10.1. True Type
10.1.1. Commercial Software
True type fonts are very easy to come by, and large amounts of them are
typically included in packages like Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. Getting
Word Perfect is an easy way to get an enormous amount of fonts ( and if
you're really cheap, you could buy a legacy version of Word Perfect for
windows. The fonts on the CD are readable. )
10.1.2. Microsoft's Font Download
Microsoft have also made several TrueType fonts available. The .exe file
is simply an archive, you can extract it using unzip. You can get them
from the
download site.
10.1.3. Luc's Webpage
Luc Devroye's
webpage has links to several sites with free fonts available. What's
unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are
not ``warez fonts''.
10.1.4. Web sites with truetype fonts
There are several web sites offering freely available downloadable fonts.
For example, the
freeware connection has links to a number of archives.
10.1.5. Foundries
Several foundries sell TrueType fonts. However, most of them are quite
expensive, and for the same money, you'd be better of with Type 1 fonts.
I'll discuss these more in the Type 1 fonts section. The one place that
does do sell true type fonts at low prices is buyfonts.
Please read the section on ethics before you buy cheap fonts.
10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
10.2.1. Dealing With Mac and Windows Formats
Many foundries ship fonts with Windows and Mac users in mind. This can
sometimes pose a problem. Typically, the ``Windows fonts'' are fairly
easy to handle, because they are packed in a zip file. The only work to
be done is converting the pfm file to and afm file ( using pfm2afm ).
Macintosh fonts are more problematic, because they are typically made
available in .sit.bin format -- stuffit archives. Unfortunately, there
is no tool for Linux that can unpack stuffit archives created with the
newer version of stuffit. The only way to do it is run Executor ( Mac
emulator ), or try running stuffit in dosemu or Wine. Once the sit.bin
file is unpacked, the Macintosh files can be converted using t1unmac which
comes with the t1utils package.
Unfortunately, some vendors only ship Type 1 fonts in Macintosh format
( stuffit archives ). However, according to font expert Luc
Devroye, all major foundries make Type 1 fonts available for Mac and
Windows.
10.2.2. Free Stuff
ctan have a number of good fonts,
many of which are free. Most of these are in Metafont format, though some
are also Type 1 fonts. Also, see Bluesky
who have made available Type 1 versions of the computer modern fonts.
( The computer modern fonts are of excellent quality -- to purchase anything
of comparable quality and completeness will cost you around $500-. They
are comparable to the premium fonts. )
Luc Devroye's
webpage has links to several sites with free fonts available. What's
unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are
not "warez fonts".
URW have released the standard PostScript fonts resident in most printers
to the public domain. These fonts are quite good.
The Walnut Creek Archive
has several freely available fonts, and shareware fonts. Some of these
are obvious ripoffs ( and not very good ones ). If a font doesn't come
with some kind of license, chances are it's a ripoff. Also Winsite have
several Type 1 fonts ( in the fonts/atm subsection of their windows 3.x
software ). Unfortunately, several of these have afm files which have
mistakes and are missing all kerning pairs ( you can fix the afms by editing
the "FontName" section of the afm files. It should match the
fontname given in the font shape file. Of course, adding kerning pairs
is a topic beyond the scope of this document. )
Luc Devroye's webpage includes several free fonts he designed, as well
as a lot of links, and fascinating discussion on the topic of typography.
This site is a ``must-visit''. There are also several links to many foundries.
10.2.3. Commercial Fonts
10.2.3.1. Value vs Premium: Why Should I buy Premium Fonts ?
So you're wondering -- why do some fonts cost a lot and others are cheap
? These fonts are the ``standard PostScript fonts'' resident in most PostScript
printers. Also the famous Why should I buy the more expensive ones ? My
take on it is that for a casual user, the value fonts ( such as those
on the Bitstream CD ) are just fine. However, if you're using the fonts
for ``real work'', or you're just a hard core font junkie, then the better
quality fonts are a must-have -- and most of the quality fonts are either
free ( for example, Computer Modern ), or they are upmarket commercial
fonts.
The advantage of the cheaper fonts is self evident -- they are cheaper.
The quality fonts also have their advantages though.
- Ethical issues: The cheaper fonts are almost always ripoffs.
Type design takes a long time and and experienced designer. Fonts that
are sold for less than $1- per font were almost certainly not designed
by the vendor. CDs with insane quantities of fonts on the are almost
always ripoffs ( the possible exceptions being collections from major
foundries that cost thousands of dollars ). Usually, the ripoffs lack
the quality of fonts from respectable founries.
