TTF was a joint effort by Apple and Microsoft in the early 1980s. Well, that’s not entirely true, as PostScript pre-dated it by several years, but it’s not incredibly common today, so we’re going to skip it for the sake of relevance. TrueType Fonts (TTF) We’ll start with TTF because it came first. Today, we’re going to sit down and analyze some of the key differences between OTF and TTF fonts, and we’ll help you not only discover the differences, but which is better, and when it’s appropriate to use one over the other. Since Windows doesn't come with a font manager, we've looked at third-party alternatives. Why is something as simple as a few pixels on the screen so complicated? Fear not, we’ve got you covered. If you want to create your own fonts or symbols, this is the tool to fire up., chances are you’ve asked yourself “What’s the difference between OTF and TTF?” when deciding to Fonts are the building blocks of digital aesthetics. This could cause font conflicts when you try to use the fonts.Īdvertisement Updated by Gavin Phillips on If you’ve ever The Private Character Editor is almost a monochrome replica of MS Paint but with a different creative use. That is, don't install both Helvetica in and Helvetica in Type 1 format at the same time.

However, it is wise not to have the same font installed in multiple formats. OpenType fonts install in the same manner as TrueType fonts and coexist peacefully with TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts.

If you have programs running while you install fonts in Windows, they may require that you exit the and restart for the new fonts to be available in the font menu. The same font file works under both MacOS and Windows. However, OpenType fonts are cross-platform. Therefore Mac and Windows users cannot share TrueType fonts. There are slight differences in the TrueType fonts designed for each OS. If you are going to install TrueType or OpenType fonts from a CD be sure Copy fonts to folder is checked otherwise, fonts may not be available to use if the CD is not in the drive at all times.

Put installed fonts on your hard drive.

TrueType/OpenType on the Mac: Recent versions of Mac OS can use the same TrueType/OpenType font files as Windows. An OpenType font file has a '.otf' extension if it has PostScript CFF outlines and a '.ttf' extension if it has TrueType style outlines. A TrueType font file has a '.ttf' extension. OTF relies on the expressiveness of the font and intelligence of the rasterizer to reduce the need for hinting, this allows OTF to have reduced hinting information. TTF and OTF uses different approaches to hinting. See this post for a discussion on the difference between ttf and otf hinting.

Otf vs ttf for mac