Just when you think you've grasped the basics of OpenType, you hear about a variation on this up and coming font format! Meet OpenType Pro, a subset of OpenType that takes advantage of the expanded capabilities of the OpenType format.
So what makes a font “turn pro?” Essentially, an OpenType Pro font is defined by its comprehensive character set. OpenType fonts can contain up to 65,000 glyphs, in contrast to 256 glyphs for the PostScript format. But, this does not mean that the character set of every OpenType font contains a full 65,000 glyphs. Many OpenType fonts have been created by simply converting existing PostScript or TrueType designs into OpenType, without the addition of many or any new glyphs. These fonts still offer some of OpenType's new benefits, such as cross-platform functionality, but many of the typographic extras discussed later in this article are missing. These fonts are frequently referred to as OpenType Standard (sometimes denoted STD). In order to differentiate themselves, OpenType fonts whose character sets have been expanded to include these typographic extras are now referred to as OpenType Pro fonts.
OpenType Pro Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What types of extra characters/features can be found in OpenType fonts?
How can I tell if a certain feature is available in an OpenType font?
What font families are available in OpenType Pro?
What applications can take full advantage of OpenType's Pro's features?
OpenType Pro Features
Below is a list and description of the extra features and characters. An OpenType Pro font will contain most if not all of these features. An OpenType standard font may contain some, but not all of these features:
Ligatures
Small Caps
OldStyle Figures
Tabular & Proportional Lining Figures
Diagonal Fractions
SuperScript/SubScript
Ordinals and Superior Letters
Swashes
Alternative Characters
Titling Capitals
Ornaments
Case Forms
Historic Blackletter
Linguistic Support
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Ligatures
A ligature is a special character that combines two (or sometimes three) letters into a single character. Type designers create ligatures because they look better than setting the same character combinations individually, and also to solve the problem of characters that ‘crash’ into each other when set in adjacent positions; such as the unattractive collision that occurs in some typefaces between the hook of the ‘f ’ and the dot of the ‘i’ or the ascender of the ‘l’ or second ‘f ’ (see illustration). Though ligatures are contained in the basic character set, many OpenType fonts contain additional ligurates.
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Small Caps
Used frequently for setting title pages and page headings, small caps are often suitable for headlines, subheads and column headings. You’ll also find small caps in lead-ins for opening paragraphs, often following an initial cap. Small caps are a great alternative to all caps for abbreviations such as States (MA and NY), times (A.M. and P.M.), educational degrees (BA and BS) and acronyms (PC, UNIX). Unlike all-cap settings, small caps stand out nicely without disturbing the balance and color of lowercase copy, and they require less space than all caps.
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OldStyle Figures
Oldstyle figures are a style of numeral which approximate lowercase letterforms by having an x-height and varying ascenders and descenders.They are considerably different from the more common ‘lining’ (or ‘aligning’) figures which are all-cap height and typically monospaced in text faces so that they line up vertically on charts. Oldstyle figures afford a traditional, classic look. The figures are proportionately spaced, eliminating the white spaces that result from monospaced lining figures, especially around the numeral one.
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Tabular & Proportional Lining Figures
Most fonts include lining figures. Tabular figures each have the same total character width (that’s the width of the numeral itself plus the white space on both sides). Tabular spacing (also referred to as monospacing) allows numerals to align vertically in tables, financial statements and other columns of figures. Tabular figures are usually lining figures, meaning that they sit on the baseline and have the same height as the capital letters, but on occasion you’ll see old style figures that are tabular. (Old style figures are also called lowercase or non-aligning figures.) Display typefaces usually contain proportional figures. The total character widths of these figures are based on the width of the numeral itself plus a small amount of white space around it, so an 8 takes up more width than a 1, for example. Proportional figures can be of the lining or old style variety. In either case, their varying widths give them a more even color and texture, especially around the numeral 1. Proportional figures are not intended for use in charts and tables, since they won’t align in vertical columns.
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Diagonal Fractions
The basic OpenType character set includes fractions, some OpenType fonts offer a more extensive set that includes separate numerators and denominators enabling users with OpenType supported applications to create their own fractions.
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SuperScript/SubScript
Superscript and Subscript letterforms also known as superior and inferior figures are used for chemical compounds, footnote references, and as mathematical exponents.
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Ordinals and Superior Letters
Ordinals and Superior Letters enable the user to set a numeric position such as 1st or make a common abbreviation such as Madame in French.
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Swashes
Swashes are decorative letterforms with a flowing style akin to handwriting that are ideal for display use.
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Alternative Characters
These fonts may offer additional ligatures, lowercase letters and lowercase with uppercase combined forms for decorative purposes.
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Titling Capitals
A titling capital (or initial letter/cap) is an enlarged letter that is used as the first character of a paragraph. It can sit above, below, to the left of, or even behind the body text, and can be set in a contrasting weight, style or color.
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Ornaments
Ornaments designed to work with a specific typeface are useful for embellishment, borders and text breaks.
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Case Forms
These fonts offer alternative letterforms and punctuation for setting text in capitals.
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Historic Blackletter
The forceful visual presence of blackletter typestyles evolved from the early handwritten forms of liturgical writings & illuminated manuscripts. Blackletter typefaces, also referred to as Gothic or Old English, are characterized by a dense black texture and highly decorated caps. The lowercase consists of narrow, angular forms with dramatic thick-to-thin strokes and serifs. Blackletter typefaces also include the ß character and several special ligatures (ch, sch, tz, etc.). They are highly stylized, yet legible.
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Linguistic Support
OpenType fonts can include multiple language character sets, all in one font. A typical OpenType font will include the standard range of Latin characters used in the Western world, and several international characters, including the "estimated," litre, and euro currency symbols. OpenType Pro fonts may provide a full range of accented characters to support central and eastern European languages, such as Turkish and Polish as well as Cyrillic and Greek character extensions in the same font.
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How can I tell if a certain feature is available in an OpenType font?
Because character sets vary greatly between OpenType fonts, manufacturers and distributers frequently use symbols or icons to denote what characters are contained in a particular font. In fact, you'll find these icons in the catalogs for our new Adobe, ITC and Monotype OpenType library products. Download a PDF of each catalog to see for yourself. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
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Families Available in OpenType Pro
Click here to view a list of OpenType Pro fonts available on Fonts.com.
What applications can take full advantage of OpenType Pro's features?
Basic support for the OpenType format is available for most applications including those from Microsoft, Adobe and Quark. This means, you should be able to use the basic character set of an OpenType font with the application of your choice. However, support for OpenType's most advanced features is still somewhat limited. Access to an OpenType font's complete glyph set and automatic glyph substitution is currently available in the most recent versions of Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Use the glyph palette to manually select a glyph to be inserted. Or, use the OpenType options in the character palette to define the OpenType features to be substituted for you (alternate characters, ligatures, etc.). NOTE: This capability must also be built into the font data by the font manufacturer.
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