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Archive-name: fonts-faq/part2
Version: 2.1.5 See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Subject: 1.12. Are fonts copyrightable? This topic is hotly debated at regular intervals on comp.fonts. Terry Carroll. provides the following analysis of current [ed: as of 6/92] legislation and regulation regarding fonts and copyrights in the United States. Terry is "Editor in Chief" of Volume 10 of the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal. Members of the comp.fonts community are encouraged to submit other materials that add clarity to the issue. It has been pointed out that this section deals primarily font copyright issues relevant to the United States and that this situation is not universal. For example, in many parts of Europe typeface designs are protectable. "First, the short answer in the USA: Typefaces are not copyrightable; bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, but scalable fonts are copyrightable. Authorities for these conclusions follow. Before we get started, let's get some terminology down: A typeface is a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other cognizable combinations of characters. A font is the computer file or program that is used to represent or create the typeface. Now, on to the legal authorities: Volume 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations specifies this about the copyrightability of typefaces: "The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained: . . . typeface as typeface" 37 CFR 202.1(e). The regulation is in accordance with the House of Representatives report that accompanied the new copyright law, when it was passed in 1976: "The Committee has considered, but chosen to defer, the possibility of protecting the design of typefaces. A 'typeface' can be defined as a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other cognizable combinations of characters. The Committee does not regard the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable 'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this bill and the application of the dividing line in section 101." H. R. Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted in 1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668. It's also in accordance with the one court case I know of that has considered the matter: Eltra Corp. V. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294, 208 USPQ 1 (1978, C.A. 4, Va.). The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not copyrightable: "The [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision [published at 53 FR 38110] based on the [October 10,] 1986 Notice of Inquiry [published at 51 FR 36410] reiterated a number of previous registration decisions made by the [Copyright] Office. First, under existing law, typeface as such is not registerable. The Policy Decision then went on to state the Office's position that 'data that merely represents an electronic depiction of a particular typeface or individual letterform' [that is, a bitmapped font] is also not registerable." 57 FR 6201. However, scalable fonts are, in the opinion of the Copyright Office, computer programs, and as such are copyrightable: "... the Copyright Office is persuaded that creating scalable typefonts using already-digitized typeface represents a significant change in the industry since our previous [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision. We are also persuaded that computer programs designed for generating typeface in conjunction with low resolution and other printing devices may involve original computer instructions entitled protection under the Copyright Act. For example, the creation of scalable font output programs to produce harmonious fonts consisting of hundreds of characters typically involves many decisions in drafting the instructions that drive the printer. The expression of these decisions is neither limited by the unprotectable shape of the letters nor functionally mandated. This expression, assuming it meets the usual standard of authorship, is thus registerable as a computer program." 57 FR 6202." Subject: 1.13. Typeface Protection [This article first appeared in TUGboat 7:3 (October 1986), pp. 146-151. Reproduced with permission.] Preamble ======== The main question of typeface protection is: "Is there anything there worth protecting?" To that the answer must certainly be: "Yes." Typeface designs are a form of artistic and intellectual property." To understand this better, it is helpful to look at who designs type, and what the task requires. Who makes type designs? ----------------------- Like other artistic forms, type is created by skilled artisans. They may be called type designers, lettering artists, punch-cutters, calligraphers, or related terms, depending on the milieu in which the designer works and the technology used for making the designs or for producing the type. ("Type designer" and "lettering artist" are self-explanatory terms. "Punch-cutter" refers to the traditional craft of cutting the master image of a typographic letter at the actual size on a blank of steel that is then used to make the matrix from