Hello,
This has been bugging for quite some time now, what do all these abbreviations mean? Some I can figure out but there are some that confuses me especially when its the exact same font but with different abbreviations at the end of its name. does typophile have a glossary of these abbreviations?
And why does garamond have an ITC and Adobe version? What’s the reason behind that? And other fonts for that matter?
Thanks,
MIYU
SC=Small caps LT =Light(??) STD=Standard MM=Multiple Master (an older Adobe technology) ... not sure on the last two.
Keep looking for Garamond’s, you will find at least three other cuts, Garamond 3, Simonici, and Stempel. Each foundary tends to create their own version of this revival face, with small to major differences. The two you mention have the greatest difference, with ITC having a very large x-height (ratio of lower case size to cap height). This is usual on most ITC faces. Adobe has a very small x-height.
The various initials can indicate a number of different types of things. Some of the most common categories of things indicated are
Foundry: e.g., LT (Linotype), MT (Monotype), ITC (International Typeface Corporation), BT (Bitstream), FF (FontFont), FB (Font Bureau), HTF (Hoefler Type Foundry), etc.
Font Format: e.g., PS (Postscript), TT (Truetype), MM (Multiple Master), OT (OpenType)
Figure style: e.g., OSF (oldstyle figures), LF (lining figures), TF (tabular figures)
Character set or language support: e.g., SC (small caps), CE (Central European), STD (Standard — generally a basic character set), Pro (Professional — generally an extended character set with Greek a
Captured from web.archive.org on 7 Sep 2008. view this capture