Size of Fonts

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Dick Pape
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Size of Fonts

Post by Dick Pape »

I understand the relationship between the number and complexity of drawn glyphs and font file size.

Perhaps someone can explain why OTF fonts of a design are very much smaller than TTF fonts of the same design.

What happens when you save an OTF from FC converting it to TTF? This last one is about the same size as the OTF it came from... why isn't the original TTF smaller too? What causes the big difference in native sizes?

Do we lose hinting, kerning, something else when it's saved as TTF? But it's not that much smaller than the OTF so it must be "in the tables"??
Erwin Denissen
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Post by Erwin Denissen »

Hi Dick,

Why don't you look at the fonts through MainType's browse feature? The font's typographic data (the Information pane, initially located in the bottom left corner) contains a File Structure section. It shows all internal tables and their sizes. Just right-click on "Tables" and click "Copy Tables to Clipboard". Then post (paste) the data in a reply to this message and do the same for the other font. I hope this all makes sense and I'm curious about the results. :D
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Dave Crosby
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Post by Dave Crosby »

Hi Dick,
Perhaps someone can explain why OTF fonts of a design are very much smaller than TTF fonts of the same design.
I think only someone with a collection of 300,000 fonts (with one or two dupes) and a lot of spare time would be likely to notice this. I never did.

Now that you have presented the poser, You have me wondering too. I would have suspected the opposite!
Does the size difference hold true for both types of OTF files?

I hope you follow Erwin's suggestions and return to us with some answers.

Whilst we are musing, not so long ago the Type one fonts were for the most part tossed out the window.
Would the Computer Community be so heartless as to do the same with all our wonderful TTF's?
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Dick Pape
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Is Size All That Important?

Post by Dick Pape »

(C'mon Dave; I have reached the magic goal of 400,000 fonts with 300,000 dupes, trips, quads, pfumfs and sexes ... ! If you don't throw anything away that's what you end up with...)

Took me a while to compose this as I was hoping for a brain storm, but it's only getting more foggy. I did what Erwin suggested -- read the "typographic data" from 3 fonts (OTF, TTF converted by FC and an old TTF I had laying around -- Aardvark Regular, 216 glyphs).

1. The OTF was saved by FC and therefore converted to TTF. Interestingly they became essentially the same size (45kb vs 48kb). OTF had CCF data (35kb) whereas the TTF had glyf data (37kb).

2. I tired (!) to compare these to the Aardvark Regular ttf. They were the same name and had 216 glyphs, but otherwise not recognizable. The native TTF was 92kb with 69kb glyf and 11kb kerning and some other additions.

Ahhh, but it had hinting and kerning!

3. So, dropping the hinting tables reduced the size to 55kb. Dropping the 1904 kerning pairs got the size down to 44kb. Essentially it became the same size as the otf and converted ttf files.


Oh well, clearly the conclusion was wrong because I know OTF files are smaller than TTF files from the same font...

Thank you for participating.
Last edited by Dick Pape on Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dave Crosby
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Nice Try

Post by Dave Crosby »

I thought I might be slightly off on the number of dupes and apologize for intimating you had so few. But look at all the fun you had sneaking, snagging, haggling, and otherwise acquiring them.

So CCF data is more efficient than glyph data?

It looks to me like we are back to your original question:
Perhaps someone can explain why OTF fonts of a design are very much smaller than TTF fonts of the same design.

What happens when you save an OTF from FC converting it to TTF? This last one is about the same size as the OTF it came from... why isn't the original TTF smaller too? What causes the big difference in native sizes?
Where is the 'splainer guy when you really need him?
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