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Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: General Info (3/6)
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Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts.
It addresses both general font questions and questions that
are specific to a particular platform.
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Archive-name: fonts-faq/part3
Version: 2.1.5
Subject: 1.18. Bibliography
Editors note: the following books have been suggested by readers of
comp.fonts. They are listed in no particular order. I have lost the
citations for some of the submissions. If you wrote a review that
appears below and you aren't credited, please let norm know.
I have decided that this is the best section for pointers to other font
resources (specs and other documents, for example). These appear after
the traditional bibliographic entries. As usual I will happily accept
entries for this section. As of 9/92, the only files listed are the
TrueType font information files available from Microsoft.
Bill Ricker contributed the following general notes:
The Watson-Guptill, Godine, and Dover publishers all have many
typography titles. Godine and Dover tend to be excellent; W-G tends
toward 'how-to' books which are good for basics and juried Annuals of
job work.
Hermann Zapf and his Design Philosophy, Society of Typographic Arts,
Chicago, 1987.
On Stone -- The Art and Use of Typography on the Personal Computer,
Sumner Stone, Bedford Arts, 1991.
Of the Just Shaping of Letters, Albrecht Durer, isbn 0-486-21306-4.
First published in 1525 as part of his theoretical treatise on applied
geometry, "The Art of Measurment".
Champ Flevry, Geofroy Troy.
First published in 1529 Troy attempts, in this book, to design an ideal
Roman alphabet upon geometrical and aesthetic principles.
The Alphabet & Elements of Lettering, Frederic W. Goudy, isbn
0-486-20792-7. Revised 1942 edition.
This very interesting book looks at the history of letter shapes as
well font design.
The Mac is Not a Typewriter, Robin Williams, Peachpit Press.
A good, clear explanation of what typography is, and how to get it from
your computer. Mac-specific, but full of excellent general advice. I
think there's also a PC version. Available at most computer bookstores
Rhyme and Reason: A Typographic Novel, Erik Spiekermann, H. Berthold AG,
ISBN 3-9800722-5-8.
Printing Types (2 vols), Daniel Berkely Updike, Dover Press.
Affordable edition of the most readable history of type, lots of
illustrations.
Notes: Both the Dover and Harvard U. P. editions were 2 volumes. The
Dover editions were paperback and the Harvard hardback. It appears
that the Dover edition is out of print. Collectible HUP editions are
not cheap although later HUP editions may be had. Most libraries have
later HUP and Dover editions. If someone knows of a source, please
pass it along.
The Art of Hand Lettering, Helm Wotzkow, Dover Press, reprint from 1952.
Looking Good In Print, Roger C. Parker, Ventana Press, ISBN:
0-940087-32-4.
Well, as a beginner's book, [it] isn't bad. I can't say that I agree
with the author's tastes all the time, but he at least gives some good
examples. Also there are some nice _Publish_-style makeovers. Don
Hosek <
[email protected]>
Book Design: A Practical Introduction, Douglas Martin, Van Nostrand
Reinhold, New York: 1989. 206pp.
Along with Jan White's book (see below), this provides a fairly
complete guide to book design. Martin's book is somewhat more
conservative in outlook and also reflects his UK background. Don Hosek
<
[email protected]>
Digital Typography: An Introduction to Type and Composition for Computer
System Design, Richard Rubinstein, Addison-Wesley, Reading,
Massachusetts: 1988. 340pp.
An interesting, technological approach to typography which is worth
reading although not necessarily always worth believing. A not
insubstantial portion of the text is dedicated to representing type on
a CRT display and Rubinstein devotes some time to expressing
characteristics of typography numerically. Don Hosek
<
[email protected]>
Graphic Design for the Electronic Age, Jan V. White, Watson-Guptill
Publications, New York: 1988. 212pp.
A good handbook for document design. In a well-organized approach,
White covers the principles for laying out most of the typographics
features of a technical document. White is a bit overeager to embrace
sans-serif types and in places his layout ideas seem a bit garish, but
it's still a quite worthwhile book. Don Hosek
<
[email protected]>
Xerox Publishing Standards: A Manual of Style and Design, Watson-Guptill
Publications, New York: 1988. 400pp.
