Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression OS Design Development (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)

1/6/2010

East Asian font files take up a large amount of memory. Font compression reduces the ROM and RAM impact of these files. Windows Embedded CE includes the Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression technology. AC3 fonts are TrueType fonts in a compressed format. The following list shows some of the benefits of the AC3 technology.

  • AC3 technology works with any TrueType font.
  • AC3 technology is lossless; no glyph hinting data is lost during compression or decompression.
  • Calling the font does not decompress the whole font file but rather decompresses a limited range of characters.

You can include both compressed (files with extensions such as .ac3) and non-compressed (files with extensions such as .ttf and .ttc) font files in your OS design. If font compression is on, Windows Embedded CE will first look for the .ac3 file for the font and then use the non-compressed file if the .ac3 file is not found. If font compression is disabled, Windows Embedded CE will not use the .ac3 files.

Note

Prior to Windows Embedded CE 6.0, the company Monotype Imaging was named Agfa Monotype, and the Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression technology was referred to as Agfa AC3 Font Compression.

OS Design Information

The following table shows operating system design information for Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression.

Element Information

Dependencies

None

Hardware considerations

None

Modules and Components

Item Module Component

Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression

GWES

Decompdrv

Agfa AC3 Font Compression Implementation Considerations

Sysgen variable Description

SYSGEN_AGFA_FONT

When this variable is set, Monotype Imaging AC3 Font Compression is included in the run-time image.

See Also

Concepts

Locale-specific OS Design Development

Other Resources

Locale-specific Support