A Type 3 font is a font whose glyphs are defined by drawing procedures rather than by a conventional outline description. The exact mechanism depends on context: PostScript Type 3 fonts use PostScript procedures, while PDF Type 3 fonts use PDF drawing-operator streams called CharProcs. They are related formats, but not identical definitions.
What does Type 3 mean in PostScript?
In PostScript, a Type 3 font is a user-defined font whose glyphs are drawn by ordinary PostScript procedures stored in the font dictionary under BuildGlyph or BuildChar. Adobe’s PostScript Language Reference, Third Edition defines it this way.
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A glyph is the visual shape used to represent a character or symbol. It may represent a complete character, part of one, or an arbitrary symbol, so “font” does not necessarily mean a set of ordinary letters. Adobe’s Acrobat API reference describes this broader meaning of glyph.
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A PDF Type 3 font defines glyphs differently from a PostScript Type 3 font. Each glyph has a named procedure, called a CharProc, represented as a stream of PDF page-marking operators that draw the glyph. The font’s encoding maps character codes to glyph names. Adobe’s PDF Reference documents this structure.
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The PDF font dictionary includes a CharProcs dictionary, a FontBBox describing the font’s bounding box in character space, and a FontMatrix that transforms character space to text space. It also specifies character widths and the character-code range. Each CharProc begins with d0 or d1, which supplies the glyph’s width and cache-related information.
Why use Type 3 glyphs?
Because the glyph procedures can use general drawing operations, Type 3 fonts can describe more than conventional outline-only letterforms. That flexibility can suit elaborate symbols or graphics that need to behave as font characters. It does not, by itself, make the glyphs easier to read or guarantee consistent rendering in every application or device.
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What is the trade-off at small sizes?
Adobe’s PDF Reference notes that PDF Type 3 fonts have no built-in hinting and no mechanism to improve output at small sizes or low resolutions. Hinting helps preserve a glyph’s appearance when it is rendered on a coarse pixel grid. The documented limitation is not proof that every Type 3 font looks poor; it means small-size and low-resolution output does not receive those built-in improvements.
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How should you interpret “Type 3 font”?
- In PostScript: look for glyph definitions through the font dictionary’s
BuildGlyphorBuildCharprocedures. - In PDF: look for named glyphs drawn by
CharProcsstreams of PDF operators, with an encoding that maps character codes to glyph names.
Both use flexible procedural drawing, but the procedures and their surrounding structures belong to different formats. The phrase alone does not establish how well a particular font will display in a given application or device.
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