Newsgroups: comp.fonts,comp.answers,news.answers Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nic.hookup.net!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!cyber2.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eff!news.kei.com!world!ora.com!norm From: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: General Info (3/3) Message-ID: Followup-To: poster Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts. It addresses both general font questions and questions that are specific to a particular platform. Sender: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Supersedes: Reply-To: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh) Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. References: Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 16:27:42 GMT Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 16:27:32 GMT Lines: 708 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu comp.fonts:6515 comp.answers:3561 news.answers:14501 Archive-name: fonts-faq/part3 Version: 2.0.3 Subject: 1.20. Unicode Information [ed: This is a summary of the Unicode info I've gleaned from the net recently, the whole Unicode issue needs to be addressed better by the FAQ...someday... someday...I'll get to reorganize the whole thing] Unicode Editing =============== James Matthew Farrow contributes: I use `sam' for all by text editing. It is X editor based on an editor for the blit called jim. Papers describing sam as well as a distribution of sam itself are available for ftp from research.att.com. The sam there is a Unix port of the Plan 9 version. Plan 9 is a full unicode operating system, even around before NT! The libraries sam is built upon therefore support 16 bit wide characters. The graphics library, supplied with it at present does not. However they may be planning to distribute a new version which does soon. The library just plugs in replacing the library that comes with sam. No modification is necessary. Character are stored using the utf-2 encoding. All of the files I had before I started working with sam were 7 bit ascii so no conversion was needed. Now I have ditched xterm in favour of 9term: a terminal emulator in the style of 81/2 (the Plan 9 interface). This lets me type Unicode characters on the command line, as part of filenames, in mail, wherever and most Unix utilities cope without modification. This is about to be released. I'm looking for beta testers. ;-) Is a special keyboard required? ------------------------------- No. ASCII Characters are typed as normal. Common characters above 0x7f are typed using two letter abbreviations. The table is similar to the troff special character codes, e.g, Alt-12 gives you a 1/2, Alt-'e gives you e acute, Alt-bu a bullet and so on. This table is hardwired into the library at present but is trivial to change. Other codes are accessed by typing their hex value, for instance the smiley is Alt-X263a (0x263a being a smiley character in the Unicode character set). Is roman-to-Unicode conversion available? ----------------------------------------- All normal 7 bit ascii characters are encoded as themselves so no translation is needed. There are conversion routines in the library (runetochar and chartorune) which will do the conversion and it should be pretty simple to convert files already in another format. You would have to write something to do the transliteration yourself. A small patch to the system would let you enter different language `modes' for text entry. Are there PostScript or TrueType fonts available? ================================================= Apparently there is a version of the Lucida fonts by Bigelow and Holmes which support Unicode. This is the information I have on them. [ed: quoting another source] [Windows NT] will ship with a Unicode TrueType font containing approximately 1,500 characters. The font is called "Lucida Sans Unicode" and was specifically designed by Bigelow and Holmes for Microsoft to contain the following Unicode sets: ASCII Latin 1 European Latin Extended Latin Standard Phonetic Modifier Letters Generic Diacritical Greek Cyrillic Extended Cyrillic Hebrew Currency Symbols Letterlike Symbols Arrows Mathematical Operators Super & Subscript Form & Chart Components Blocks Geometric Shapes Miscellaneous Technical Miscellaneous Dingbats The bitmap fonts which comes with the utf version of the libXg graphics library (the library upon which sam is built) support a sparse subset