offset printing See
okina See uina.
okurigana Kana and kanji used together in writng verb or adjective forms.
OLAC An acronym for Open Language Archives Community. A set of metadata framework standards for describing electronic preprint data which includes both service providers (for example, organizations) and data providers (for example, websites, and actual data files).
Old English See gothic script.
Old Italic The script of some ancient dialects of Central Italy, which are a subdivision of the western group of Indo-European languages spoken in Italy. These dialects included Etruscan, Faliscan, Middle Adriatic, North Picene, Oscan, South Picene, and Umbrian. The Old Italic script dialects show some similarity to Celtic and, to a lesser degree, Germanic.
Old Style or oldstyle Denotes a structural style and proportioning system based on the contrasts made by a broad pen held at a natural writing angle. The characteristics include: slight to medium contrast between thick and thin strokes; gradual curved stroke weight transition from thick to thin portions of the stroke; diagonally-skewed stress on curved strokes; bracketed serifs; and Old Style proportions. An example of Old Style proportions can be seen in letterforms from Times New Roman:
A E N O S X.
:Venetian Old Style - Old Style adapted by Venetian printers in the 15th century for typographic purposes. Many of the most widely-used typeface designs for body copy are based on those designs. Also known as « Humanist. » Typeface examples include: Bembo, Benguiat, Mision, Goudy Old Style, Palatino, Trajan, and Windsor. The British Standards Classification of Typefaces further specifies that Venetian Old Style typefaces have a sloping bar on the lower case 'e', and places typefaces not having this feature into French Old Style.
:French Old Style - Evolved from Venetian Old Style in the 16th century. Whereas the stress on curved strokes was diagonally-skewed in Venetian Old Style, French Old Style vertically centers the stress on upper case letterforms. Also known as « Garalde. » Typeface examples of French Old Style include: Aldine, most Garamond varieties, Sabon, and Spectrum. The British Standards Classification of Typefaces further specifies that French Old Style typefaces do not have a sloping bar on the lower case 'e'.
:Dutch-English Old Style - Vertical stressing appeared on lower case letterforms in the 17th and 18th centuries; the last development stage of the Old Style classification. Typeface examples include: ITC Boutros Setting Medium, Caslon 540, Fairfield, Granjion, Janson, Ryumin L-KL, Times Roman, and Weiss. The British Standards Classification of Typefaces does not define this classification and distributes the typefaces ordinarily classified in this category into other categories.
oldstyle numerals Numerals which have non-identical character widths and whose appearances are not baseline aligned. In most fonts, numerals are designed to be of uniform character width (even « 1 » ) and never fall below the baseline
Old Style proportions or Old Style proportioning system A proportioning theory or rule first introduced in second century Rome with the Trajan Capitals. The rule is that most letterforms are based on combinations of rotationally-symmetric simple figures (circles, squares, triangles) in both one-component and two-component arrangements. This produces variable width in most Uppercase letterforms, with two-component letterforms being relatively narrower.
one-component or one-component letter A letterform shape which is based upon or built up from a single basic simple envelope shape, such as a line, circle, square, trapezoid, or triangle. Letterforms resulting from those simple figures would be, for example: I, O, N, W, and A.
open A term which has been applied to both inline and outline typeface structural styles; or to designs not having solid strokes and not considered to be ornamental.
open directory A concept pioneered by Netscape Corp. (acquired by America On Line in 1999) which uses « volunteer editors » to manage catalogued listings of Web sites under a specific category. Any user could apply to become a volunteer editor. The idea behind this was that the end-users could be involved with managing the search engine directory content. While volunteer surfers previously have been used by the other search engines, what was novel was that volunteers could openly apply.
Open Font Architecure or OFA A font management architecure developed by Apple Computer for its newer operating systems (OS 8.5 and beyond) which provides native support for PostScript Type 1, TrueType/OpenType, and GX in a QuickDraw-like environment. Many limitations of previous font management in older Macintosh operating systems have been reduced or eliminated. It is a part of ATSUI, which itself is built upon ATS.