Overall, a disappointing book. It is divided into four sections of
widely varying intent: "Publishing Process," "Document Organization,"
"Writing and Style" and "Visual Design." None of them is really
adequate for the task and all are highly centered on the Xerox method
for publishing. As a guide to Xerox' process, it succeeds, but as a
manual for general use, it falls far short. In print. Don Hosek
<
[email protected]>
Methods of Book Design (3rd edition), Hugh Williamson, Yale University
Press, New Haven: 1983. 408pp.
It is a bit out-of-date as regards technology, but on issues relating
purely to design it is comprehensive and definitive. Well, I suppose
it could be argued that printing technology influences design - e.g.
some types look fine in metal but lousy in digital imagesetting - and
therefore a book that is out-of-date in technology can't really be
"definitive" in matters of design either. In any event, _Methods_ is
more than adequate for a beginner's needs. My paper-bound copy (ISBN
0-300-03035-5) was \$13.95; cheap at twice the price! Cameron Smith
<
[email protected]>
The Thames & Hudson Manual of typography, Rauri McLean, Thames & Hudson
An excellent book if you start getting more interested in type. Look
for Rauri McLean's other books after this one... Liam R.E. Quin
<
[email protected]>
Typography and Why it matters, Fernand Baudin.
There is no better introduction than [it]. It's not a primer on
subjects such as "what does Avant Garde look like," or "This is a good
font for books." It is a good primer on the things you need to know
before the rest should be considered. He's a lovely writer, to boot.
[My copy is at work, so I may have munged the title-look up Baudin in
"Books in Print" and improvise :-)]
Ari Davidow <
[email protected]>
Better Type, Betty Binns
It's definitely not a lightweight beginner's introduction, but I've
found [it] to be indispensable. It's a large-format hardcover, but you
can find it remaindered for cheap if you look around. The book goes
into great detail about how factors like line spacing, line length,
point size, and design of typeface (evenness of stroke weight,
x-height, etc.) affect readability. When you've gotten the basics out
of the way and want to learn more about the fine nuances of type color,
this book is an absolute must. David Mandl <
[email protected]>
Printing Types: An Introduction..., S. Lawson, (revised) 1990
I'd also recommend Alexander S. Lawson's books especially /Printing
Types: An Intro.../ (revised), 1990, which includes electronic types
now. Bill Ricker <
[email protected]>
Tally of Types, Stanley Morrison, Cambridge University Press.
A keepsake for CUP on the Monotype fonts he'd acquired for them when he
was Type Advisor to both Brit.Monotype & CUP (Cambridge University
Press, Cambs.UK), which discusses his hindsight on some of the great
revival fonts and some of the better new fonts. Bill Ricker
<
[email protected]>
Chicago Manual of Style, University of Chicago Press, 1982;
ISBN 0-226-10390-0.
The chapter on Design and Typography is most directly relevant, but
there are a lot of hints scattered all through the Chicago Manual on
making your words more readable and your pages more attractive. Stan
Brown <
[email protected]>
X Window System Administrator's Guide (O'Reilly X Window System Guides,
volume 8), O'Reilly
It gives advice about setting up fonts, etc. Liam Quin <
[email protected]>
How Bodoni intended his types to look Bodoni, Giambattista. Fregi e
Majuscole Incise e Fuse de ... Bodoni, Harvard University Library
(repr).
Inexpensive collectible, reproduced as a keepsake by the Houghton
Library at Harvard. [wdr]
The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst, Hartley & Marks
0-88179-033-8 pbk \$15, Z246.B74 1992 0-88179-110-5 cloth, \$25.
A typography for desktop publishers who want to absorb some style.
Informed by the historical european tradition and the desktop
advertising, tempered by oriental yin-yang and examples. A page-turner
with repeat-read depth.
The only book I've seen that discusses page proportions that admits
there are more than three ways that describes how to find one that
feels good for your page. [wdr]
Hermann Zapf on the cover-blurb: "All desktop typographers should study
this book. ... I wish to see this book become the Typographers' Bible."
