In digital type, a set of typographic characters that exist as bit maps—or a collection of dots—rather than as outlines or mathematical descriptions of lines and curves (outline fonts). Bit map fonts are used as screen fonts, which are the fonts as they are displayed on the computer screen and cannot be anything but bit maps. Printer fonts, or the fonts that are used by the output device, should never be bit maps, as they tend to exhibit aliasing and can only be output at the resolution of the pixel matrix. Scaling bitmapped fonts rarely turns out well, so if the use of them is unavoidable, it is best to stick with the sizes included in the font. (See also Outline Font.)
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