OpenGL An industry-standard, cross-platform software interface for high-end 3D graphics hardware. The standard is managed by the OpenGL Consortium. OpenGL extensions are available for Macintosh System 7 and higher, Windows NT, and X/Windows.
open source Software whose interfaces are completely documented and the documentation is generally available. Advantages include maximum portability and scalability, and a consistent set of application programming interfaces. Open source software makes the developmnent of cross-platform software more consistent, more reliable, and easier. Open source software makes software integration, support, and user training easier. Open source software also encourages competitive development of software by a variety of companies. Microsoft is opposed to making their software open source.
open standard A set of standards available to anyone at either no cost or at an honest nominal charge for media (ie, computer disks or paper). A lot of so-called open standards are not really open. They require a fee of some sort, which is a hidden form of fee-for-license. Examples of open standards are: .AFM and .EPS formats, Type 0 and Type 1 format (incompletely), Type 3 format, Aldus TIFF and OPI formats. Examples of fee-for-license are: Type 5 format, TrueDoc format, Microsoft Windows .PFM format. Microsoft is generally opposed to open standards.
open system An operating system whose interfaces are completely documented and the documentation is generally available. Advantages include maximum portability and scalability, and a consistent set of application programming interfaces. Open systems make the developmnent of cross-platform software more consistent, more reliable, and easier. Open systems make software integration, support, and user training easier. Open systems also encourage competitive development of software by a variety of companies. Microsoft is opposed to open systems.
OpenType or Open Type A « universal » font format under developement by Adobe and Microsoft which handles PostScript character glyph descriptions (procedures, Type 1 CharStrings, or Type 2 CharStrings) and TrueType character glyph descriptions internally and uniformly. This means that an OpenType font presents to an operating system (Windows, presumably) in the same manner whether internally it really is a PostScript font, a TrueType font, or a hybrid of the two. Theoretically, OpenType can display glyphs in a nearly identical manner to glyphs displayed from a PostScript font or a TrueType font, depending on how the data is represented internally. OpenType also allows for the incorporation of a digital signature, a protection against having the font altered by a third party or an end-user. OpenType, also known as TrueType Open version 2, is an extension of TrueType Open, thereby including all of its typographic features.
A question arises as to how PostScript data is to be handled, since current Apple and Microsoft operating systems already have TrueType interpreters built-in, but not any type of PostScript interpreter. At this point in time, there have been no announcements as to whether OpenType will be supported by BeOS, Macintosh, or Unix operating systems.
OpenType poses a number of dilemmas for the computer industry in terms of the support of fonts.
1. Previously, « font wars » have been maintained because Adobe and Microsoft introduced technologies (PostScript and TrueType) which could not blend. OpenType, however, affords the format packaging which can achieve blending. If OpenType becomes the ubiquitous and de facto font data format standard (because the most powerful software company is behind it), what are the other players (who were entrenched in the opposite camp) to do? For example, IBM and Silicon Graphics, having provided native support for PostScript in their operating systems for years, must then figure out a strategy to include OpenType. They could choose to support only OpenType fonts using PostScript Type 1 character glyph descriptions. But then, font resource products having TrueType glyph descriptions must somehow be identifiable to the customer before installation and before use. In addition, since PostScript Level 1 or Level 2 do not support OpenType natively, OpenType fonts cannot be downloaded (once) to an output device's memory or mass storage. All PostScript print files must then embed glyph data, increasing tremendously the amount of data which must be handled every time a file is output.
2. OpenType fonts can include a number of OpenType features, some of which can be duplicated both using feature tables and the Unicode Private User Area (PUA). An application, however, needs specific support, and sometimes complicated programming, to be able to access feature tables and present choices to the graphical user interface; whereas accessing an arbitrary code point (like code points in the PUA), is a basic capability. To add both access methods to a font (in order to both maximize feature access and to insure widest possible access availability of some of the features) adds significantly to the size of the font.
OpenType layout features or OpenType features or OTL The support of complex font processing features (such as bidirectional writing systems, contextual processing, automatic ligature substitution, and alternate glyph selection) on operating systems which support OpenType. These are implemented using additional TrueType font tables.
operating system Computer software which controls the overall operation of the computer and manages other, installable software which carries out specific tasks. See references to BSD, BeOS, eCos, Interix, JavaOS, Linux, MacOS, Microsoft Windows, OS/MVS, OS/1, OS/2, SpeirosOS, and Unix operating systems.