Printing It, Clifford Burke, Ballantine, 0-345-02694-2.
Manual for the hobby letterpress printer. [wdr]
Twentieth Century Type Designers, Sebastian Carter, Taplinger, 1987.
Discusses the talented adaptators of old faces to machine caster and
film/laser, as well as the designers of new works. Indexed? [wdr]
Design with Type, Carl Dair, University of Toronto Press, 0-8020-1426-7.
In print again (or still?); the ISBN above may be stale.
A great introduction to the issues of practicality and taste that
confront the users of type. A prized possession. I only regret that the
book does not include among the excerpts from his Westvaco pamphlets
the Seven Don'ts of Typography. [wdr]
Typography 6: The Annual of the Type Directors Club, Susan Davis, ed.,
Watson-Guptill, 0-8230-5540-x.
Specimens of Type Faces in the U.S. G.P.O., John J. Deviny, director.,
US G.P.O.
Practice of Typography: Plain Printing Types, Theodore Low De Vinne,
Century Co./DeVinne Press.
One of the earlier critical studies, in four volumes of which this is
my personal favorite, and still a classic reference. If one wants to
understand 18th and 19th century typography in context, this writer
lived the transition from eclectic to standard sizes, and comments
with taste. [wdr]
An Essay on Typography, Eric Gill, Godine, 0-87923-762-7.
The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering, Frederic W. Goudy, Dorset Press
(Marboro Books), 0-88029-330-6
Lovely. A wonderful way to learn Goudy's taste.
Stanley Morison Displayed, Herbert Jones, Frederick Muller Ltd / W,
0-584-10352-2.
Lovely. A wonderful way to learn Morrison's taste.
Printing Types: An Introduction..., Alexander S. Lawson et. al., Beacon
1971,?Godine? 1990; (2nd Ed includes electronic types now)
"Good introduction to comparisons of typefaces, with a detailed history
and a key family or face of each general category. Denounces rigid
indexes of type faces." [wdr]
Anatomy of a Typeface, Alexander Lawson, Godine, 0-87923-333-8,
Z250.L34 1990
Deep description of the authors' favorite exemplar and its influences
and relatives in each type category. It follows, without explicating,
the category system developed in the prior book. [wdr]
Types of Typefacs and how to recognize them, J. Ben Lieberman,
Sterling, 1968
"This isn't very good really, but it does give lots of examples of the
main categories." [Liam] [Old bibliographies praised this one, but I
haven't seen it so I can't comment.- wdr]
Tally of Types (& other titles), Stanley Morrison, Cambridge U. Press.
A keepsake for CUP on the Monotype fonts he'd acquired for them when he
was Type Advisor to both Brit. Monotype & CUP (Cambridge University
Press, Cambs.UK), which discusses his hindsight on some of the great
revival fonts and some of the better new fonts. [wdr]
Rookledge's International Type Finder 2nd, Perfect, Christopher and
Gordon Rookledge, Ed Moyer Bell Ltd / Rizzoli, 1-55921-052-4,
Z250.P42 [1st Ed was NY: Beil 1983]
"Lg. trade pb. Indexed by stylistic & characteristic features. Shows
A-Z, a-z, 0-9 in primary figures, whether lining or ranging.
Particularly distinctive sorts are marked for ease of comparison.
Separate tables collect the distinctive characters for assistance in
identifying a sample." [wdr]
English Printers' Ornaments, Henry R. Plomer, Burt Franklin
Paragraphs on Printing, Bruce Rogers, [Rudge] Dover, 0-486-23817-2
Digital Typography: An Introduction to Type and Composition for
Computer System Design, Richard Rubinstein, Addison-Wesley, Reading,
Massachusetts: 1988. 340pp.
