Type 3 fonts are PostScript fonts which means they are outline fonts, offering excellent output quality at every character size. Most of the information you can find in the PostScript Type 1 page also applies to PostScript Type 3 fonts. Below you find an overview of the differences between both technologies.

• Unlike Type 1, PostScript Type 3 fonts do not support hinting, the technology that optimises character shapes at small type sizes. This means that PostScript type 1 offers slightly superior output on lower resolution devices such as laserprinters or monitors.
• Within Type 3 fonts, the entire PostScript language can be used to describe character shapes. This means that Type 3 fonts can have more elaborate designs than Type 1 fonts: the glyphs can contain shades of gray, graduated fills or variable stroke widths. This makes it an interesting technology for fonts containing company logo’s or other drawings. Since even the PostScript “image” operator can be used, Type 3 fonts can also contain bitmaps (although they usually only contain vector data). The flexibility of the Type 3 technology made it a popular format for various font creation tools. It is easier to create a Type 3 font by hand than it is to do the same using PostScript Type 1 technology. I can even remember using small utilities that could embed an Illustrator EPS in a Type 3 font.
• Type 3 fonts take up more memory than Type 1 fonts. Since Type 3 fonts are not compressed and are based on the PostScript language, one way of identifying a Type 3 font is opening the font’s outline file in a text editor and searching for the first occurrence of “FontType.” If the font type is “3 def,” the font is a PostScript Type 3 font.
• Since they can contain PostScript data, Type 3 fonts cannot be used with Adobe Type Manager which is not a full PostScript language interpreter.
• Characters from a Type 3 font can look slightly bolder than they would if they were part of a Type 1 font.

At the beginning of the PostScript revolution, Adobe published the specs of the Type 3 font technology but kept the Type 1 technology to itself. This forced all font foundries to release their fonts as Type 3 fonts and for a couple of years Type 3 fonts were pretty popular. When Adobe was forced to release the specs of Type 1, all foundries moved to this standard. Nowadays OpenType is the dominant font format and Type 3 fonts hardly seem to be used anymore.

Type 3 fonts on Macintosh running System 9 or earlier

No specific PostScript Type 3 information available. Check the page on PostScript Type 1 fonts.

Type 3 fonts on Macintosh running Mac OS X

OS X still offers support for Type 3 fonts.

Type 3 fonts on Windows

Some PostScript printer drivers for Windows offer the option of downloading outline fonts as bitmap fonts and subsequently use the PostScript Type 3 font technology for this.

Type 3 fonts can be recognized by the file extension .PFA (Printer Font Ascii).

Windows XP does not support PostScript Tpe 3 fonts.

Cross platform issues

No specific PostScript Type 3 information available. Check the page on PostScript Type 1 fonts.

Outputting PostScript Type 3 fonts

I have occasionally stumbled across compatibility issues with Type 3 fonts. At some point in time, Adobe even admitted that recent versions of its RIPs may be incompatible with some very old Type 3 fonts. Fortunately Type 3 fonts are hardly used any more so I would not worry too much about them.