FreeType
| FreeType
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| Basic data
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| developer | David Turner |
| Publishing year | 1996 |
| Current version |
2.10.1 ( July 1, 2019 ) |
| operating system | Platform independent |
| programming language | C. |
| License | FreeType License, GPL |
| freetype.org | |
FreeType is a free program library that displays computer fonts (in various formats) as raster graphics , using a uniform interface for all font formats. Depending on the size and resolution, the characters are filled with a different amount of pixels .
The following vector font formats , among others, are currently supported: TrueType , OpenType , PostScript Type 1 and Type 2 (CFF), PostScript CID-keyed fonts . In addition, BDF, PCF and Windows bitmap fonts can be displayed.
Freetype is an open source project that can be integrated into any application program under the GNU General Public License (GPL) or the FreeType License (similar to the BSD license ). The library can therefore also be used for the development of proprietary software and, in addition to being used as desktop software, is also widespread in the field of computer games. It is easily portable and is currently the standard solution for displaying True and OpenType fonts under Linux .
history
David Turner began working on FreeType in the winter of 1995 because his operating system at the time, OS / 2, did not support TrueType. After the publication of his first Pascal code, Werner Lemberg joined the project, which continues to play an important role.
Version 1 of FreeType brought support for TrueType fonts on many platforms. In version 2 support for additional font formats was added. Furthermore, FreeType 2 can automatically generate hints to improve the display at low resolutions and does not depend on the information in the font file, which improves the display of fonts that do not provide such information. Since the standard procedure for hinting was affected by Apple's patents, which expired on October 9, 2009, potential patent infringements could also be avoided. On the other hand, it can worsen the display if it is used instead of the manually optimized hints supplied. Since it was originally only designed for western writing systems, it sometimes worked poorly or not at all with others. Therefore, activation of the patented technology was often preferred here. The free Linux distributions Debian and Ubuntu also had FreeType with the hint interpreter on board as default, although it was encumbered by patents.
In 2007, when Java technology was released as free software, the non-free font screening component of the JDK in OpenJDK was replaced by FreeType.
Web links
swell
- ↑ sourceforge.net . 1st July 2019.
- ↑ Announcing FreeType 2.10.1 . July 2, 2019 (accessed August 31, 2019).
- ↑ a b c Interview with David Turner of Freetype , June 28, 2007
- ↑ FreeType & Patents