For people who are disappointed with how the type looks on the laser,
this book explains the subleties of that medium and of the screen that
others miss. This is a study of the Human Factors of computer
typographic systems. [wdr]
The Case for Legibility, John Ryder, The Bodley Head, 0-370-30158-7,
Z250.A4
The Solotype Catalog of 4,147 Display typefaces, Dan X. Solo, Dover,
0-486-27169-2, Z250.5.D57S654 19
"Working catalog of a specialty Graphics Arts shop. They use
proprietary optical special effects techniques to get Desktop
Publishing effects, and more, without the laser-printer grain. Great
listing of 19th Century Decorated Types - probably the largest
collection in the world. Prices to order headlines from them are NOT
cheap however. Their services are for professional or serious hobby
use only. Solo's previous Dover books show some number of complete
alphabets of a general peculiar style; this one shows small fragments
of his entire usable collection, important as an index. (According to
private correspondence, they have more faces that have not yet been
restored to usable condition.) Not well indexed, but indexed." [wdr]
Stop Stealing Sheep & find out how type works, Erik Spiekermann & E.M.
Ginger., Adobe Press, 1993
Introductory, motivational. If you wonder why there are so many type
faces in the world, this is the book for you! [Liam] [The title refers
to the old joke: "A man who would letterspace lowercase would also
steal sheep." [wdr]]
The Art & Craft of Handmade Paper, Vance Studley, Dover, 0-486-26421-1,
TS1109.S83 1990
Letters of Credit, Walter Tracey, Godine Press
"I can't recommend this too highly. It's not as introductory as the
Sheep Book, but conveys a feeling of love and respect for the letter
forms, and covers a lot of ground very, very well." [Liam]
Printing Types: Their History, Forms & Use, Daniel Berkely Updike,
Harvard University Press, reprint by Dover.
The standard reference. Tour-de-force history of type and type-styles.
A trifle conservative in its biases, but typography is conservative for
good reason: readability. Check the addenda for his final words on
newer faces. [wdr]
1. I believe the Dover edition to be 3 vols Pbk; both the collectable
and later Harvard U.P. editions were two vols hbk.
2. I am informed by my bookseller & Books In Print that the Dover
edition is out of print. *sigh* If a source be known, let me know.
Collectible HUP eds are not cheap, although later HUP eds may be had.
Most libararies have later HUP or Dover eds. [wdr]
Modern Encyclopedia of Typefaces, 1960-90, Lawrence W. Wallis, Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 0-442-30809-4, Z250.W238 1990
"Gives examples of most typefaces, almost all digital, designed &
distributed in the last 30 years. Cross indexed by foundry and
designer, and sources and looks-likes. Some historical bits. Shows
full a-z,A-Z,0-9, a few points (punctuation); and 0-9 again if both
lining and oldstyle supplied. Only complaint is that it omits small
caps even from what few fonts have 'em and the accented characters, of
which most have some but too few. List \$25." [wdr]
About Alphabets: Some Marginal Notes on Type Design, Hermann Zapf, MIT
Press, 0-262-74003-6
Hermann Zapf & His Design Philosophy, Hermann Zapf, Society of
Typographic Arts, Chicago
"Anything about, by, or vaguely connected with Hermann Zapf is probably
worth reading several times :-)" [Liam]
Manuale Typographicum, Hermann Zapf, MIT Press, 0-262-74004-4
There are two books of this title (portrait and landscape); this is
the only mass-market edition of either. Both are Zapf's selections of
interesting typographical quotations in his inimitable display
typography. [wdr]
Microsoft Windows 3.1 Programmer's Reference, Microsoft Press.
Documents the Panose system of typeface classification. Probably
contains a general discussion of TrueType under MS Windows 3.1.
Introduction to Typography, 3rd ed, Faber, London, 1962.
A very good introduction for any beginner. Also discusses things like
illustrations and cover design, although not in great detail.
Simon was a purist, as the editor of the 3rd edition remarks. He did
not mention phototypesetting in his original edition, but some
observations on its uses and abuses have since been added. Anders
Thulin <
[email protected]>
Eve Damaziere contributes:
Twentieth Century Type, Lewis Blackwell, Calmann & King, London (GB),
1992. Chez Flammarion (1993 - 256 p.) pour l'edition francaise (french
edition).
