at small sizes.

Digital fonts may also contain data representing the ''metrics'' used for composition, including [[kerning]] pairs, component creation data for accented characters, glyph substitution rules for Arabic typography and for connecting script faces, and for simple everyday [[Ligature (typography)|ligature]]s like "{{not a typo|ﬂ}}". Common font formats include [[TrueType]], [[OpenType]] and [[PostScript]] [[Type 1 font|Type 1]], while [[Metafont]] is still used by [[TeX]] and its variants. Applications using these font formats, including the rasterizers, appear in Microsoft and Apple Computer [[operating system]]s, [[Adobe Systems]] products and those of several other companies. Digital fonts are created with font editors such as [[FontForge]], RoboFont, Glyphs, [[Fontlab]]'s TypeTool, FontLab Studio, Fontographer, or AsiaFont Studio.