Author Topic: GNU FreeFont is a free family of scalable outline fonts suitable for general use  (Read 3136 times)

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Software Santa

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Join Date: Dec 2006
  • Posts: 5238
  • Operating System:
  • Mac OS X 10.9 Mac OS X 10.9
  • Browser:
  • Firefox 30.0 Firefox 30.0
GNU FreeFont is a free family of scalable outline fonts, suitable for general use on computers and for desktop publishing: with otf and ttf font types available ...

Quote
GNU FreeFont is a free family of scalable outline fonts, suitable for general use on computers and for desktop publishing. It is Unicode-encoded for compatibility with all modern operating systems.

The fonts are ready to use, available in TrueType and OpenType formats.

Besides a full set of characters for writing systems based on the Latin alphabet, FreeFont contains large selection of characters from other writing systems, some of which are hard to find elsewhere. These include the Unicode ranges for the writing systems listed here.

FreeFont also contains a large set of symbol characters, both technical and decorative. We are especially pleased with the Mathematical Operators range, with which most of the glyphs used in LaTeX can be displayed.


GNU FreeFont
 Why do we need free outline UCS fonts?

A large number of free software users switched from free X11 bitmapped fonts to proprietary Microsoft TrueType fonts, as a) they used to be freely downloaded from Microsoft Typography page, b) they contain a decent subset of the ISO 10646 UCS (Universal Character Set), c) they are high-quality, well hinted scalable TrueType fonts, and d) FreeType, a free high-quality TrueType font renderer is available and has been integrated into the latest release of XFree86, the free X11 server.

Building a dependence on non-free software, even a niche one like fonts, is dangerous. Microsoft TrueType core fonts were never free, they were just costless. Citing the TrueType core fonts for the Web FAQ: You may only redistribute the fonts in their original form (.exe or .sit.hqx) and with their original file name from your Web site or intranet site. You must not supply the fonts, or any derivative fonts based on them, in any form that adds value to commercial products, such as CD-ROM or disk based multimedia programs, application software or utilities. As of August 2002, however, the fonts are not anymore available from the Microsoft Web site, which makes the situation clearer.

Aren't there any free high-quality outline fonts? 

Yes, there are. The Bitstream Vera fonts were made public, and are now maintained as the DejaVu fonts family. URW++, a German digital type foundry, released their own version of the 35 PostScript Type 1 core fonts under GPL as their donation to the Ghostscript project. The Wadalab Kanji comittee has produced Type 1 font files with thousands of filigree Japanese glyphs. Yannis Haralambous has drawn beautiful glyphs for the Omega typesetting system. And so on. Scattered around the Internet there are numerous other free resources for other national scripts, many of them aiming to be a suitable match for Latin fonts like Times or Helvetica.

 Design issues
Which font shapes should be made? As historical style terms like Renaissance or Baroque letterforms cannot be applied beyond Latin/Cyrillic/Greek scripts to any greater extent than Kufi or Nashki can be applied beyond Arabic script, a smaller subset of styles will be made: one monospaced - FreeMono and two proportional (one with uniform stroke - FreeSans - and one with modulated - FreeSerif) will be made at the start.

These minimal style requirements allow the typefaces to preserve the same characteristic spirit regardless of the scripts, so that the font will be a harmonic unity. Some design notes on individual typefaces are available.



 Debian GNU/Linux Users of Debian GNU/Linux system can download a .deb package from the Debian Web site.

 NetBSD pkgsrc Users of the pkgsrc package system or NetBSD can use pkgsrc/fonts/freefont-ttf. The package webpage is at the NetBSD site.

 FreeBSD Users of FreeBSD system can download a FreeBSD package from the FreeBSD ports Web site.

http://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/index.html

http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/freefont/

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/

 

Software Santa first opened on January 1st, 2007
Now celebrating 16 Years of being a Digital Santa Claus!
Software Santa's Speedy Site is Proudly Hosted by A2 Hosting.

Welcome Visitor:





@MEMBER OF PROJECT HONEY POT
Spam Harvester Protection Network
provided by Unspam



Software Santa Welcome Page

The Software Santa Privacy Policy