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The History of Agfa Monotype: 1998 - 2003

1998 - Agfa acquires Monotype. Agfa and Monotype formally combine their resources and expertise to deliver a world-class font library and state-of-the-art font technologies to original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors and professional graphic communicators around the world.

Monotype develops three new custom ‘create and print’ software products for International Paper’s REY & Co division in Europe. Monotype CD ROMs are bundled into the REY & Co Photo Creation, Party Kit and Business Design Kit paper products.

Sybase ships Monotype’s WorldType® implementation of the first fully hinted font with complete Unicode™ 2.0 coverage.

1999 - Agfa Monotype is created, forming one of the largest font companies in the world.

Agfa Monotype releases the Albany®, Thorndale® and Cumberland® core set of fonts for new media devices. The New Media Core Fonts are designed for high legibility on low-resolution devices such as computer screens, consumer electronic devices and television screens. The New Media Core Fonts have the same font metrics and widths as the Windows® core fonts providing document fidelity between Windows and other operating systems.

Arial® Unicode, another WorldType Unicode implementation, ships with Microsoft® Office 2000.

Agfa Monotype holds its first color symposium for printer manufacturers in Tokyo.

Agfa Monotype develops a custom software program for Lexmark that allows users to print photo calendars on their Lexmark inkjet printers.

Agfa becomes independent from Bayer and takes the name Agfa Corporation. Based in Ridgefield Park, NJ, Agfa has approximately 5,000 US employees and is part of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, a worldwide technology company headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium. Agfa Typographic Systems becomes Agfa Monotype Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Agfa Corporation.

2000 - Agfa Monotype, in conjunction with Microsoft, establishes a Windows Color Certification program for printer manufacturers. The certification program supports the Windows Color Quality Specifications and establishes quality standards for devices using Windows operating systems.

Agfa Monotype acquires International Typeface Corporation, a font foundry that has designed and marketed fonts over the past three decades. The ITC® Library contains such widely used typefaces as the ITC Franklin Gothic™, ITC Bookman® and ITC Avant Garde® designs.

Corel licenses the Albany and Thorndale families for use in its Linux® OS and Office Suite to provide Corel customers with metric compatibility with the Windows core fonts.

A new font licensing and embedding model for the e-book publishing industry is introduced.

The Lexmark® Bodoni design, an exclusive typeface created for printer manufacturer Lexmark International, is completed.

The iType® font engine, a compact, portable font rendering subsystem is introduced. The iType font engine is designed for memory-constrained devices that require high-quality text display.

IBM selects Agfa Monotype’s UFST® (Universal Font Scaling Technology) as the standard font platform for IBM and IBM subsidiary products. The technology is to be integrated into IBM operating systems, printers and Lotus® applications.

2001 - Hewlett-Packard licenses Agfa Monotype’s PostScript® 3-compatible font solution, enabling HP to provide customers with fully compatible PostScript 3 fonts to use with HP LaserJet® and Deskjet® printers.

Agfa Monotype’s Fonts.com™ store is launched to provide consumers with a convenient solution to license and download a wide selection of high-quality fonts.

The iType font engine is updated to support requirements mandated by the Federal Communications Commission for closed captioning display on analog and digital TVs.

2002 - Apple selects 19 TrueType® fonts from Agfa Monotype’s ESQ® (Enhanced Screen Quality) font library for use in the Mac OS® X platform, Apple’s UNIX®-based operating system.

Stroke-based CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) font support is announced for the iType font engine.

Agfa Monotype joins the Swiss-based DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting Project). Membership allows Agfa Monotype to provide input and expertise in the development of DVB font standards for digital television.

The two major Chinese-based standards groups – the Committee on Information Technology Standards (CITS) and the State Language Committee (SLC) – approve two Agfa Monotype multilingual fonts for distribution within the People’s Republic of China.

Agfa Monotype and Fonts.com launch the National Typographic™ quarterly newsletter.

Agfa Monotype and ITC introduce the ITC 1500 Library, the largest and most complete ITC collection ever assembled.

2003 - Agfa Monotype acquires the Eyewire.com™ Web site, which services the high-end designer and font market.

ColorTune® (now ColorSet™) screening, profiling and CMM (color management module) tool kits are introduced to the color office printer market.

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