It's a very intelligent account of the history of type in our century,
and its links to art, technics and politics (history). Lots of
pictures, too. At the end of it, a "description and classification of
types", from the 15th century up to now : the author follows the
classification of Maximilien Vox (1952), a french graphist.
[ed: additional bibliographic information appears in the file
"Additional-bibliography" on
http://www.ora.com/homepages/comp.fonts/FAQ.html. I have not yet had
time to integrate this bibliographic information into the FAQ]
Subject: 1.19. Font Encoding Standards
What is a character set?
========================
A character set is a collection of symbols in a specific order. Some
common character sets are ASCII and ISO Latin 1.
What is an encoding vector?
===========================
The term "encoding vector" is most frequently heard in the context of
PostScript fonts. An encoding vector embodies a particular character
set, it is simply the list of all the characters in the character set
in the order in which they occur.
Most font technologies limit a particular encoding to 256 characters;
an Adobe Type 1 font, for example, may contain an arbitrary number of
characters, but no single encoding vector can contain more than 256.
Some common encodings are:
* Adobe Standard Encoding - the default encoding of many PS Type1
fonts
* Apple Standard Encoding - the default encoding on a Mac
* US ASCII - seven bit ASCII
* ISO Latin-1 - an eight bit multi-national character
set encoding
* Cork Encoding - the TeX community's eight bit standard
* FC - an eight bit encoding for African
languages
* TeX text - the TeX community's seven bit defacto
standard (CMR)
Where can I get them?
=====================
You can get tables showing the layout of many standard character sets
from the Kermit distribution (via anonymous ftp from
watsun.cc.columbia.edu in /kermit/charsets.
Subject: 1.20. PostScript
What About PostScript UNIQUEIDs?
================================
This section was constructed from a posting by Johannes Schmidt-Fischer
in Jun 1993.
All PostScript Type 1 fonts should contain a UniqueId. This is a
number which should be, as the name suggests, unique (at least among
the fonts that you download to the printer at any given time).
There are many PostScript fonts on the 'Net which have identical
UniqeIds. If two of these fonts are downloaded to the same printer at
the same time, attempts to use either font may cause the wrong
characters to be printed.
In a nutshell, the reason that the wrong characters may be printed is
that the printer may be storing the rendered glyphs in its font cache,
addressed by UniqueID. So, if two fonts, /Foo and /Bar, both have
UniqueID=5 and /Foo's 10pt "A" is currently in the cache, a request for
/Bar's 10pt "A" will cause the wrong character to be printed. Rather
than rendering /Bar's "A" from its (correct and unambiguous) outline,
the printer will note that the cache contains a 10pt "A" for font 5 and
will copy it from the cache (resulting in /Foo's "A" printing for /Bar).
Adobe's "Red Book" contains a detailed discussion of this topic.
Can a Type 1 Font Be Shaded?
============================
David Lemon contributes:
There are three ways to get grey into a font. The first is to make a
series of Type 1 fonts, each of which will be used for a single shade
of grey (or other color). The user then sets copies of the characters
on top of each other, selecting each and setting it to the shade
desired. It's a bit inconvenient (and won't work in a word processor)
but it gets full resolution, good hinting and gives the user lots of
control. This is the approach Adobe has used in its "chromatic" fonts
(as in Adobe Wood Type 3 and Copal) and is viable for both Type 1 and
TrueType formats.
As an alternative, the designer can approximate shades of grey in the
characters by using many little dots (a sort of halftone effect) or
lines (as in cross-hatching). This leads to pretty complex characters,
which may choke some rasterizers, and won't hint well. As with the
first method, this is viable (more or less) for both Type 1 and
TrueType.
The third method is more direct but limited. In this approach, the
designer/producer creates the shades of grey in a font-editing program.
The limitation is that such a font must be written in Type 3, which is
a generalized PostScript format (Type 1 and TrueType recognize only
solid shapes). Such a font won't be supported by ATM, so your screen
display will suffer and you'll be restricted to PostScript printers. On
the plus side, your greys will be rendered at the full resolution of
the printer you use.
