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Bitmapped and scalable fonts – Dell 5110cn Color Laser Printer User Manual

Page 193

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Bitmapped and Scalable Fonts

The printer uses both bitmapped and scalable fonts.

Bitmapped fonts are stored in printer memory as predefined patterns of bits that represent a typeface at a
specific size, style, and resolution. The following illustration shows an example of a character from a
bitmapped font.

Bitmapped fonts are available in different type styles and point sizes as downloadable fonts. Contact the
place where you bought your printer for more information about downloadable fonts.

Scalable fonts (also called outline fonts) are stored as computer programs that define the outlines of the
characters in the font. Each time you print characters from a scalable font, the printer creates a bitmap of
the characters at the point size you choose and saves it temporarily in printer memory.

These temporary bitmapped fonts are deleted when you turn off or reset the printer. Scalable fonts provide
the flexibility of printing in many different point sizes.

Your printer uses different scalable font formats for downloading fonts to the printer. PCL 5/PCL 6 uses
Intellifont and TrueType scalable fonts. PostScript 3 uses Type 1 and TrueType scalable fonts. There are
thousands of different scalable fonts available in these different font formats from numerous font suppliers.