There are TrueType, Type 1, and Open Type fonts. Each
of these is different.
A font is made up of a series of fonts called "a font family." For example, Garamond
Light, Garamond Bold, Garamond Italic, etc., are all part of the Garamond font family.
Since it can be a bit confusing to see the individual members of a family, you can
use View | Hide Variations to hide all the members. When looking at the \windows\fonts
folder, just double-click any font to see it. A preview pane will show the font.
You can also click the Print button to print out an example.
TrueType fonts (made by Microsoft) live in your \windows\fonts folder. To "install"
or remove a TrueType, just drag it into or out of the \windows\fonts folder. You
could create a second folder (somewhere else, not in the \fonts folder) called \UnusedFonts
(or similar) and store the unused fonts there.
TrueType fonts are designed to print at up to 600 dpi, namely, an office laser
printer. They look fine on these. But if you're going to produce a document to be
printed at a printing company, they normally use 1200 or 2400 dpi. The TrueType
font will look a bit fuzzy.
TrueType fonts are loaded
into memory only if you use them. So you may easily have a thousand fonts in
your fonts folder, but if you want to pick a font, you'll have to wade through
a long list. So the best thing is to copy the unused ones into an unused fonts
Type 1, or PostScript Fonts
The complete name for these is "Adobe Type 1 PostScript fonts." People say "Adobe
fonts," "Type 1 fonts," "PostScript fonts," or a combination of these. They are
all the same.
To install or remove Type 1 fonts, one uses the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) (a program
from Adobe.) Double-click this and a two-pane dialog box appears. Poor ATM is not
easy to use. At the left is what is installed; at the right is what you can choose.
Adobe fonts can live in any folder.
There's a big problem with Adobe products: they each use a different folder for
their fonts. If you have PhotoShop, FrameMaker, and Acrobat, each will have a separate
folder. This means that you'll have to install the font into all three folders.
Otherwise, you'll get font substitution problems.
Create a folder called "Unused Fonts" and move all of the Adobe fonts into it.
Now use ATM to install the fonts again. Just select the target folder (\Program
Files\Adobe\Fonts) in the left pane and the source folder (\Unused Fonts) in the
right pane and then click install.
Type 1 fonts are designed to print at 2400 dpi, namely, an large printing press.
They look fine on laser printers as well. The only reason not to use PostScript
fonts is that it's rather cumbersome to install these and it's difficult to share
What's the difference between TrueType and Type 1?
TrueType are designed for output devices that can display up to 600-dpi (such
as laser printers). Monitors are output devices at 72-dpi, so they can show TrueType
TrueType fonts however don't work well at high resolution outputs such as 2400
dpi (used to print books.) (Most books are at 1200 dpi, but some are at 2400. The
glossy magazines such as Architectural Digest and Graphis are at much higher dpi
outputs.) The fonts don't contain information for high resolutions, so the font
output becomes fuzzy.
Lithographers (printing companies) use ONLY PostScript fonts. They strongly discourage
TrueType, since these cause quality problems. Thus if you're outputting to professional
print, you use Type 1 PostScript fonts.
Even if you're not going to print at a printing company, you should use Adobe
fonts. They're more expensive (between $25 and $200), but they are much better designed
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