What's with the multiple font files?


Q I recently had to reduce the number of fonts on my system. I noticed that while some fonts come in only one file, others have separate normal, bold, italic, and bold italic files. Since every application I've used can make a font look bold, italic and bold italic, why do I need these other files taking up space?

- Don Ferron

A Whether you want to keep those extra files is a matter of who you want designing your fonts: a human being capable of making aesthetic judgments or an application's algorithm.

Caption: Windows can give you bold and italics for any font (upper line),
but you'll be happier with the results from properly designed bold and italic fonts (lower line).

Font designers often create bold, italic and bold italic versions of their fonts, finding visually pleasing ways to darken and slant the letters. Windows, as well as your applications, use these if they're available. If they aren't available, the apps extrapolate bold and/or italic effects by altering the normal font. The results are never as nice as the special fonts created by a professional designer.

In other words, if you care about the look of your printed text, you'll keep the bold and italic fonts.

- Lincoln Spector


Category: win95
Issue: June 1999

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