which metal type is cast. Punch-cutting is an obsolete though not quite extinct craft. Seeking a link to the tradition, modern makers of digital type sometimes use the anachronistic term "digital punch-cutter". "Calligrapher" means literally "one who makes beautiful marks". The particular marks are usually hand-written letters, though calligraphers may design type, and type designers may do calligraphy.) It usually takes about seven years of study and practice to become a competent type designer. This seems to be true whether one has a Ph.D. in computer science, a high-school diploma, or no academic degree. The skill is acquired through study of the visual forms and practice in making them. As with geometry, there is no royal road. The designing of a typeface can require several months to several years. A family of typefaces of four different styles, say roman, italic, bold roman, and bold italic, is a major investment of time and effort. Most type designers work as individuals. A few work in partnership (Times Roman(R), Helvetica(R), and Lucida(R) were all, in different ways, the result of design collaboration). In Japan, the large character sets required for a typeface containing Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana induce designers to work in teams of several people. Although comparisons with other media can only be approximate, a typeface family is an accomplishment on the order of a novel, a feature film screenplay, a computer language design and implementation, a major musical composition, a monumental sculpture, or other artistic or technical endeavors that consume a year or more of intensive creative effort. These other creative activities can be protected by copyright or other forms of intellectual property protection. It is reasonable to protect typefaces in the same way. The problem of plagiarism ------------------------- A lack of protection for typeface designs leads to plagiarism, piracy, and related deplorable activities. They are deplorable because they harm a broad range of people beyond the original designers of the type. First, most type plagiarisms are badly done. The plagiarists do not understand the nature of the designs they are imitating, are unwilling to spend the necessary time and effort to do good work, and consequently botch the job. They then try to fob off their junk on unsuspecting users (authors, editors, and readers). Without copyright, the original designer cannot require the reproducer of a type to do a good job of reproduction. Hence, type quality is degraded by unauthorized copying. Secondly, without protection, designs may be freely imitated; the plagiarist robs the original designer of financial compensation for the work. This discourages creative designers from entering and working in the field. As the needs of typography change (on-line documents and laser printing are examples of technical and conceptual changes) new kinds of typefaces are required. Creative design in response to such needs cannot flourish without some kind of encouragement for the creators. In a capitalist society, the common method is property rights and profit. In a socialist (or, in the past, royalist) society, the state itself might employ type artists. France, as a monarchy and as a republic, has had occasional state sponsorship of typeface design over the past 400 years. The Soviet Union has sponsored the design of new typefaces, not only in the Cyrillic alphabet, but also in the other exotic scripts used by various national groups in the Soviet Union. Those who would justify plagiarism often claim that the type artists do not usually receive a fair share of royalties anyway, since they have usually sold their designs to some large, exploitive corporation. It is true that type designers, like many artists, are often exploited by their "publishers", but plagiarism exacerbates the problem. Plagiarism deprives the designer of decent revenues because it diverts profits to those who merely copied the designs. Plagiarism gives the manufacturer yet another excuse to reduce the basic royalty or other fee paid for typeface designs; the theme song is that the market determines the value of the design and cheap rip-offs debase the value of a face. For those interested in the economic effects of piracy, it is clear that plagiarism of type designs ultimately hurts individual artists far more than it hurts impersonal corporations. Kinds of protection for type ---------------------------- There are five main forms of protection for typefaces: * Trademark * Copyright * Patent * Trade Secret * Ethics Trademark ......... A trademark protects the name of a typeface. In the U.S., most trademarks are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The R in a circle (R) after a trademark or tradename indicates U.S. registration. The similarly placed TM indicates that a trademark is claimed, even if not yet officially registered. However, a trademark may be achieved through use and practice, even without registration. Owners of trademarks maintain ownership by use of the trademark and by litigation to prevent infringement or unauthorized use of the trademark by others. As a few examples of