Computer Dictionary of Information Technology

outline font

(Or "vector font") A font defined as a set of lines and curves as opposed to a bitmap font. An outline font (e.g. PostScript, TrueType, RISC OS) can be scaled to any size and otherwise transformed more easily than a bitmap font, and with more attractive results, though this requires a lot of numerical processing. The result of transforming a character in an outline font in a particular way is often saved as a bitmap in a font cache to avoid repeating the calculations if that character is to be drawn again.