of the full character set. That is, only a few of them have glyphs at present. A font editor such as xfedor would let you add more. The list of those currently available is pretty much as the above list. I use 9term and sam as a matter of course now and have for several months. I enjoy the convenience of putting special characters and accented characters in my mail as well as being able to do some phonetic work all in the one terminal/editor suite. Subject: 1.21. Can I Print Checks with the MICR Font? This comes up all the time: standard ordinary laser toner is magnetic and will be read by the banks. The gotcha is that standard laser toner rubs off in the *very* high-speed sorting equipment that are used, and this makes read rates drop low and the banks will hate you. I researched check printers for a customer, and was surprised to find this. The Troy(tm) printers he bought are basically stock Ricoh engines that have slightly tighter paper handling (for registration), plus they add a proprietary Teflon-type power coating on the output path to coat the checks. I saw some examples of checks printed with and without this special coating after running through something like 40 passes through check processing equipment, and the one without the coating was a mess. These require special handling that the banks do *not* like. Apparently, they go after companies that issue these kinds of checks with special processing fees. Subject: 1.22. Rules of Thumb It is difficult to set out guidelines for font usage, because almost any rule can be brilliantly broken under the right circumstances. * General guidelines: * Never lose track of the kind of work you're doing. An effect that would ruin a newsletter might be just the thing for a record cover. Know when you can safely sacrifice legibility for artistic effect. * Keep in mind the final reproduction process you'll be using. Some effects (like reversed type, white on black) can be hard to read off an ordinary 300-dpi laser, but will work if finals are done on a high-resolution printer, such as a Linotronic. Will the pages be photocopied? Offset? Onto rough paper, shiny paper? All these factors can and should influence your choice of fonts and how you use them. * Running some comparative tests is a good idea. Better to blow off a few sheets of laser paper now than to see a problem after thousands of copies are made. * No one can teach you font aesthetics; it must be learned by example. Look at beautiful magazines, posters, books with wide eyes, so that you can see how it's done. Examine ugly printed matter critically and consider why it's hard to read. * Good rules of thumb: * If you need a condensed font, find one that was designed that way, rather than scaling an existing font down to a percentage. Any scaling distorts a font's design; excessive scaling interferes with legibility - this goes for widening as well as narrowing. Extended faces do exist, although they aren't as common as condensed ones. * Many people feel that bold or italic type, or type in ALL CAPS, is more legible: "This is the most important part of the newsletter, let's put it in bold." In fact, legibility studies show that such type is actually harder to read in bulk. Keep the text in a normal style and weight, and find another way to emphasize it - box it, illustrate it, run it in color, position it focally. * Too much reverse type - white on black - is hard on the eyes. It can be a nice effect if used sparingly. Don't reverse a serif font, though - its details will tend to fill in. Stick to reversing bold sans-serifs, and remember to space them out a bit more than usual. * It is always safest to use a plain serif font for large amounts of text. Because Times is widely used, it doesn't mean it should be avoided. Fonts like Palatino, Times, Century Old Style are deservedly popular because people can read a lot of text set in such faces without strain. Don't expect anyone to read extensive text set in a condensed font. * As point size gets bigger, track tighter, and (if the software allows) reduce the spacebands as well. A spaceband in a headline size (anything over 14 point) should be about as wide as a letter "i". * If you only have a few large headlines, hand-kerning the type, pair by pair, can make the end result much more pleasing. Besides, working with fonts this closely makes them familiar. * Column width and justification are major elements in design. The narrower the