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OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior.
The specification germinated at Microsoft, with Adobe Systems also contributing by the time of the public announcement in 1996. The specification continues to be developed actively and is presently migrating to an open format.
Because of wide availability and typographic flexibility, including provisions for handling the diverse behaviors of all the world's writing systems, OpenType fonts are used commonly today on the major computer platforms.
OpenType is intended by Microsoft and Adobe to supersede both the TrueType and the Type 1 font formats. TrueType was developed by Apple Computer and licensed by Microsoft, and PostScript and the Type 1 format were developed by Adobe. Needing a more expressive font format to handle fine typography and exotic behavior of many of the world's written scripts, the two companies combined the underlying technologies of both formats and added new extensions intended to address the limitations.
OpenType's origins date to Microsoft's attempt to license Apple's advanced typography technology, "GX Typography," in the early 1990s. Those negotiations failed, motivating Microsoft to forge ahead with its own technology, dubbed "TrueType Open," in 1994. Adobe joined Microsoft in those efforts in 1996, adding support for the glyph outline technology used in its Type 1 fonts. The name OpenType was chosen for the combined technologies, and the technology was announced later that year.
Adobe and Microsoft continued to develop and refine OpenType over the next decade. Then, in late 2005, OpenType began migrating to an open standard under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) within the MPEGgroup, which had previously adopted OpenType by reference. The new standard is essentially OpenType 1.4, with appropriate language changes for ISO, and is called the "Open Font Format." Adoption of the new standard reached formal approval in March 2007 as ISO Standard ISO/IEC 14496-22. It is a free, publicly available standard.
By 2001 hundreds of OpenType fonts were on the market. Adobe finished converting their entire font library to OpenType toward the end of 2002. As of early 2005, around 10,000 OpenType fonts had become available, with the Adobe library comprising about a third of the total. By 2006, every major font foundry and many minor ones were developing fonts in OpenType format.
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