PostScript; once to be known as the ‘Only Right Way’; where others were pronounced evil, because RIPs couldn’t handle TrueType. PostScript consists of a bitmap; for onscreen display and a printer component that contains instructions to print.
TrueType fonts only contain a single file for both components for onscreen and print. However, early RIPs couldn’t translate TrueType, making for errors in converting the fonts.
Open Type; also single file fonts that do not have separation from print to onscreen to keep track of. However, there is more variety of fonts to choose from with 65,000 glyphs. Adobe has done away with PostScript fonts and only utilizes Open Type fonts with enhanced typographic features and linguistic support.
A font family takes fonts and creates division among a certain font; making it italic, bold, and underlined, given the specific qualifications of that font.
Glyphs are specific and distinct letterform. In other words, multiple glyphs can exist for a single character of a font in Open Type.
Dfonts are just another name for TrueType fonts and are data-only and single filed. Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, and Times Roman are included and called dfonts.
A nightmare for prepress is Multiple Master Fonts in which the user creates multiple weights, angles, and widths of a certain font. A pretty good idea at the time, but soon died as printing servers couldn’t handle the complexities of it all.
EULA; End User Licensing Agreement, allows you to purchase fonts under their strict licensing agreements. To legally take a copy of a font to a print service, it must be license. As well as selling it to a client, the client must have license of that font as well, or it’s in violation of EULA.
File naming is a lot more complicated than you think, Windows and Macs have restrictions on the number of characters a file name can have. However, they’re a lot more generous than the old days of just eight character naming. You have wiggle room of about 255 characters extending for a file name. But, punctuation and spacing isn’t needed when naming a file, usually an underscore or capitalization is acceptable for easy file finding.
In the old days of Macs, file extensions weren’t needed when naming a file. Today, it’s needed to differentiate locations and program specific for the document. Usually file extensions are automatic when naming a file.
Open Type fonts are completely cross-platform to both Windows and Macs. Others such as TrueType and PostScript can run into problems and errors when to cross-platform them.
I found this information in Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications: Chapter’s six and seven.
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