column, the smaller the type can be; wide rows of small type are very hard to read. Often it's a better idea to set narrow columns flush left rather than justified, otherwise large gaps can fall where hyphenation isn't possible. * Use curly quotes. * Don't put two spaces at the end of a line (. ) instead of (. ) when using a proportionally spaced font. Subject: 1.23. Acknowledgements The moderators would like to express their gratitude to the whole community for providing insightful answers to innumerable questions. In particular, the following people (listed alphabetically) have contributed directly to this FAQ (apologies, in advance if anyone has been forgotten): Masumi Abe Glenn Adams Borris Balzer Charles A. Bigelow David J. Birnbaum Tim Bradshaw Arlen Britton Stan Brown Scott Brumage Lee Cambell Terry Carroll Ari Davidow Pat Farrell James Matthew Farrow Stephen Friedl Peter J. Gentry Yossi Gil Timothy Golobic Kesh Govinder Rick Heli Jeremy Henderson Henry ??? Gary Berthold K.P. Horn Don Hosek Bharathi Jagadeesh Chang Jin-woong Darrell Leland David Lemon Jon ??? ??? David Mandl Kate McDonnell George Moore Robert Morris Stephen Moye Terry O'Donnell Stephen Peters Bill Phillips Jim Reese Bill Ricker Liam Quin Henry Schneiker Bill Shirley Cameron Smith Werenfried Spit Anthony Starks Ike Stoddard Danny Thomas Anders Thulin Erik-Jan Vens Amanda Walker Subject: 1.24. A Brief Introduction to Typography Space, time, and bandwidth are too limiting to provide a complete introduction to typography in this space. I'd be very willing to make one available for anonymous ftp, if you want to write one, but I'm not going to write it-I have neither the time nor the expertise. However, the following description of Times, Helvetica, and Courier will suffice for a start. For more information, several books on typography are listed in the bibliography. Comments by Laurence Penney: ============================ Laurence Penney offers the following description of Times, Helvetica, and Courier: Times is a typeface designed in the 1930s for the Times newspaper in London and is now used widely in books, magazines and DTP. Its design is based on the typographical principles evolved since Roman times (upper case) and the 16th century (lower case). It is called a TRANSITIONAL typeface, after the typefaces of the 17th century which it resembles. Like all typefaces designed for typesetting large quantities of text, it is proportionally spaced: the i takes about a third the width of an M. Personally I don't like Times too much and prefer the more elegant Garamond and Baskerville, but these will probably cost you money... Note: The Transitionals came after the Old Styles (like Garamond) and before the Moderns (like Bodoni). Helvetica is an example of a SANS-SERIF typeface. These first appeared in the late 19th century in Germany and flourished in the 1920s and 30s, when they were regarded as the future of typography. It's more a geometric design than the humanist design of Gill Sans, but less geometric than Avant Garde and Futura. To my mind it lacks elegance, and Adrian Frutiger's Univers shows how this kind of typeface should be done. (Just compare the B, R, Q, a, g of Univers and Helvetica to see what I mean - and don't you just love Univers's superbly interpreted ampersand ?!) Helvetica is one of the few fonts that is improved by its BOLD version. Another interesting approach to sans-serif is Optima, by Hermann Zapf, which keeps the stroke-weight variations which sans-serifs usually reject. Use sans-serif fonts for the same applications as Times, above, but where you're less concerned with elegance, and more with a functional appearance - they're generally reckoned to be slightly less legible than good serifed fonts. They're also very suitable for display work. Courier is a typeface derived from typewriter styles. It should ONLY be used when you want to simulate this effect (e.g. when writing letters Courier usually appears "friendlier" than Times). Like all typewriter fonts, it is MONOSPACED (characters all have the same width) and is thus suitable for typesetting computer programs. However there are nicer looking monospace fonts than Courier (which has oversize serifs), that still remain distinct from the text fonts like Times and Helvetica. A good one is OCR-B, designed by Frutiger. Note that monospaced fonts are less economical on space than proportional fonts. [ed: Following the original posting of this