Specifications

Over the years, fonts have been reformatted and optimized to be used on website. New font file formats offer improved compression (for smaller file sizes and faster load times) and metadata. Optimo provides two types of web fonts which are supported by the majority of browsers: Web Open Font Format (WOFF), developed specifically for use on webpages, and WOFF2, with improved compression. In some instance, we can also provide SVG and EOT format on request. Our fonts are exclusively available as self-hosting web fonts using CSS @font-face technology to style text on your website.

WOFF is a font format developed through the collaboration of the Mozilla Foundation, Microsoft, and Opera Software in 2009 and became a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation in 2012. WOFF files are basically OpenType or TrueType fonts with format-specific compression and metadata. They are supported by all major browsers. Because fonts are compressed, they load faster. The inclusion of license data within the font file to address copyright issues is allowed through metadata.

WOFF2 is basically a font format with an improved compression scheme. It offers an average of 30% more compression over the original WOFF. It became a W3C Recommendation in March 2018. Although faster, it does not have the wide support of WOFF—operating on Chrome, Opera and Firefox browsers.

OpenType Features offer a wide range of alternate characters and stylistic sets, including numeral styles, ligatures, small capitals, and contextual substitutions. These features can be enabled in desktop applications and online through CSS attributes. All Optimo fonts include a set of essential OpenType features and specific ones. For each typeface, you can find the relevant OpenType features and their corresponding CSS [ss01] attributes both on the OpenType feature section of each typeface page and within the PDF specimen.

Whether a font will be used in print or on screen, hinting is an integral part of the design. Optimo fonts are systematically hinted, which includes setting up alignment zones, stem values, and instructions. We make sure a typeface looks great in all environments.

Our Standard TrueType hinting process usually contains a semi-automatic hinting with manual adjustments of alignment zones and stem width as well as manual correction of the most obvious display irregularities. While TrueType hinting is not an exact science we still try to make sure that we provide a consistent result and tackles any display issues.

Some Optimo’s fonts include ‘manual hinting’: the 118 styles of Theinhardt as well as its 18 Pan European styles, JJannon and Rand.

“Style linking” is a technique that allows the italic and bold styles of a typeface family to be accessed by clicking on the “I” or “B” icon in your application. This technique has been applied to some of our most recent typefaces.

For others of our typefaces, style linking is turned off by default. To avoid “italicized italics” and “smear bold,” you will have to select the correct weight and/or its correspondent italic manually.

TrueType is a font format developed by Apple and Microsoft in 1991. The TrueType format defines curves in a different way from PostScript fonts, and for the rendering of outlines uses a more sophisticated hinting process than PostScript fonts which—if manually hinted—will improve the appearance of the font on low-resolution screens. In reality, most of the TrueType fonts don’t incorporate manual hinting—as this operation is very time consuming—as a result, the average of badly rendered TrueType is higher than the PostScript one.

Optimo does not include TrueType fonts for direct download. However, if you need a specific screen optimized font to use at a very small size, we can provide custom manually hinted TrueType font files on request. Note that this operation requires a certain length of time and extra fee.

Optimo fonts are exclusively delivered in OpenType format. Other formats are available on request only.

Optimo fonts are delivered in OpenType format and are cross-platform. They will work both Mac and Windows operating systems.

A variable font is a font software designed to contain multiple font styles into one single file. It is defined by static instances that you can access directly or that you can adjust through interpolation axes (ie weights, widths, italics, etc). The axes can be activated through sliders in Indesign, CSS keyframes, or Javascript. This technology enables the variable fonts to be animated for animation or interactivity purposes.

Variable fonts are supported by the most recent browsers, but the compatibility with operating systems, applications as well as font management software is still in development. For your print projects, our static fonts are still recommended. 

For additional resources, we recommend Introducing Open Type Variable Fonts and the Variable fonts guide for a more technical overview. Please refer to the Variable fonts support to check the browsers, applications, and operating systems that support variable formats.