OPI Abbreviation for Open Prepress Interface. A convention format for color separation PostScript print files. It does not explicitly support composite fonts.
optical See references to optical center, optical compensation, optical density, optical kerning, optical leading, optical mass, optical scaling, optical size, and optical spacing.
optical center The position on a document page which appears to be the center. It is usually above the true geometric center. Mathematically speaking, there is no relationship between the optical center and the center of mass or center of gravity of the topological space occupied by the contents of a page.
optical center of mass The position in the topological space of a glyph which appears to be the center. Mathematically speaking, it could be defined as the physical center of mass of the topological space occupied by (or the center of the optical mass) of the glyph, but this may differ from human perception.
optical compensation The application of optical scaling in the design of a typeface throughout its intended size range to make text set with that typeface appear better to the human eye.
optical density Refers to a number calculated by dividing the optical mass by the character width.
The average optical density of certain glyphs of a typeface design is used as a characterization parameter, particularly useful in matching typefaces.
optical kerning Performing pair or track kerning by eye.
optical leading This refers to optical adjustments made to leading from line to line, rather than using a constant leading. For optimum type color, the amount of leading should be adjusted line to line (the vertical direction), even in body copy, just as letterfit (the horizontal direction) is adjusted by the design of the typeface.
optical mass Refers to the area (or volume, with thickness, in a 3-dimensional representation) of the letterform or glyph strokes which eclipse the background. For outline or open style designs, the area should include the open areas within the strokes. For inline style designs, only the actual areas should probably be counted.
optical scaling Scaling the size of type in a non-uniform manner by making alterations in character shapes and spacing. Optical scaling makes small type sizes more readable and large type sizes more ęsthetic. Exactly how to do this is the responsibility of the type or font designer. Optical scaling was used in the era of hot type and all but abandoned for technical reasons during the digital type era. The true implementation of optical scaling takes place within the font structure itself, and not within an application or utility program. Of course, it can be simulated imperfectly by designing multiple versions of the same typeface style. However, this is not economical for storage or font management considerations. But the biggest problem with this approach is that the optimum optical scaling adjustments required depend not only on size, but also on the properties of the final output product upon which the results will be viewed. This is influenced by the actual medium (type of paper or film), the nature of the output device and technology used for imaging (imagesetter, laser printer, ink jet, etc.), and the actual color that letterforms appear in (not typographic color) and color application model (dithering, halftoning model, photographic film dye mechanism, etc.). The most appropriate technology for this is using a GX or Multiple Master approach, with two optical axes: a serif or fine stroke axis, and a stroke regularization axis. Using two axes enables adequate adjustment by the end-user by trial-and-error using actual output product conditions. The reason this is necessary is due to competing effects: size vs. physical medium influence. See Benton pantograph as to how optical scaling was designed in the hot metal type era.
Somewhat related or inclusionary to the concept of optical scaling is the use of nicks and traps. They are inclusionary, in so far as, since there may be a size correlation between optical effects and the shaping of nicks (to control mechanical photographically-induced artifacts) and traps (to control mechanical ink or toner-related artifacts), they are being included as part of the topological design changes necessary to make the typeface design succeed at a specified size. However, in some designs it is conceivable that optical effects need to be compensated for separately and independently from mechanically-induced artifacts. This would imply that additional third and fourth « optical » axes controlling nicks and traps, respectively, should be added.
Some Production First Software Typographic International series fonts have switchable optical scaling. All Production First Software Designer Fonts have both switchable optical scaling and variable scaling.
optical size Refers to the type size of optically scaled type.
optical sizing See optical scaling.
optical spacing Refers to the spacing of optically scaled type.
(another definition follows)
optical spacing Refers to a variable spacing between words with text that is not justified. The most convenient way of achieving this in computerized typesetting is by pair kerning a letterform with a space and a space with a letterform. Unfortunately, this vastly increases the amount of kern data, especially for large character sets having many kernable characters like Unicode.Order Number A catalog number used to identify and order a software product which is to be licensed.
ornament A miscellaneous character used as a decoration in a purely discretionary manner.
ornamental A typeface structural style which includes designs having a very unusual, elaborately patterned, or fancy design. Typefaces in this category may be structurally identifiable as able to be classified in other categories as well.
orphan A single word on a line, left over usually at the end of a paragraph, sometimes appearing at the top of a column of text. Optimum typesetting practice dictates that orphans should be avoided. However, in documents formulated using HTML, SGML, XML, or other free-form markup document formatting languages, orphans are quite common because there is no mitigation mechanism built-in to prevent them.
orthography Strictly, the term is applied to a style or method of spelling, and to the related science. Typographically, it is also applied to the customary way of styling or designing a glyph for a specific alphabet.
orthotypography A typographic treatment which is considered to be correct and beyond reproach.