message, Laurence Penny and Jason Kim discussed the issue privately. The following summary of their discussion may serve to clarify some of the more subtle points. My thanks to Laurence and Jason for allowing me to include this in the FAQ.] ----------------------------- LP-1> The Transitionals came after the Old Styles (like Garamond) and before the Moderns (like Bodoni). JK> Not necessarily true! Ideologically, yes, but not chronologically. I believe, for example, that Bodoni predates New Century Schoolbook or some such typeface. LP-2> What I meant by "X came after Y" was "the first examples of X appeared after the first examples of Y" - it's called precis. Some people still make steam trains, but you can still say "Steam engines came before diesels." This is chronological, not ideological in my book. ----------------------------- LP-1> Another interesting approach to sans-serif is Optima, by Hermann Zapf, which keeps the stroke-weight variations which sans-serifs usually reject. Use sans-serif fonts for the same applications as Times, above, but where you're less concerned with elegance, and more with a functional appearance - they're generally reckoned to be slightly less legible than good seriffed fonts. They're also very suitable for display work. JK> Slightly? I have several textbooks typeset by utter fools and they are a pain in the ass (and eyes) to read! Please don't encourage anyone to use Optima (or any sans serif fonts for that matter) "for the same applications as Times," which, need I remind you, was designed for *newspaper* work!! LP-2> OK, maybe I was a little over-generous to Univers, Helvetica, etc., but I think variation is extremely important in typography. Have you ever read the British magazine "CAR" ? That uses Helvetica light (I think) in a very legible and attractive way, IMO. I agree, though, Optima is crappy for text, but it's a very valuable experiment and looks beautiful when printed in high quality for titling, etc. And yes, *books* in Helvetica are generally awful. ----------------------------- JK> Serifs have been scientifically shown to be a *lot* easier on the reader, as they guide the eyes along the lines. LP-2> In all tests I've seen the serifs have always won the day, but only with certain seriffed fonts, and fonts like Univers aren't far behind. The "tracking" advantage for serif fonts is reduced when you're talking about narrow newspaper/magazine columns. ----------------------------- JK> You wrote a pretty short and partial history of type. Why ignore the roots of type (blackletter) as well as the climax (moderns-give an explanation) and subsequent 'post-modern' revivals? LP-2> I was just talking about the place the 3 most common DTP types hold in the history of typography, and a few associated pitfalls. It wasn't meant as a "history of typography" at all. Please feel free to provide such a history yourself. JK> I think any short list of specific faces is incomplete without mention of Palatino, the most popular Old Style revival in existence. LP-2> Do you? To my mind Palatino is grossly over used. You must agree it looks bad for dense text. It isn't a proper "oldstyle revival" at all, more of a "calligraphic interpretation" of it. Zapf designed it as a display face, and wasn't too concerned about lining up the serifs (check out the "t"). And it just *has* to be printed on 1200dpi devices (at least) to look good in small sizes. OK then, maybe a short list is incomplete without a caution NOT to use Palatino... JK> Also, if this is meant to be a "quick history/user guide for those fairly new to using fonts on desktop publishing systems," then I would recommend more directions about the proper uses of certain faces (e.g., Goudy for shaped text, Peignot for display *only*) and styles (e.g., italics for editorial comments, all-caps for basically nothing). LP-2> Okay, okay. I was only sharing a few ideas, not trying to write a book. Surely you agree that the 3 typefaces I chose are by far the most commonly used and abused these days? I don't think a discussion of Goudy or Peignot fits in very well here, unless we're hoping to make a very wide-ranging FAQL. Regarding styles: first, italics are used principally for *emphasis* (rather than bold in running text); second, all good books have a few small caps here and there, don't they? - all mine do... JK> Sorry if I come across as critical. I think the idea of making a FAQL is a good one, as is your effort. We