Open Type Fonts: Why They’re Super Cool for Paper Crafters
Most commonly we see computer fonts listed with the extension .ttf at the end, telling us that the font is a True Type font and will generally work with both Mac and Windows. True Type is the standard font format, although there are several other types. 
In recent years, font developers have been creating more and more Open Type Fonts, denoted with “OTF” at the end. This font type is an extension of the True Type format and will also work with both Windows and Mac, but here’s something that many font users don’t know… Open Type Fonts have many more capabilities than True Type Fonts. Many Open Type faces come with options called Stylistic/Contextual alternatives, meaning that you can change the way a certain letter looks in different situations. I’ve put together the example on the right using the font Reminga. (By the way, there are lots of free Open Type fonts out there, check out this list for a few ideas).
In the first example, you can see that I’ve turned on the Stylistic Alternatives option, and the “s” becomes an old-fashioned one, giving the whole phrase a new look. To do this in Photoshop, I opened my Type dialog and checked out the menu options. Not all Open Type fonts have all options. In fact, many don’t even take advantage of the feature at all.
With contextual alternatives you can really change the look of certain letters, depending on the situation or where they are in your text or title. So let’s say I want to create a piece of word art for a title on a scrapbook page or a sentiment for a card. I can do several different options using different alternatives.
In the last example below, I’ve created one title with the default letters in the high-end font Affair, a second with stylistic alternatives, and the third with contextual alternatives. The “s” changes with each selection, and the “l” changes with the contextual alternatives.
Next time you’re playing with fonts, check out the Open Type fonts you have on your computer. You might be delighted at the fun titles you can create and print by changing up the type face with Open Type features. What I’ve shown you here is just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of Open Type fonts out there with many fun alternative letters. Have fun creating!
