Many fonts are vector-based graphics. The best-known example of a vector font system is PostScript. Bit-mapped fonts, also called raster fonts, but must be designed for a specific device and a specific size and resolution. TrueType fonts are the most common and are supported by both Windows and Macintosh. In general, vector graphics take longer to display but can be scaled to any size with no degradation.
Raster graphics are faster to display but image quality suffers when they are scaled up or down.
Also, there is a tradeoff between the size of a graphic and its complexity. On the other hand, the vector graphic file needed to draw a detailed engineering drawing in a one-inch square could be thousands of times bigger than the corresponding raster graphic. So you can't say vector graphics are smaller than raster graphics or vice versa. This means that all objects, even vector objects, must be translated into bit maps before being output. The difference between vector graphics and raster graphics, therefore, is that vector graphics are not translated into bit maps until the last possible moment, after all sizes and resolutions have been specified.