registered typeface trademarks, there are Times Roman (U.S. registration 417,439, October 30, 1945 to Eltra Corporation, now part of Allied); Helvetica (U.S. registration 825,989, March 21, 1967, also to Eltra-Allied), and Lucida (U.S. reg. 1,314,574 to Bigelow & Holmes). Most countries offer trademark registration and protection, and it is common for a typeface name to be registered in many countries. In some cases the registrant may be different than the originator. For example, The Times New Roman (Times Roman) was originally produced by the English Monotype Corporation. In England and Europe, most typographers consider the design to belong to Monotype, but the trademark was registered by Linotype (Eltra-Allied) in the U.S., as noted above. Trademark protection does not protect the design, only the name. Therefore, a plagiarism of a design is usually christened with a pseudonym which in some way resembles or suggests the original trademark, without actually infringing on it. Resemblance without infringement can be a fine distinction. Some pseudonyms for Times Roman are: "English Times", "London", Press Roman, "Tms Rmn". Some for Helvetica are "Helios", "Geneva", "Megaron", "Triumvirate". So far, there seem to be none for Lucida. There are generic typeface classifications used by typographers and type historians to discuss styles, trends, and categories of design. Occasionally these apparently innocuous classification systems are employed by plagiarists to devise generic pseudonyms, such as "Swiss 721" for Helvetica, and "Dutch 801" for Times Roman. It is not certain whether this usage of a generic classification is more for clarification or for obfuscation. In general, the proper tradename is a better indicator of identity, quality, and provenance in typefaces than a generic name. Some people believe that the same is true for other commodities such as wine, where taste is important. A trademark usually consists of both a proprietary and a generic part. For example, in the name "Lucida Bold Italic", "Lucida" is the proprietary trademark part and "Bold Italic" is the generic part. The generic word "type" is usually understood to be a part of the name, e.g. "Lucida Bold Italic type". Sometimes a firm will append its name or a trademarked abbreviation of it to the typeface name, to achieve a greater degree of proprietary content, e.g. "B&H Lucida Bold Italic". A related matter is the use of the name of a type's designer. A firm that ethically licenses a typeface will often cite the name of the designer-- e.g. Stanley Morison (with Victor Lardent) for Times Roman, Max Miedinger (with Edouard Hoffmann) for Helvetica, Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes for Lucida. Although a person's name is not usually a registered trademark, there are common law restrictions on its use. The marketing of plagiarized type designs generally omits the names of the designers. Although Trademark is an incomplete kind of protection, it is used effectively (within its limitations) to prevent the theft of type names. Certain traditional typeface names, usually the surnames of illustrious designers like Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, and others have become generic names in the public domain. Trademark protection of such names requires the addition of some proprietary word(s), as with these hypothetical creations, "Acme New Garamond", or "Typoluxe Meta-Baskerville". Copyright ......... Copyright of typefaces can be divided into two parts: copyright of the design itself; and copyright of the font in which the design is implemented. In the U.S., typeface designs are currently not covered by copyright. This is a result of reluctance by the copyright office to deal with a complex field; by lobbying against copyright by certain manufacturers whose profits were based on typeface plagiarism; by a reluctance of Congress to deal with the complex issues in the recent revision of the copyright law. The reluctance of Americans to press for typeface copyright may have been influenced by a feeling that typeface plagiarism was good for U.S. high-tech businesses who were inventing new technologies for printing, and plagiarizing types of foreign origin (Europe and England). If the situation becomes reversed, and foreign competition (from Japan, Taiwan, and Korea) threatens to overcome American technological superiority in the laser printer industry, then American firms may do an about-face and seek the protection of typeface copyright to help protect the domestic printer industry. Such a trend may already be seen in the licensing of typeface trademarks by Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Imagen, and Xerox in the U.S. laser printer industry. In Germany, where typeface design has always been a significant part of the cultural heritage, and where typefounding has remained an important business, there are more than one kind of copyright-like protections for typefaces. Certain long-standing industrial design protection laws have been used to protect typeface designs in litigation over royalties and plagiarisms. Further, there is a recent law, the so-called "Schriftzeichengesetz" enacted in 1981, that