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11.5 About outline fonts
All standard computer fonts — those found in formats including TrueType, Post-
Script, and OpenType — are outline fonts. In outline fonts, each character in the
font file describes a vector outline shape, which will be filled in by tiny pixels when
displayed on your screen or rendered by an inkjet or laser printer.
Things are dierent when you wish to use a pen plotter. As described in the pre-
vious section, you can easily convert outline font text into a set of paths for plot-
ting, and then plot it with the AxiDraw. When you do so, the machine will follow
the actual vector shape contained in that font file, which is that outline.
Below is a sample of text written in a common handwriting-like font:
The upper line of the sample shows the text filled in, as it will typically appear on
your screen, or when printed on a laser printer. The lower line shows the outline:
These are the actual vector shapes contained within the font file, and illustrates how
the output will look when printed with a pen plotter.
Now, if you had picked that handwriting-like font with the intent of creating hand-
writing-like output on the AxiDraw, this is probably not what you had intended.
The cause of this “unexpected” behavior is that one might easily (though mistak-
enly) assume that a handwriting-like font contains handwriting-like strokes. The
letters “t” and “x” both look like they could be made up of two strokes that over-
lap, and the “O” looks like it could be a single loop. However, in order for outline
fonts to render correctly on your screen, the “t” and “x” are instead composed of
a single complex shape, while the “O” consists of two concentric loops.
To be quite explicit: there is absolutely no data contained within an outline font
that represents or corresponds to the visually apparent centerline of the char-
acters. This fact is consistent for all standard computer fonts, and will present no
unexpected behavior, so long as you are aware of it.
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