Monotype Imaging Releases More Enhancements to its iType Font Engine and WorldType Layout Engine for Consumer Electronics Devices

OEMs and Developers Gain Increases in Flexibility, Performance and Font Choice for Worldwide Markets
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Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: TYPE), a leading global provider of text imaging solutions, has announced version 4.1 of its iType® scalable font engine and version 3.1 of its WorldType® Layout Engine product. The latest releases build upon enhancements launched earlier this year, aimed at enabling manufacturers and developers of low- to high-end consumer electronics devices to more easily develop products that display scalable text with clarity, consistency and style.

Beginning with version 4.1, the iType font engine supports Monotype Imaging’s Edge™ Technology, an advanced font rendering solution available optionally as a plug-in, also announced today. Designed to achieve superior text quality within a small memory footprint, Edge Technology provides optimal flexibility to meet demanding text requirements for consumer electronics markets, while respecting limited memory capacity and other constraints specific to the device, such as low screen resolution or display size. Edge Technology debuts with a selection of compact, stylistic East Asian fonts based on the TrueType® font format for supporting Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean markets.

“Edge Technology, as well as the built-in enhancements included in our latest iType and WorldType Layout Engine releases, are about flexibility, performance and choice,” said John Seguin, executive vice president of Monotype Imaging Inc. “These new offerings are the result of working closely with OEMs, particularly within the mobile device space, to bring out the best in text quality using a variety of font options for various world markets. While consumers everywhere simply want better looking text, the technologies that make this happen are complex – a key reason why OEMs and developers turn to us to solve difficult problems to display great-looking text consistently and effectively.”

iType version 4.1 builds upon the technology’s font linking capability, which enables the display of text sourced from multiple, scalable fonts, including multilingual varieties. “Devices such as mobile phones present unique challenges because they offer very little real estate in which to display text,” said Steve Martin, vice president of engineering. Challenges include the ability to display characters that inherently require more space vertically than is physically available, as well as the ability to proportionally display characters from different fonts, which may differ in how the font engine references them relative to vertical positioning. Without technology in place to compatibly display characters from multiple fonts, certain characters may appear clipped. Martin said, “By assuring proper character alignment through technology, our font linking capability positions us to extend font choice for mobile markets more quickly. We’re able to harness font ‘behavior’ to ensure characters display accurately and predictably, enabling us to accelerate typeface availability.”

iType version 4.1 also supports an optional ‘dynamic’ font linking operation, which allows fonts to be linked at run-time. “Using this on-the-fly capability, devices are poised to become more flexible in the handling of different fonts, including those downloaded to the device, and this opens the door to further enhancing and personalizing the user experience,” said Martin.

WorldType Layout Engine version 3.1 includes new functions aimed at speeding and easing the integration of the technology into embedded devices. The latest release includes performance improvements that more quickly handle the processing of multilingual text strings using the technology’s string-based layout mode. Enhancements were also added to simplify the integration of WorldType Layout Engine into systems where text is string based, which is common in user interfaces, or where the intent is to augment an existing layout system with additional language capabilities. Features such as rotated text and truncation have also been added to the string-based mode. Additionally, composition time has been reduced related to the handling of a larger volume of material, such as Web content, on a mobile browser.

About the iType font engine and WorldType Layout Engine

Monotype Imaging’s iType scalable font engine enables OEMs and developers to efficiently build products that clearly display text based on outline or stroke font data. In addition to proprietary innovations such as the company’s SmartHint™ technology, engineered for the high-quality display of East Asian text using stroke-based fonts, iType supports TrueType faces, the company’s Compact Asian for TrueType Technology (CATT™) fonts, stroke fonts, bitmaps, embedded bitmaps, font subsets, custom fonts and linked fonts. The iType font engine also supports the company’s newly introduced Edge Technology and Edge-enhanced fonts.

Monotype Imaging’s WorldType Layout Engine works with the iType font engine to compose, position and render multilingual text. The product features the ability to automatically interpret linguistic traits that are part of complex writing systems such as Arabic, Hebrew and Indic scripts. Capabilities include bidirectional text flow, contextual character substitution and positioning, ligature and accent placement, cursor positioning and paragraph alignment, proper line breaking and the intermixing of text and graphics. Most major languages of the world are supported, including all languages based on Latin- and Cyrillic-based scripts, in addition to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Hebrew, Thai, Syriac, Telugu, Urdu, Vietnamese (Latin plus diacritics) and the major written languages of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Africa.

About Monotype Imaging

Monotype Imaging is a global provider of text imaging solutions for manufacturers and developers of consumer electronics devices including laser printers, copiers, mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, digital cameras and software applications and operating systems. The company also provides printer drivers and color imaging technologies to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). Monotype Imaging technologies are combined with access to more than 10,000 typefaces from the Monotype®, Linotype® and ITC® typeface libraries – home to some of the world’s most widely used designs, including the Times New Roman®, Helvetica® and ITC Franklin Gothic™ typefaces. Fonts are licensed to creative and business professionals through custom font design services, direct sales or e-commerce portals. Monotype Imaging offers fonts and industry-standard solutions that support all of the world’s major languages. The company is based in Woburn, Mass., with regional offices in the U.K., Germany (Linotype), Mt. Prospect, Ill., Redwood City, Calif., Boulder, Colo., Japan and China. Information about Monotype Imaging and its products can be found at www.monotypeimaging.com, www.fonts.com, www.linotype.com, www.monotypefonts.com, www.itcfonts.com, www.customfonts.com, www.fontwise.com, www.fonts.hk and www.faces.co.uk.

Monotype, iType and WorldType are trademarks of Monotype Imaging Inc. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Edge, SmartHint and CATT are trademarks of Monotype Imaging Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Times New Roman is a trademark of The Monotype Corp. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Linotype is a trademark of Linotype GmbH registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. Helvetica is a trademark of Linotype Corp. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain jurisdictions in the name of Linotype Corp. or its licensee Linotype GmbH. ITC is a trademark of International Typeface Corp. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. ITC Franklin Gothic is a trademark of International Typeface Corp. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. TrueType is a trademark of Apple Inc. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2008 Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.

Contacts

Monotype Imaging Inc.
Vikki Quick, 781-970-6115
Public Relations, Worldwide
vikki.quick {at} monotypeimaging(.)com
www.monotypeimaging.com