“Path” is a general term in digital vector design. It is a continuous trajectory defined by lines and/or curves, which can be open or closed. A segment (straight or curved) is a portion of a path, defined by two nodes (or points). In digital type design, a closed path is called a contour, and the sum of all the contours of a glyph is its outline.

FONT ENGINEERING HINT

In a font file, outline are stored differently according to their type:
• TrueType fonts (.ttf) store contours as quadratic Bézier paths in the glyf (Glyph Data) table.
• PostScript fonts (.otf) store contours as cubic Bézier paths in the CFF (Compact Font Format) table.