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Frequently Asked Questions About Fonts

The comp.fonts FAQ, Version 2.1.5., August 14, 1996

Compiled by Norman Walsh

• General Information
  • Font Houses
    • Adobe Systems, Inc.
    • Compugraphic
    • designOnline(tm)
    • Miles, Agfa Division
    • Quadrat Communications
  • What's the difference between all these font formats?
  • What about ``Multiple Master'' fonts?
  • Is there a methodology to describe and classify typefaces?
  • What is the ``f'' shaped ``s'' called?
  • What about ``Colonial'' Typefaces?
    • Why does colonial printing have that ``Colonial'' feel?
    • What fonts are good for mock-colonial uses?
    • What fonts could a colonial printer have had?
  • What is ``Point Size''?
    • Knuth's Assertion
  • Where can I get ... fonts.
  • Where can I get fonts for non-Roman alphabets?
  • What about fonts with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols?
    • Shareware or free (PostScript Type 1 and/or TrueType):
    • Shareware or free (TeX):
    • Commercial:
  • How can I convert my ... font to ... format?
    • Converting Between TrueType and Adobe Type 1 Formats
      • FontMonger by Ares Software
      • Alltype by Atech Software
      • Fontographer by Altsys Co.
      • Metamorphosis by Altsys Co.
    • Converting Between Other Scalable Formats
    • Why Do Converted Fonts Look So Bad?
    • Smoothing Bitmaps
  • Are fonts copyrightable?
  • Typeface Protection
    • Preamble
      • Who makes type designs?
      • The problem of plagiarism
      • Kinds of protection for type
        • Trademark
        • Copyright
        • Design Patent
        • Invention Patent
        • Trade Secret
        • Ethics
      • Further reading
      • Disclaimer
  • File Formats
    • File Format Extensions
    • Font Formats
    • Font Format Extensions
  • Ligatures
  • Built-in Fonts
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Font Encoding Standards
    • What is a character set?
    • What is an encoding vector?
    • Where can I get them?
  • PostScript
    • What About PostScript UNIQUEIDs?
    • Can a Type 1 Font Be Shaded?
  • TrueType
  • Unicode
    • What Is Unicode?
    • What is the Unicode Consortium?
    • Unicode Editing
      • Is a special keyboard required?
      • Is roman-to-Unicode conversion available?
    • Are there PostScript or TrueType fonts available?
  • Can I Print Checks with the MICR Font?
  • Rules of Thumb
  • Acknowledgements
  • A Brief Introduction to Typography
    • Comments by Laurence Penney:
    • Comments by Don Hosek:
  • A Brief History of Type
    • Foreword
    • Type Technology---The Four Revolutions
      • Gutenberg (ca. 1450-1480) & The Impact of Printing
      • Industrial Revolution: Steam, Line-casting & Automated Punch-cutting (start 1870-95; end 1950-65)
      • Photocomposition (Intertype et. al., start 1950-60, end 1975-85)
      • Digital (start 1973-83)
    • Type Forms Through the Centuries
      • Definitions
      • Early Letterforms
      • Blackletter
      • Old Style Typefaces: Centaur, Bembo, Jenson, Garamond, Caslon
      • Transitional Type: Baskerville, Fournier
      • Modern Type: Didot, Bodoni, Walbaum
      • Sans Serif & Slab Serif
        • Sans Serif (a.k.a. Gothic or Grotesque)
        • Slab Serif (Egyptian)
      • Decorative & Display Type
        • Fat Faces
        • Wood Type
        • Script, Brush, Italic & Freehand
        • Art Nouveau
        • Art Deco
      • Synthesis
        • Synthesis and Serif Type
        • Synthesis and Sans Serif Type
        • ``Grunge'' Typography
    • Sources
      • Published Sources:
      • Personal Contributions:
  • The Role of National Orthography in Font Design
  • Interesting Fonts
    • Highway Gothic
    • Where can I get extravagant initial caps?
  • Pronounciation of Font Names
    • Arnold Boecklin
    • Benguiat
    • Courier
    • Didot
    • Fette Fraktur
    • Fenice
    • Garamond
    • Helvetica
    • Koch Roman
    • LaTeX
    • Mos Eisley
    • Novarese
    • Palatino
    • Peignot
    • Sabon
    • TeX
    • Veljovic
    • Zapf
  • What is it?
    • The ``@'' Character
    • The ``#'' Character
  • Equivalent Font Names
  • Digital Type Design Tools
    • How do the various digital type designing tools compare?
    • What about FontStudio?
      • Is FontStudio Still Being Marketed?
      • What About Bitmap Generation?
      • FontStudio is Better [than Fontographer]?
  • Type Design Firms
    • Carter & Cone Type, Inc.
      • Galliard
      • Sophia
      • Mantinia
  • What does `lorem ipsum dolor' mean?