Subject: 1.21. TrueType
George Moore announces the following information regarding TrueType
fonts:
"I am pleased to announce that there is now one central location for all
official Microsoft TrueType information available on the Internet. The
9 files listed below are available for anonymous ftp access on
ftp.microsoft.com in the /developr/drg/TrueType-Info directory. The
most important of those files is the TrueType Font Files
Specifications, a 400 page book which describes in excruciating detail
how to build a TrueType font. Other information is also available in
the same directory and other files will be added from time to time.
For those people who do not have ftp access to the Internet can find the
same information available for downloading on Compuserve in the
Microsoft developer relations forum (GO MSDR) in the TrueType library.
Please be aware that the TrueType specifications is a copyrighted work
of Microsoft and Apple and can not be resold for profit.
TrueType developer information files on ftp.microsoft.com:
1. ttspec1.zip, ttspec2.zip, and ttspec3.zip
The TrueType Specification:
These three compressed files contain the "TrueType Font Files
Specifications", a 400 page book complete with illustrations which
details how to construct a TrueType font from scratch (or build
a tool to do so), the TrueType programming language, and the
complete format of each sub-table contained in the .TTF file.
These documents are stored in Word for Windows 2.0 format and
require Windows 3.1 for printing. See the "readme.doc" (in
ttspec1.zip) for printing instructions. Requires 2.5MB of disk
space after uncompression.
This manual is a superset of the similar specifications from Apple
and has added information specific to Windows that is not
present in the Apple version.
2. ttfdump.zip
An MS-DOS executable which will dump the contents of a TrueType
font out in a human-readable fashion. It allows you to dump the
entire font, or just specific sub-tables. This tool, combined
with the specifications above, allows very effective debugging
or exploration of any TrueType font. For example, to dump the
contents of the 'cmap' (character code to glyph index mapping)
table, enter:
ttfdump fontname.ttf -tcmap -nx
Entering "ttfdump" with no options will give you a help message.
3. ttfname.zip
Example C source code on how to parse the contents of a TrueType
font. Although this particular example will open up the file
and locate the font name contained within the 'name' table, it
could be readily adapted to parse any other structure in the
file. This compressed zip file also contains many useful
include files which have pre-defined structures set up for the
internal tables of a TrueType font file. This code may be
useful for developers who wish to parse the TrueType data stream
returned by the GetFontData() API in Windows 3.1.
4. tt-win.zip
A 31 page Word for Windows 2.0 document which is targeted for the
Windows developer who is interested in learning about some of the
capabilities TrueType adds to Windows 3.1. Contains many
illustrations.
5. embeddin.zip
A text file which describes all of the information necessary for a
Windows developer to add TrueType font embedding capabilities to
their application. Font embedding allows the application to
bundle the TrueType fonts that were used in that document and
transport it to another platform where the document can be
viewed or printed correctly.
6. tt-talk.zip
The TrueType Technical Talks 1 and 2. These text files describe
some of the things that are happening with TrueType behind the
scenes in Windows 3.1. The first document walks the reader
through all of the steps that occur from when the user first
presses the key on the keyboard until that character appears on
the screen (scaling, hinting, drop out control, caching and
blitting). The second talk describes one of the unique features
of TrueType called non-linear scaling which allows the font
vendor to overcome some of the physical limitations of low
resolution output devices.
7. lucida.zip
This text file contains useful typographic information on the 22
Lucida fonts which are contained in the Microsoft TrueType Font
Pack for Windows. It gives pointers on line-layout, mixing and
matching fonts in the family and a little history on each
typeface. This information was written by the font's designers,
Chuck Bigelow & Kris Holmes."
Subject: 1.22. Unicode
[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]
What Is Unicode?
================
Charles A. Bigelow notes:
The authors of the Unicode standard emphasize the fact that Unicode is a
character encoding, not a glyph encoding. This might seem like a
metaphysical distinction, in which characters have some "semantic"
content (that is, they signify something to literates) and and glyphs
are particular instantiations or renderings of characters--Plato talked
about this kind of stuff--but in practice it means that most ligatures
are not represented in Unicode, nor swash variants, nor figure variants
(except for superior and inferior, which are semantically distinct from
baseline figures), and so on.