just have to make sure it doesn't give any newbies the wrong impressions and further perpetuate the typographical morass we're facing today. LP-2> Sorry if I come across as defensive, but I stand by what I said and object to the suggestion that I am "perpetuating the typographical morass". (I don't know if you really intended this - apologies if you didn't.) Comments by Don Hosek: ====================== Don Hosek offers the following additional notes: The "Times" in most printers is actually a newer version of the font than Monotype's "Times New Roman" which it is originally based on. Walter Tracy's _Letters of Credit_ gives an excellent history of the face which was based on Plantin and in the original cutting has metrics matching the original face almost exactly. Another interesting note about the face is that it is almost a completely different design in the bold: this is due to the fact that old-styles are difficult to design as a bold. Incidentally, the classification of Times as a transitional is not firm. It likely is placed there by some type taxonomists (most notably Alexander Lawson) because of the bold and a few minor features. Others, myself included, think of it as a old style. The typeface listed in the Adobe catalog as Times Europa was a new face commissioned in 1974 to replace the old Times (whose 50th birthday was this past October 3rd). Hermann Zapf is not particularly pleased with any of the phototypesetting versions of Optima. As a lead face, Optima is very beautiful. His typeface "World", used in the World Book Encyclopedia is one recutting for photocomp which improves the font somewhat. He is on record as saying that if he had been asked, he would have designed a new font for the technology. Subject: 1.25. Pronounciation of Font Names Below each of the following font names, a suggested English pronounciation is given. This information was collected from a (relatively) long discussion on comp.fonts. If you disagree, or have other suggestions, please let me know. Arnold Boecklin =============== "Ar" as in car, "nold" as in "old" with an "n" on the front. "Boeck" is tricker. The "oe" is actually an umlaut "o" in German, and the closest sound to most English speakers is an "er". So try "Berklin" if you want to come close to the original. Otherwise, just say "Boklin", with a long o, like in "boat". Benguiat ======== Ben-Gat. This according to an ITC brochure. Courier ======= I would pronounce Courier not like Jim Courier, but the French way: Ku-rie, where "Ku" is pronounced like "coo", only short, and "rie" is pronounced "ree-eh". Didot ===== Stressed at the last syllable. "Dee-DOOH" (not nasal). Fette Fraktur ============= "Fet" as in "get" with a "te" that rhymes with "way". "Frak" rhymes with "mock", and "tur" with "tour". Fenice ====== Feh-nee'-chey Garamond ======== "Gara-": Use a french "r" instead of an english one. Both "a"s are pronounced like the "u" in the word "up". "-mond": the last syllable is stressed, and you don't pronounce the "n" and "d", but the whole "ond" is a nasal "o". Hold your nose closed and say "Ooh", then you get the right sound. The "ant" in "Avant-Garde" is very similar to this sound, it is a nasal situated between "a" and "o". Helvetica ========= Hell-veh'-ti-ka Koch Roman ========== Pronounced like scottish `Loch', but with K instead of L. LaTeX ===== Lamport lists lah'-tech, lah-tech', lay'-tech and lay'-tecks as valid on p.4. Last I talked to him he'd settled into lay'-tech which has always been my pronunciation as well. Somewhere, I heard that LL does explicitly rule out L.A.-tech, but he's from northern California which explains a lot. Mos Eisley ========== moss eyes-lee Novarese ======== No-vahr-ay'-zay Palatino ======== pa-la-TEEN-oh Peignot ======= There's some contention here, suggested pronouncations: pay-nyoh' "P" like "P" in `Post", "ei" like "a" in "fan", "gn" like "n" in "noon" plus "y" in "yes", "ot" - long, closed "o" (I don't know English examples), stressed. "P" like "P" in `Post", "ei" like "a" in "many", "gn" like "n" in "noon" plus "y" in "yes", "ot" - long, closed "o" (I don't know English examples), stressed. Sabon ===== Sah-bon' TeX === Rhymes with Blech, (as in "Blech, that tasted awfull!") Veljovic ======== Vel'-yo-vitch Zapf ==== Like "tsapf". The "a" is pronounced like a short version of the well known tongue-depresser vowel "aaahhh". Perhaps a better English analogy would be the "o" in "hop" or "hops". This is Info file comp.fonts.faq.