OS/MVS Used on System/360, System/370, System/380, and System/390 mainframes, was developed from OS/1. MVS add-ons included IMS (Interactive Monitor System) and TSO (Time-Sharing Option). Enhancements (SP1, SP2, ...) were also made. MVS could also link together to various IBM, CDC, and Univac mainframes acting as a batch job scheduler using ASP and HASP subsystems.
OS/1 An IBM operating system first used on IBM 7090 and IBM 7094 mainframe computers, and later on System/360. It was the first operating system allowing multiprogramming.
OS/2 An operating system with graphical user interface originally developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM. It was to supercede Microsoft Windows. When Microsoft decided to halt development work on it, IBM continued its development. IBM had further plans for extending OS/2 into an operating system, called WorkplaceOS, having many « personalities » (or subsystem partitions) whereby Macintosh and AIX (IBM's version of Unix) applications could also run under it. Although OS/2 is current, WorkplaceOS development, at this time, appears to have been suspended.
.OTE file A Web font format proposed by Microsoft.
.OTF file An OpenType font constructed with only PostScript glyph data. The PostScript data is represented using Compact Font Format.
OTLS An abbreviation for Open Type Layout Services. Part of certain versions of Microsoft Windows which support features of OpenType fonts.
outline A typeface structural style in which strokes and shapes are represented by outlines, rather than being filled. In the era of hot type or obsolete digital type technology, a font either produced character glyphs with letterform strokes or shapes that were solid (filled), inlined, or outlined. With modern PostScript font technology, letterform shapes are described by resolution-independent outlines; and these outlines can be filled by being painted or halftoned, or outlined with an adjustable line thickness. Because of this capability, very few modern fonts come in outline styles.
(another definition follows)
Outline (style category) The following sub-categories have been defined::Sans Serif - Without serifs. Typeface examples include: ITC Bauhaus Heavy Outline, Epitaph Open, Gill Kayo Outline, Hairpin Hairline, Helvetica Outline.
:Serif - Having serifs. Typeface examples include: Contura, Egyptian Outline, Normandia Open, ITC Souvenir Bold Outline, Windsor Outline.
outline path The sequential set of instructions and/or coördinates which specify a glyph outline, more commonly one having a closed path. The path proceeds from the starting point origin (first instruction), travels around the outline, and comes back to the origin. Stick figure designs could consist of paths which are not closed, along with a specification of the line thickness. The same appearance could be simulated using a closed path outline which is very narrow, and then filled.
outline printer font A font file whose purpose it is to generate character shapes on an output device using object-oriented computer language instructions. Although bit-map data can be used to produce such shapes, object-oriented instructions produce shapes which are limited in resolution only by the electrical or mechanical nature of the output device, and not by the contents of the font file itself. Such fonts are written using a printer description language, such as PostScript. The shapes which are programmed are, literally, outlines of closed figures. These closed figures can later (in the application program) be specified to be painted (ie, filled), used as outlines of any thickness, or used as a pattern to clip (ie, cut) some other image, like a cookie-cutter.
output device A piece of hardware which renders an image in some manner, such as a computer monitor screen, a laser printer, a film recorder, a FAX, or an imagesetter. An output device can also be considered to be a file on a data storage device, such as a hard disk.
output device instance A specific chosen installed configuration of an output device which can be selected for use.
overleaf A page on the back of a book or document right hand page.
overprint In PostScript, allowing parts of a process color image to superimpose on the parts of another process color. The alternative is to implement a « knockout, » where parts of one image blocks parts of the other.
(another definition follows)
overprint or overprinting Printing text or graphics over an image already printed. This is often done for corrections; but it is also common in paper currency, where seals, serial numbers, or signatures are part of the design.overshoot The increase in height of a letterform above the cap height (for upper case) or x-height (for lower case). Letterforms which usually have overshoot are C, G, O, Q, S, a, c, g, m, n, o, p, q, r, s.
overstrike The mechanical process or equivalent of superimposing more than one character glyph so as to produce a character glyph which is not directly obtainable. This technique has been used for adding diacritical marks to base characters (Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin scripts); to produce ligatures (as an overlap, in Armenian, Arabic, Indic, and Latin scripts); and to produce some conjoins (Indic scripts).
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