>> Well, Metafont uses a third-order Bézier approximation to build up >> circles (from four quarter circles). However, the Metafont book >> says that the difference to a real circle is less than 0.06%, which >> is thus imperceptible. >> >> The same holds for PostScript-based fonts. > > PostScript uses second-order Béziers, so it makes little sense to > cite the mathematics of Metafont here.
This is not correct. PostScript-derived fonts (Type1, CFF/CFF2 in OpenType) *do* use third-order curves. I think you are mixing this up with TrueType fonts, which indeed use second-order curves. Werner