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A font is the implementation of a typeface. In the olden days, that meant the physical, metal type that was used to create typeset layouts; in modern times, it means a file on a computer that defines the shapes and rules for generating type.

This distinction means that, in the old days, e.g. Helvetica 12 and Helvetica 14 would be the same typeface but a different font, because the physical letters would be in different sets. Nowadays this isn’t the case and we can speak of “Helvetica” as a single font.

On computers, common font formats are TTF (TrueType), OTF (OpenType), and WOFF (Web Open Font Format).