specifically protects typeface designs. New designs are registered, as is done with copyright in most countries. This law only protects new, original designs. It is available to non-German designers and firms. Therefore, some type firms and designers routinely copyright new designs in West Germany. This gives a degree of protection for products marketed in Germany. Since multinational corporations may find it cheaper to license a design for world-wide use rather than deal with a special case in one country, the German law does encourage licensing on a broader scale than would initially seem to be the case. France, like Germany, has ratified an international treaty for protection of typefaces. This 1973 Vienna treaty will become international law when four nations ratify it. So far, only France and West Germany have done so, and thus a design must be protected separately in each country. Even when the treaty becomes law, it will take effect only in those countries that have ratified it. The treaty was principally the work of the late Charles Peignot, a French typefounder, and John Dreyfus, an English typographer and typographic scholar. Presently, typefaces may be registered for protection in France under a 19th century industrial design protection law. In the U.S., there continues to be some movement for typeface design protection. A proposed bill that would protect the designs of useful articles, like type, has been in committee for a few years. It seems to be going nowhere. Digital (as opposed to analog) fonts may be protected by copyright of digital data and of computer programs. It has been established that computer software is copyrightable. Therefore, software that embodies a typeface, e.g. a digital font, is presumably also protected. There is some objection to this kind of copyright, on the grounds that the ultimate output of the program or the result of the data (i.e. a typeface design) is not copyrightable. However, the current belief expressed by the National Commission on New Technological Use of Copyrighted Works is that software is copyrightable even if its function is to produce ultimately a non-copyrightable work. Hence, typefaces produced by Metafont or PostScript(R), two computer languages which represent fonts as programs, are presumably copyrightable. Typefaces represented as bit-map data, run-length codes, spline outlines, and other digital data formats, may also be copyrightable. Some firms do copyright digital fonts as digital data. % The copyright office is currently reviewing %this practice to determine if it is acceptable. Note that the designs themselves are still not protected in the U.S. A plagiarist could print out large sized letters (say, one per page) on an Apple LaserWriter, using a copyrighted PostScript digital font, and then redigitize those letters by using a scanner or a font digitizing program and thus produce a new digital font without having copied the program or digital data, and thus without infringing the copyright on the font. The quality of the imitation font would usually be awful, but it wouldn't violate copyright. Of course, the plagiarist would usually need to rename the font to evade trademark infringement. [As I write these words, I have the guilty feeling that I have just provided a recipe for type rip-off, but others have obviously thought of just such a scheme--John Dvorak has even proposed something like it in one of his columns.] Design Patent ............. The designs of typefaces may be patented in the U.S. under existing design patent law. Many designs are patented, but type designers generally don't like the patent process because it is slow, expensive, and uncertain. Nevertheless, some types do get patented, and it is a form of potential protection. Note that this is Design Patent--the typeface doesn't have to be a gizmo that does something, it merely has to be unlike any previous typeface. The drawback here is that most attorneys and judges are not aware that there are more than two or three typefaces: say, handwriting, printing, and maybe blackletter. Therefore, litigating against infringement is an educational as well as a legal process. It is easy to see that typeface theft is more subtle than knocking over a liquor store; it may not be illegal and the returns may be greater. Protections like design patent are available in many other countries, but there is not an international standard (to my knowledge) so the situation must be examined on a country by country basis. Invention Patent ................ Methods of rendering typefaces can be patented as mechanical or electronic inventions. For example, the old hot-metal Linotype machinery was protected by various patents, as was the IBM Selectric typewriter and type ball. IBM neglected to trademark the typeface names like Courier and Prestige, so once the patents had lapsed, the names gradually fell into the public domain without IBM doing anything about it (at the time, and for a dozen years or so, IBM was distracted by a major U.S. anti-trust suit). Most students of the type protection field believe that those names are probably unprotectable by now, though IBM could still presumably make a try for it if sufficiently motivated. There is currently a noteworthy development regarding a patent for outline representation of digital type as arcs and vectors, with special hardware for decoding into rasters. This patent (U.S. 4,029,947, June 14, 1977; reissue 30,679, July 14, 1981) is usually called the Evans & Caswell patent, after its inventors. It was originally assigned to Rockwell, and in 1982, Rockwell sued Allied Linotype for infringement. Allied settled out of court, having paid an amount rumored to be in the millions. Rockwell sold the patent, along with other typographic technology, to Information International, Inc. (III), which then sued Compugraphic for infringement. According to the Seybold Report, a respected typographic industry journal, Compugraphic recently settled out of court for 5 million dollars. Although many experts believe the patent to be invalid because of several prior inventions similar in concept, it nevertheless seems to be a money-maker in corporate litigation. The Seybold Report has speculated on which firms III would litigate against next. Among the candidates suggested by the Seybolds was Apple for its LaserWriter, which uses outline fonts. Since the entire laser printer industry and the typesetting industry is moving toward outline font representation, Apple is certainly not alone. The Seybolds further speculate on whether the difference between character-by-character CRT typesetting and raster-scan laser typesetting and printing would be legally significant in such a case. Ultimately, some firm will hold out for a court judgement, and the matter will be decided. %Although the Evans & Caswell patent doesn't have much to do with %typeface copyright per se, it does make many font vendors nervous. Trade Secret ............ Given that typeface designs have relatively little copyright protection in the U.S., they are often handled as trade secrets. The secret must apply to the digital data or programs only, because the images themselves are ultimately revealed to the public as printed forms. It is much more difficult to reconstruct the formula of Coca-Cola from its taste than it is to reconstruct the design of Helvetica from its look on the page. The exact bitmap or spline outline of a digital font is usually not reconstructable from the printed image, although CRT screen fonts at usual resolutions (60-120 dots per inch) may be reconstructed by patient counting and mapping of bits off a screen display. Typeface licenses often contain stipulations that the digital data will be encrypted and confidential. Just as a firm will protect the secret of a soft drink recipe, so a type firm will protect the exact nature of its digital data. Ethics ...... Some typographers are motivated by higher principles than greed, profit, expediency, and personal interest. Idealists afflicted with concepts of ethical behavior and a vision of typography as a noble art may find it distasteful to use plagiarized types. Some graphic designers insist on using typefaces with bona-fide trademarks, both to ensure that the type will be of high quality, and to encourage creativity and ethics in the profession. A consequence of plagiarism that is sometimes overlooked is a general erosion of ethics in an industry. If it is okay to steal typeface designs, then it may be okay to purloin other kinds of data, to falsify one's resume, to misrepresent a product, and so forth. Most professional design organizations attempt to promote ethical standards of professional behavior, and personal standards may extend to avoidance of plagiarism. The Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) is an international organization of type designers, type manufacturers, and letterform educators. Its purpose is to promote ethical behavior in the industry, advancement of typographic education, communication among designers, and other lofty aims. Members of ATypI agree to abide by a moral code that restricts plagiarism and other forms of depraved behavior (pertaining to typography). These are noble goals, but some members (especially corporate members) of ATypI, confronted with the pressures and opportunities of commercial reality, nevertheless plagiarize typefaces of fellow members, the moral code notwithstanding. Since ATypI is a voluntary organization, there is very little that can be done about most such plagiarism. Some years back, a world-famous type designer resigned %the noted type designer Hermann Zapf from the ATypI Board of Directors in protest over the organization's flaccid attitude toward plagiarists among its ranks. He has since agreed to sit on the board again, but criticism of the organization's inability to prevent type rip-offs by its own members, not to mention by non-members, continues to be heard. Moderates in ATypI believe that a few morals are better than none. It is not clear whether their philosophical stance derives from Plato, Hobbes, or Rousseau. Given the general attitude of users toward copyrighted video and software, it is doubtful that ethical considerations will hinder most end-users' attitude to plagiarized type fonts. A desire to have the fashionable "label" or trademark may be a greater