    • One Example of Lorem Ipsum Dolor
• Macintosh Information
  • Macintosh Font formats
    • Bitmap Fonts
    • PostScript Type 1
    • PostScript Type 3
    • TrueType
    • QuickDraw GX
      • What is it?
      • How is it related to Unicode?
      • What about rotation?
      • Is QDGX limited to TrueType fonts?
  • Frequently Requested Mac Fonts
    • Greek Fonts
      • Sources of Greek Fonts for the Mac
        • Apple
        • Linotype-Hell
        • FontShop
        • Monotype
        • Linguist's Software
        • Ecological Linguistics
        • MacCampus
        • Font World
        • SkepsiS
        • Magenta
        • Fronteiras
        • Freeware/Shareware
    • Other Fonts
  • Commercial Font Sources
  • Mac Font Installation
  • Mac Font Utilities
  • Making Outline Fonts
  • Problems and Possible Solutions
  • Creating Mac screen fonts
    • Creating Mac screen fonts from Type 1 outlines
• MS-DOS Information
  • Frequently Requested MS-DOS fonts
  • MS-DOS Font Installation
  • What exactly are the encodings of the DOS code pages?
  • MS-DOS Font Utilities
  • Converting fonts under MS-DOS
  • Converting Mac Type 1 fonts to MS-DOS format
    • The tools you need
    • How to do it?
    • Other comments
  • Converting PC Type 1 and TrueType fonts to Mac format
    • Refont
    • Font Manipulation Package
  • Converting PC Type 1 fonts into TeX PK bitmap fonts
  • Converting TeX PK bitmaps into HP LaserJet softfonts (and vice-versa)
  • TrueType to HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts (HACK!)
  • MS-DOS Screen Fonts (EGA/VGA text-mode fonts)
• OS/2 Information
  • David Birnbaum's Introduction
  • Preliminaries
  • Fonts under DOS
  • Windows
  • Differences between Windows and OS/2
  • Installation under Windows and Win-OS/2
  • FontSpecific PostScript Encoding
  • AdobeStandardEncoding
  • AdobeStandardEncoding under Windows (and Win-OS/2)
  • AdobeStandardEncoding under OS/2
  • Consequences for OS/2 users
  • Advice to the user
  • OS/2 2.1 and beyond
• Unix Information
  • Unix Font Formats
  • Font Installation
    • Application
    • Printer using an ExitServer
• Sun Information
  • Fonts Under Open Windows
  • Does OpenWindows support Type 1 PostScript fonts?
  • Improving font rendering time
  • Making bitmap fonts for faster startup
  • Converting between font formats (convertfont, etc.)
  • Xview/OLIT fonts at 100 dpi
  • Where can I order F3 fonts for NeWSprint and OpenWindows?
• NeXT Information
  • Tell me about NeXTstep fonts
    • Basic Format
    • Font Folder and Font Filename Requirements
      • For NeXTstep 1.0 ONLY, you also need to take the following steps:
      • For NeXTstep 2.0 and up:
  • Tell me more about NeXTstep fonts
    • Converted Fonts After Conversion
    • About Conversion Utilities
      • NeXTstep utilities
    • Installation
  • Porting fonts to the NeXT
    • Porting PC/Unix Type 1 Fonts
    • Porting Mac Type 1 Fonts
  • Font availability
  • Why can I only install 256 fonts on my NeXT?
• Amiga Information
  • Font Concepts
  • Amiga Font Formats
  • Frequently Requested Amiga Fonts
  • Commercial Font Sources
  • Non-Latin fonts on the Amiga
  • Amiga Font Installation
  • Amiga Font Utilities
  • Making Outline Fonts
  • Problems and Possible Solutions
  • Adobe Type 1 fonts for the Amiga
• Atari ST/TT/Falcon Information
  • SpeedoGDOS
    • Fonts included with SpeedoGDOS 4.x
    • Fonts included with SpeedoGDOS 5.x
  • Atari File Formats
    • Atari Font formats
    • Atari Font Format Extensions
  • Frequently Requested Atari Fonts
• X11 Information
  • Getting X11
  • Historical Notes about X11
  • X11 Font Formats
  • X11 Font Server
    • X11 Release 5
    • X11 Release 6
  • Fonts and utilities for X11
• Utilities Information
  • How do I convert AFM files to PFM files
  • PS2PK
    • When do you need ps2pk?
  • TeX Utilities
    • MetaFont
      • About MetaFont:
      • What do you need in order to use the fonts:
  • MFPic
  • fig2MF
  • GNU Font Utilities
  • Font Editors
  • The T1 Utilities
  • Where to get bitmap versions of the fonts
  • Converting between font formats
  • Getting fonts by FTP and Mail
  • MetaFont to PostScript Conversion
  • How to use Metafont fonts with Troff
  • PKtoBDF / MFtoBDF
  • PKtoPS
  • PKtoSFP / SFPtoPK
  • PostScript to MetaFont
    • pfb2pfa
    • pfa2chr
    • chr2ps
    • ps2mf
  • Mac Bitmaps to BDF Format
• Vendor Information
  • Type/Font Vendors
  • Clip Art Vendors

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Excerpted from The comp.fonts FAQ, Copyright © 1992-96 by Norman Walsh