TFF

File type known as TFF with .tff extension is called TrueType Format. Its creator is Apple company that was their answer to formats created by Microsoft and Adobe Systems. Its big plus is great diversity of settings, which can be used by developers to create newer and newer fonts. It is not so much used today, because there are plenty of formats that can replace it.

First version was released in 1991 for Mac OS 7. First of all there were 4 types of fonts (so called font families) – Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier and Pi Font that was imitating PostScript fonts from laser printers. During times were created more and more font families. In 1991 Apple allowed Microsoft to use their format for free if they need to use it in their systems. That was achieved in Windows 3.1, where it got awesome support. With it comes new creation of set of characters. Microsoft was participating on them and they were – Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New. Later on has Microsoft decided to create new technology based on it. From it was derived format OpenType that was released in 1994.

Today there are many products, which can work with this file format. We can mention engine Uniscribe developed by Microsoft itself. Then we can include products from Apple – WorldScript or Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging. Then there is Pango, which belongs to free applications. We also recommend using of engine Pango.