motivation toward the use of bona-fide fonts than an ethical consideration. Further reading --------------- "The State of the Art in Typeface Design Protection", Edward Gottschall, Visible Language, Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1985 (a special issue on "The Computer and the Hand in Type Design"--proceedings of a conference held at Stanford University in August, 1983). Der Schutz Typographischer Schriftzeichen, by Guenter Kelbel. Carl Heymans Verlag KG, Cologne, 1984. (A learned account, in juridical German prose, of the significance of the Vienna Treaty of 1973 and the West German Schriftzeichengesetz of 1981.) Disclaimer ---------- These notes were originally prepared at the request of Brian Reid, for informal distribution. They are based on the author's review of available literature on the subject of typeface protection, and on personal experience in registering types for trademark, copyright, and patent. However, they are %While they result from careful research, no claim is made for accuracy; not legal advice. If one is contemplating protecting or plagiarizing a typeface, and seeks legal opinion, it is advisable to consult an attorney. The term "plagiarize" (and words derived from it) is used here in its dictionary sense of "to take and use as one's own the ideas of another" and does not mean that the practice of typeface plagiarism is illegal, as that is determined by the laws of a particular country. The author is a professor of digital typography as well as a professional designer of original digital typefaces for electronic printers and computer workstations. He therefore has an obvious bias toward the inculcation of ethical standards and the legal protection of artistic property. Other commentators might have a different perspective. Subject: 1.14. File Formats Many different kinds of files are available on the net. These files contain many different kinds of data for many different architectures. Frequently, the extension (trailing end) of a filename gives a good clue as to the format of its contents and the architecture that it was created on. In order to save space, most files on the net are compressed in one way or another. Many compression/decompression programs exist on multiple architectures. Multiple files and directories are often combined into a single `archive' file. Many archive formats perform compression automatically. File Format Extensions ====================== * .tar Unix `tape archive' format. Tar files can contain multiple files and directories. Unlike most archiving programs, tar files are held together in a wrapper but are not automatically compressed by tar. * .Z Unix `compress' format. Compression doesn't form a wrapper around multiple files, it simply compresses a single file. As a result, you will frequently see files with the extension .tar.Z. This implies that the files are compressed tar archives. * .z .gz GNU zip format. GNU zip doesn't form a wrapper around multiple files, it simply compresses a single file. As a result, you will frequently see files with the extension .tar.z or .tar.gz. This implies that the files are compressed tar archives. Do not confuse GNU Zip and PKZip or GNU Zip and Unix compress, those are three different programs! * .hqx Macintosh `BinHex' format. In order to reliably transfer Mac files from one architecture to another, they are BinHex encoded. This is actually an ascii file containing mostly hexadecimal digits. It is neither a compression program nor an archive format. * .sit Macintosh `Stuffit' archive. * .cpt Macintosh `Compactor' archive. Like the .tar.Z format that is common among Unix archives, Macintosh archives frequently have the extensions .sit.hqx or .cpt.hqx indicating a BinHex'ed archive. * .arc PC `arc' archive. This is an older standard (in PC terms, at least) and has gone out of fashion. * .zip PC `zip' archive. This is the most common PC archive format today. * .arj PC `arj' archive. * .zoo PC `zoo' archive * .lzh PC `lha/lharc' archive. * .uue `UUencoding' format. In order to reliably transfer binary data across architectures (or through email), they are frequently uuencoded. This is actually an ascii file. It is neither a compression program nor an archive format. Font Formats ============ Just as the are many, many archive formats, there are many different font formats. The characteristics of some of these formats are discussed below. Once again, the file extension may help you to determine the font type. (On the Mac, the resource TYPE field is (probably) a better indicator). * PostScript Type 1 Fonts: Postscript Type 1 fonts (Also called ATM (Adobe Type Manager) fonts, Type 1, and outline fonts) contains information, in outline form, that allows a postscript printer, or ATM to generate fonts of any size. Most also contain hinting information which allows fonts to be rendered more readable at lower resolutions and small type sizes. * PostScript Type 3 Fonts: Postscript type 3 fonts are an old outline font format that is not compatible with ATM. Most developers have stopped using this format except in a few special cases, where special type 3 characteristics (pattern fills inside outlines, for example) have