Part IV (Chapters 11-14, Appendix F) is devoted completely to fonts. This part begins with the history of printing, especially of Latin typographic characters. Next, is a description of three methods for classifying fonts; the first two finish off the history, and the third serves as a link between this chapter and the rest of the book.
Then, you learn about the tools that exist for creating (and modifying) fonts. The two that are explored are FontLab, and FontForge. This is covered over three chapters, as they have broken the process down into three steps; drawing glyphs, optimizing, and supplementing.
You are then introduced to the development of OpenType properties. Supported by Adobe and Microsoft, many foundries are moving their arsenals of PostScript, or TrueType fonts, into OpenType fonts. There is discussion as well on the competitor of OpenType fonts; AAT Fonts. Finally, there is a discussion on METAFONT and its derivatives; this is actually contained in appendix F, but listed as part of this section. METAFONT is a programming language dedicated to font creation, and was created by the developer of TEX
Fonts & Encodings is a very interesting book, in that it contains a lot of information that is not easily found anywhere else. It deals with fonts from a historical aspect, such as with regard to typesetting, but also gets into the algorithms, and software that can create fonts. It contains a lot of good examples, as well as a lot of information on working with fonts. It has a good tutorial on Unicode, and its history as well. It is meant to be a bridge between old traditions, and new technologies, and I think that it fares on that point very well. If you have an interest in fonts, and how they work; perhaps to begin to create them, then Fonts & Encodings is a good framework in which to begin.
Chapter Listing
Before Unicode
Characters, glyphs, bytes: An introduction to Unicode
Properties of Unicode characters
Normalization, bidirectionality, and East Asian characters
Using unicode
Font management on the Macintosh
Font management under Windows
Font management under X Windows
Fonts in TEX, their installation and use
Fonts and web pages
History and Classification of Latin Typefaces
Editing and Creating Fonts
Optimizing a rasterization
Enriching Fonts: Advanced Typography
Appendix A. Bitmap Font Formats
Appendix B. TEX Font Formats
Appendix C. Postscript Font Formats
Appendix D. The Truetype, OpenType, and AAT Font Formats
Appendix E. TrueType Instructions
Appendix F. METAFONT and its Derivatives
Appendix G. Bezier Curves
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