For further information, consult The Unicode Standard: Worldwide
Character Encoding Version 1.0, Vol. 1 (alphabets & symbols) and Vol 2.
(Chinese, Japanese, Korean characters), by The Unicode Consortium,
Addison Wesley Publishing Co, 1991, ISBN 0-201-56788-1, 0-201-60845-6.
What is the Unicode Consortium?
===============================
The Unicode Consortium is an international body responsible for
maintaining the Unicode standard. Their email address is
<
[email protected]>
To obtain more information on Unicode or to order their printed material
and/or diskettes contact:
Steven A. Greenfield
Unicode Office Manager
1965 Charleston Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
Tel. 415-966-4189
Fax. 415-966-1637
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: 1.23. 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 powder 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: 1.24. 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.
This is Info file compfont.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the
input file FAQ.texinfo.
Subject: 1.25. 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 <
[email protected]>
Glenn Adams <
[email protected]>
Daniel Amor <
[email protected]>
Borris Balzer <
[email protected]>
Charles A. Bigelow <
[email protected]>
David J. Birnbaum <
[email protected]>
Tim Bradshaw <
[email protected]>
Morgan S. Brilliant <???>
Arlen Britton <
[email protected]>
Stan Brown <
[email protected]>
Scott Brumage <
[email protected]>
Lee Cambell <
[email protected]>
Terry Carroll <
[email protected]>
Gerd Castan <
[email protected]>
Ari Davidow <
[email protected]>
Eve Damaziere <
[email protected]> (c/o Stephane Bortzmeyer)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <
[email protected]>
Pat Farrell <
[email protected]>
James Matthew Farrow <
[email protected]>
Stephen Friedl <
[email protected]>
Peter J. Gentry <
[email protected]>
Yossi Gil <
[email protected]>
Timothy Golobic <
[email protected]>
Kesh Govinder <
[email protected]>
Piercarlo Antonio Grandi <
[email protected]>
Robert Green <
[email protected]>
Rick Heli <
[email protected]>
Jeremy Henderson <
[email protected]>
Henry ??? <
[email protected]>
Gary <
[email protected]>
Berthold K.P. Horn <
[email protected]>
Peter Honig <
[email protected]>
Don Hosek <
[email protected]>
Bharathi Jagadeesh <
[email protected]>
Chang Jin-woong <
[email protected]>
Darrell Leland <
[email protected]>
David Lemon <
[email protected]>
Jon <
[email protected]>
??? <
[email protected]>
??? <
[email protected]>
Otto Makela <
[email protected]>
David Mandl <
[email protected]>
Kate McDonnell <
[email protected]>
George Moore <
[email protected]>
Robert Morris <
[email protected]>
Stephen Moye <
[email protected]>
Erlend Nagel <
[email protected]>
Terry O'Donnell <
[email protected]>
Rick Pali <
[email protected]>
Sean Palmer <
[email protected]>
Jon Pastor <
[email protected]>
PenDragon <
[email protected]>
Stephen Peters <
[email protected]>
Bill Phillips <
[email protected]>
Thomas W. Phinney <
[email protected]>
Jim Reese <
[email protected]>
Bill Ricker <
[email protected]>
Liam Quin <
[email protected]>
Henry Schneiker <?>
Tom Scott <
[email protected]>
Bill Shirley <
[email protected]>
Cameron Smith <
[email protected]>
Daniel S. Smith <
[email protected]>
Frank F. Smith <
[email protected]>
Werenfried Spit <
[email protected]>
Anthony Starks <
[email protected]>
Ike Stoddard <
[email protected]>
Danny Thomas <
[email protected]>
Anders Thulin <
[email protected]>
Ian Tresman <
[email protected]>
Bill Troop <
[email protected]>
Erik-Jan Vens <
[email protected]>
Amanda Walker <
[email protected]>
Jason Lee Weiler <
[email protected]>