been used. * TrueType Fonts: Truetype fonts are a new font format developed by Microsoft with Apple. The rendering engine for this font is built into system 7 and an init, the Truetype init, is available for system 6 (freeware from Apple). It is also built into MS Windows v3.1. Like PostScript Type 1 and Type 3 fonts, it is also an outline font format that allows both the screen, and printers, to scale fonts to display them in any size. * Bitmap Fonts: Bitmap fonts contain bitmaps of fonts in them. This a picture of the font at a specific size that has been optimized to look good at that size. It cannot be scaled bigger without making it look horrendously ugly. On the Macintosh, bitmap fonts also contain the kerning information for a font and must be installed with both type 1 and type 3 fonts. Their presence also speeds the display of commonly used font sizes. Font Format Extensions ====================== * .afm Adobe Type 1 metric information in `ascii' format (human parsable) * .bco Bitstream compressed outline * .bdf Adobe's Bitmap Distribution Format. This format can be converted to the platform specific binary files required by the local X Windows server. This is a bitmap font format distributed in ASCII. * .bez Bezier outline information * .cfn Calamus Font Notation. Vector font format, without hinting, but with greater accuracy when compared to Type 1 fonts. Used by a.o. Calamus (Atari, Windows NT), a DTP program with Soft RIP. * .chr Borland stroked font file * .ff, .f3b, .fb Sun formats. More info when I know more... * .fli Font libraries produced by emTeX fontlib program. Used by emTeX drivers and newer versions of dvips. * .fnt Bitmapped GEM font in either Motorola or Intel format. * .fon An MS-Windows bitmapped font. * .fot An MS-Windows kludge for TrueType fonts. The fot file points to the actual TrueType font (in a ttf file). * .gf Generic font (the output of TeX's MetaFont program (possibly others?)) * .mf TeX MetaFont font file (text file of MetaFont commands) * .pfa Adobe Type 1 Postscript font in ASCII format (PC/Unix) I believe that this format is suitable for directly downloading to your PostScript printer (someone correct me if I'm wrong ;-) * .pfb Adobe Type 1 PostScript font in "binary`' format (PC/Unix) Note: this format is not suitable for downloading directly to your PostScript printer. There are utilities for conversion between PFB and PFA (see the utilities section of the FAQ). * .pfm Printer font metric information in Windows format * .pk TeX packed bitmap font file (also seen as .###pk where ### is a number) * .pl TeX `property list' file (a human readable version of .tfm) * .ps Frequently, any PostScript file. With respect to fonts, probably a Type3 font. This designation is much less `standard' than the others. Other non-standard extensions are .pso, .fon, and .psf (they are a mixture of type 1 and type 3 fonts). * .pxl TeX pixel bitmap font file (obsolete, replaced by .pk) * .sfl LaserJet bitmapped softfont, landscape orientation * .sfp LaserJet bitmapped softfont, portrait orientation * .sfs LaserJet scalable softfont * .spd Vector font in Speedo format. * .tdf Vector font type definitions for Speedo fonts. * .tfm TeX font metric file. Also an HP Tagged Font Metric file. * .ttf An MS-Windows TrueType font. * .vf TeX virtual font which allows building of composite fonts (a character can be composed of any sequence of movements, characters (possibly from multiple fonts) rules and TeX specials) * .vpl TeX `property list' (human readable) format of a .vf Subject: 1.15. Ligatures A ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. Generally, ligatures replace characters that occur next to each other when they share common components. Ligatures are a subset of a more general class of figures called "contextual forms." Contextual forms describe the case where the particular shape of a letter depends on its context (surrounding letters, whether or not it's at the end of a line, etc.). One of the most common ligatures is "fi". Since the dot above a lowercase 'I' interferes with the loop on the lowercase 'F', when 'f' and 'i' are printed next to each other, they are combined into a single figure with the dot absorbed into the 'f'. An example of a more general contextual form is the greek lowercase sigma. When typesetting greek, the selection of which 'sigma' to use is determined by whether or not the letter occurs at the end of the word (i.e., the final position in the word). * Amanda Walker provides the following discussion of ligatures: Ligatures were originally used by medieval scribes to conserve space and increase writing speed. A 14th century manuscript, for example, will include hundreds of ligatures (this is also where "accents" came from). Early typefaces used ligatures in order to emulate the appearance of hand-lettered manuscripts. As typesetting became more automated, most of these ligatures fell out of common use. It is only recently that computer based typesetting has encouraged people to start using them again (although 'fine art' printers have used them all along). Generally, ligatures work best in typefaces which are derived from calligraphic letterforms. Also