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the input file FAQ.texinfo. Subject: 1.26. What does `lorem ipsum dolor' mean? `Lorem ipsum dolor' is the first part of a nonsense paragraph sometimes used to demonstrate a font. It has been well established that if you write anything as a sample, people will spend more time reading the copy than looking at the font. The "gibberish" below is sufficiently like ordinary text to demonstrate a font but doesn't distract the reader. Hopefully. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetaur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum Et harumd und lookum like Greek to me, dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda. Et tam neque pecun modut est neque nonor et imper ned libidig met, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed ut labore et dolore magna aliquam makes one wonder who would ever read this stuff? Bis nostrud exercitation ullam mmodo consequet. Duis aute in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. At vver eos et accusam dignissum qui blandit est praesent luptatum delenit aigue excepteur sint occae. Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Nam libe soluta nobis eligent optio est congue nihil impedit doming id Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, set eiusmod tempor incidunt et labore et dolore magna aliquam. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerc. Irure dolor in reprehend incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse molestaie cillum. Tia non ob ea soluad incommod quae egen ium improb fugiend. Officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum Et harumd dereud facilis est er expedit distinct. Nam liber te conscient to factor tum poen legum odioque civiuda et tam. Neque pecun modut est neque nonor et imper ned libidig met, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed ut labore et dolore magna aliquam is nostrud exercitation ullam mmodo consequet. Duis aute in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. At vver eos et accusam dignissum qui blandit est praesent. Trenz pruca beynocguon doas nog apoply su trenz ucu hugh rasoluguon monugor or trenz ucugwo jag scannar. Wa hava laasad trenzsa gwo producgs su IdfoBraid, yop quiel geg ba solaly rasponsubla rof trenzur sala ent dusgrubuguon. Offoctivo immoriatoly, hawrgasi pwicos asi sirucor.Thas sirutciun applios tyu thuso itoms ghuso pwicos gosi sirucor in mixent gosi sirucor ic mixent ples cak ontisi sowios uf Zerm hawr rwivos. Unte af phen neige pheings atoot Prexs eis phat eit sakem eit vory gast te Plok peish ba useing phen roxas. Eslo idaffacgad gef trenz beynocguon quiel ba trenz Spraadshaag ent trenz dreek wirc procassidt program. Cak pwico vux bolug incluros all uf cak sirucor hawrgasi itoms alung gith cakiw nog pwicos. Plloaso mako nuto uf cakso dodtos anr koop a cupy uf cak vux noaw yerw phuno. Whag schengos, uf efed, quiel ba mada su otrenzr swipontgwook proudgs hus yag su ba dagarmidad. Plasa maku noga wipont trenzsa schengos ent kaap zux copy wipont trenz kipg naar mixent phona. Cak pwico siructiun ruos nust apoply tyu cak UCU sisulutiun munityuw uw cak UCU-TGU jot scannow. Trens roxas eis ti Plokeing quert loppe eis yop prexs. Piy opher hawers, eit yaggles orn ti sumbloat alohe plok. Su havo loasor cakso tgu pwuructs tyu InfuBwain, ghu gill nug bo suloly sispunsiblo fuw cakiw salo anr ristwibutiun. Hei muk neme eis loppe. Treas em wankeing ont sime ploked peish rof phen sumbloat syug si phat phey gavet peish ta paat ein pheeir sumbloats. Aslu unaffoctor gef cak siructiun gill bo cak spiarshoot anet cak GurGanglo gur pwucossing pwutwam. Ghat dodtos, ig pany, gill bo maro tyu ucakw suftgasi pwuructs hod yot tyubo rotowminor. Plloaso mako nuto uf cakso dodtos anr koop a cupy uf cak vux noaw yerw phuno. Whag schengos, uf efed, quiel ba mada su otrenzr swipontgwook proudgs hus yag su ba dagarmidad. Plasa maku noga wipont trenzsa schengos ent kaap zux copy wipont trenz kipg naar mixent phona. Cak pwico siructiun ruos nust apoply tyu cak UCU sisulutiun munityuw uw cak UCU-TGU jot scannow. Trens roxas eis ti Plokeing quert loppe eis yop prexs. Piy opher hawers, eit yaggles orn ti sumbloat alohe plok. Su havo loasor cakso tgu pwuructs tyu. [This version was found on CompuServe. It differs from other versions I have seen in print, increasingly so as you go along. It almost looks computer-generated, doesn't it?]