- Completeness: The higher quality fonts ( notably from Adobe
) come in several variants, with some nice supplements to provide the
user with a more complete font family. There are often bold, italic,
and demibold variants, swash capitals, small caps, old style figures,
and extra ligatures to supplement the font. More recently, Adobe have
a multiple master technology which gives the user ( almost ) infinite
variation within one font family.
- Quality: A lot of the freely available fonts or the cheap ripoffs
lack fairly essential features such as kerning pairs and decent ligatures.
They are basically cheap copies. In contrast, reputable designers take
a lot of trouble to study the original design, and rework it to the
best of their ability.
- Authenticity: The person who designed Adobe Garamond ( Robert
Slimbach ) actually studied the original designs of Claude Garamond.
In fact reputable foundries always carefully research their designs,
rather than just swiping something off the net, and modifying it with
Fontographer.
10.2.3.2. Value
- An excellent place to go for a CD packed with several Type 1 fonts
of reasonable quality is Bitstream.
Bitstreams more noted products include their 250
font CD and their 500
font CD ( the latter goes for $50- at the time of writing ). These
are fairly good quality fonts, and are a fairly good starting point
for the casual user. The fonts used in Corel's products are (mostly)
licensed from bitstream.
- Matchfonts offer more modestly
priced fonts -- they are distributed in ``packs'' of about 8 fonts for
$30. This includes some nice calligraphic fonts. All fonts seem to be
offered in a usable format ( the windows ATM fonts come in a .exe file.
Don't let the extension fool you -- it's just a zip archive ). These
are not ripoffs as far as I can tell.
- EFF sell TrueType fonts for
$2- per hit. They also have ``professional range'' PostScript and TrueType
fonts for $16- per typeface.
10.2.3.3. Premium
- Adobe have several high quality, fonts available at Adobe's type
website. Some of these are expensive, but they have several more affordable
bundles -- see Adobe Type Collections. Adobe have some of the most complete
font families on the market, for example, Garamond, Caslon, and their
multiple masters ( Myriad and Minion, used on their website are among
the nicer of their multiple masters. )
- Berthold Types Limited is a major foundry, who offer several quality
fonts. Some of them are resold through Adobe, all are directly available
from Berthold. Same price ballpark as Adobe.
- ITC develop several quality fonts ( including some of the ones Corel
ships with their products ) at http://www.itcfonts.com They offer family
packages for about $100-180 US. Their fonts, come in both Type 1 and
TrueType format. It's better to choose the ``Windows'' package, because
Mac formats are difficult to handle on Linux.
- Linotype are a well known foundry who offer fonts by legendary designers
including Herman Zapf. ( yep, the guy "Zapf Chancery'' is named
after. He also designed Palatino. )
- Monotype develop most of the fonts shipped with Microsoft products.
One of the older and well respected foundries.
- Tiro Typeworks sell good quality, if somewhat expensive typefaces.
Their typefaces are very complete, for example, they include complete
sets of ligatures, and smallcaps, titling fonts, etc. UNIX is listed
as one of the OS options -- which is a welcome surprise after seeing
the words ``Windows or Mac'' too many times..
10.2.3.4. More Links
For links to a bunch of other foundries, see Luc
Devroye's page.
Font HowTo
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. The Location of This Document
1.2. Submitting corrections/errata
1.3. Last Updated
1.4. Copyright
1.5. Rationale
1.6. Credits and Acknowledgements
2. Fonts 101 -- A Quick Introduction to Fonts
2.1. Types of Fonts
2.2. Families of Typefaces
3. Fonts 102 -- Typography
3.1. Classifications of Typefaces
3.2. Ligatures, Small caps fonts and
expert fonts
3.3. Font Metrics and Shapes
4. Making Fonts Available To X
4.1. The font path
4.2. Installing Type 1 Fonts
4.3. True Type Fonts
4.4. xfs
5. Making Fonts Available To Ghostscript
5.1. Type 1
5.2. True Type
5.3. Using Ghostscript To Preview
Fonts
6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion
6.1. Why ?
6.2. How ?
7. WYSIWYG Publishing and Fonts
7.1. Introduction and Overview
7.2. Applixware
7.3. Star Office
7.4. Word Perfect
8. Netscape
9. TeX / LaTeX
9.1. A Quick Primer on LaTeX/TeX fonts
9.2. Adding Type 1 fonts
10. Getting Fonts For Linux
10.1. True Type
10.2. Type 1 Fonts and Metafont
11. Useful Font Software for Linux
12. Ethics and Licensing Issues Related to Type
13. References
13.1. Font Information
13.2. Postscript and Printing Information
14. Glossary
.
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