http://typophile.com/wiki/OpenType

http://typophile.com/wiki/TrueType

«Both Adobe and Microsoft had their own technologies for encoding and rendering fonts, and instead of hammering out a new rendering technology to match the new format, they instead decided to allow OpenType fonts to contain either Type 1 or TrueType outlines, resulting in two types or flavors of OpenType fonts.»

Who wrote that? I've never heard that claim before.

It would be more accurate to say that despite OpenType being an extension of TrueType, Microsoft and Adobe agreed to allow the new standard to support PostScript outlines (as well as TrueType outlines) to aid the conversion and transition from PostScript Type 1 to OpenType.

its directly taken from the wiki, sii.

i always thought of opentype as a kind of "container" for either ttf or t1, but not that im an expert for these kind of things in anyway.

Hi Will,

For your purposes, OT has the ability to contain many more glyphs, so you could get Small Caps and Oldstyle figs with the regular weight. Also OT files can be used on Macs or PCs. If you aren't sharing files in-house this may not be useful.

Be aware, many vendors are selling OT collections now, and they may simply be TT or PS fonts converted to OT, with no additional glyphs. Look carefully at the character set of OT fonts you are considering. Some vendors use the name OpenType Pro to designate fonts with extra characters. The *Pro* name usually means there are extras built in. See Adobe's or Monotype's Pro OpenType pages. Adobe's talks about what OpenType is and how to use it; Monotype's talks more about the question you're asking.

>its directly taken from the wiki, sii.

thanks I'll go in and give it an edit. ;-)

Many thanks everyone!

Best,
Will