outline font

text (Or "vector font") A font defined as a set of lines

and curves as opposed to a bitmap font. An outline font

(e.g. PostScript, TrueType, RISC OS) can be scaled to any

size and otherwise transformed more easily than a bitmap font,

and with more attractive results, though this requires a lot

of numerical processing. The result of transforming a

character in an outline font in a particular way is often

saved as a bitmap in a font cache to avoid repeating the

calculations if that character is to be drawn again.

(1995-03-16)