Vertical metrics determine the first baseline of a text, the distance between lines of text, and the padding to the object below the last baseline. Each font family has different proportions and, accordingly, different values for the height of “x,” descenders, ascenders, capital letters, and accents. These unique proportions create distinct vertical metrics for each font family. The vertical metrics are based on three sets of values: hhea, OS/2, and Win metrics, which indicate where the font should be positioned on operating systems, applications, and browsers. As each operating system, application, and browser uses different values and interpretations, there is no single combination of these values that can ensure precise consistency across all platforms. Optimo’s vertical metrics are defined to avoid common issues such as accent clipping.

Each Optimo typeface comes with a specific character set: Optimo Basic Latin, Optimo Latin Extended or Optimo Pan European. Some of our typefaces also offer additional encoded and unencoded glyphs—such as arrow sets or alternative letters. From each typeface’s dedicated page, you can find information about their “Character Set” and “Language Support.” Furthermore, it is possible to see all available glyphs from their visualization tool sections: “Character Map” and “Open Type Features.”

The Optimo Basic Latin Character Set features the Unicode Blocks and Codepages listed below:

Adobe
· Adobe Latin-1

Apple Macintosh
· MacOS Roman (Standard Latin)
· MacOS Iceland

ISO 8859
· 8859-1 Latin-1 Western European
· 8859-15 Latin-9

Microsoft Windows
· MS Windows 1252 Western (Standard Latin)

Encoded Glyphs
· Basic Latin
· Latin-1 Supplement 

The Optimo Latin Extended Character Set features the Unicode Blocks and Codepages listed below:

Adobe
· Adobe Latin-1

Apple Macintosh
· MacOS Roman (Standard Latin)
· MacOS Central European Latin
· MacOS Croatian
· MacOS Iceland
· MacOS Romanian
· MacOS Turkish

ISO 8859
· 8859-1 Latin-1 Western European
· 8859-2 Latin-2 Central European
· 8859-3 Latin-3 South European
· 8859-4 Latin-4 North European
· 8859-9 Latin-5 Turkish
· 8859-13 Latin-7 Baltic Rim
· 8859-15 Latin-9
· 8859-16 Latin-10 South-Eastern European
 
Microsoft Windows
· MS Windows 1250 Central European Latin
· MS Windows 1252 Western (Standard Latin)
· MS Windows 1254 Turkish Latin
· MS Windows 1257 Baltic Latin
 
Encoded Glyphs
· Basic Latin
· Latin-1 Supplement
· Latin Extended-A
· Latin Extended-B
· Latin Extended Additional

The Optimo Pan European Character Set features the Unicode Blocks and Codepages listed below:

Adobe
· Adobe Latin-1
· Adobe Cyrillic-1
· Adobe Greek-1

Apple Macintosh
· MacOS Roman (Standard Latin)
· MacOS Central European Latin
· MacOS Croatian
· MacOS Cyrillic
· MacOS Greek
· MacOS Iceland
· MacOS Romanian
· MacOS Turkish

ISO 8859
· 8859-1 Latin-1 Western European
· 8859-2 Latin-2 Central European
· 8859-3 Latin-3 South European
· 8859-4 Latin-4 North European
· 8859-5 Latin/Cyrillic
· 8859-9 Latin-5 Turkish
· 8859-10 Latin-6 Nordic
· 8859-13 Latin-7 Baltic Rim
· 8859-15 Latin-9
· 8859-16 Latin-10 South-Eastern European

Microsoft Windows
· MS Windows 1250 Central European Latin
· MS Windows 1251 Cyrillic
· MS Windows 1252 Western (Standard Latin)
· MS Windows 1253 Greek
· MS Windows 1254 Turkish Latin
· MS Windows 1257 Baltic Latin

Encoded Glyphs
· Basic Latin
· Latin-1 Supplement
· Latin Extended-A
· Latin Extended-B
· Latin Extended Additional
· Greek and Coptic
· Cyrillic