useful are contextual forms, such as swash capitals, terminal characters, and so on. A good example of a computer typeface with a rich set of ligatures is Adobe Caslon (including Adobe Caslon Expert). It includes: Upper case, lower case, small caps, lining numerals, oldstyle numerals, vulgar fractions, superior and inferior numerals, swash italic caps, ornaments, long s, and the following ligatures: ff fi fl ffi ffl Rp ct st Sh Si Sl SS St (where S=long s) [Ed: Another common example is the Computer Modern Roman typeface that is provided with TeX. this family of fonts include the ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl ligatures which TeX automatically uses when it finds these letters juxtaposed in the text.] While there are a large number number of possible ligatures, generally only the most common ones are actually provided. In part, this is because the presence of too many alternate forms starts reducing legibility. A case in point is Luxeuil Miniscule, a highly-ligatured medieval document hand which is completely illegible to the untrained eye (and none too legible to the trained eye, either :)). * Don Hosek offers the following insight into ligatures: Ligatures were used in lead type, originally in imitation of calligraphic actions (particularly in Greek which retained an excessive number of ligatures in printed material as late as the 19th century), but as typefaces developed, ligatures were retained to improve the appearance of certain letter combinations. In some cases, it was used to allow certain letter combinations to be more closely spaced (e.g., "To" or "Vo") and were referred to as "logotypes". In other cases, the designs of two letters were merged to keep the overall spacing of words uniform. Ligatures are provided in most contemporary fonts for exactly this reason. * Liam Quin makes the following observations: The term ligature should only be used to describe joined letters in printing, not letters that overlap in manuscripts. Many (not all) accents came from the practice of using a tilde or other mark to represent an omitted letter, so that for example the Latin word `Dominus' would be written dns, with a tilde or bar over the n. This is an abbreviation, not a ligature. Most ligatures vanished during the 15th and 16th Centuries. It was simply too much work to use them, and it increased the price of book production too much. [Ed: there is no "complete" set of ligatures.] This is Info file compfont.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the input file FAQ.texinfo. Subject: 1.16. Built-in Fonts * PostScript printers (and Adobe Type Manager) with 13 fonts have: Courier, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, Courier-Oblique, Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-BoldOblique, Helvetica-Oblique, Symbol, Times-Bold, Times-BoldItalic, Times-Italic, Times-Roman * Postscript printers with 17 fonts have: Courier, Courier-Bold, Courier-BoldOblique, Courier-Oblique, Helvetica, Helvetica-Bold, Helvetica-BoldOblique, Helvetica-Narrow, Helvetica-Narrow-Bold, Helvetica-Narrow-BoldOblique, Helvetica-Narrow-Oblique, Helvetica-Oblique, Symbol, Times-Bold, Times-BoldItalic, Times-Italic, Times-Roman * Postscript printers with 35 fonts have: All of the above, plus the following: ZapfChancery-MediumItalic, ZapfDingbats, AvantGarde-Book, AvantGarde-BookOblique, AvantGarde-Demi, AvantGarde-DemiOblique, Bookman-Demi, Bookman-DemiItalic, Bookman-Light, Bookman-LightItalic, NewCenturySchlbk-Bold, NewCenturySchlbk-BoldItalic, NewCenturySchlbk-Italic, NewCenturySchlbk-Roman, Palatino-Bold, Palatino-BoldItalic, Palatino-Italic, Palatino-Roman * HP LaserJet printers (II, IIP) Courier 10, Courier 12, LinePrinter 16.66, ... * HP LaserJet printers (III, IIIP) All of the above, plus the following: Scalable Times Roman and Scalable Univers using Compugraphic's Intellifont hinted font format. * HP LaserJet IV printers All of the above, plus the following scalable (Intellifont) faces: Courier, Courier Bold, Courier Italic, Courier Bold Italic, CG Times, CG Times Bold, CG Times Italic, CG Times Bold Italic CG Omega, CG Omega Bold, CG Omega Italic, CG Omega Bold Italic Coronet, Clarendon Condensed Univers Medium, Univers Bold, Univers Medium Italic, Univers Bold Italic Univers Medium Condensed, Univers Bold Condensed, Univers Medium Condensed Italic, Univers Bold Condensed Italic Antique Olive, Antique Olive Bold, Antique Olive Italic Garamond Antiqua, Garamond Halbfett, Garamond Kursiv, Garamond Kursiv Halbfett Marigold, Albertus Medium, Albertus Extra Bold Arial, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, Arial Bold Italic Times New, Times New Bold, Times New Italic, Times New Bold Italic Symbol, Wingdings, Letter Gothic, Letter Gothic Bold, Letter Gothic Italic * SPARCPrinters The basic 35 fonts plus four scaled faces of each of Bembo, Gill Sans, Rockwell, Lucida, Lucida Bright, Sans and Typewriter, giving a total of 57 fonts, all in the F3 format. Subject: 1.17. Glossary [ I ripped this right out of the manual I wrote for Sfware. If you have comments, improvements, suggestions, please tell me... ] anti-aliasing [ed: this is an 'off-the-cuff' definition, feel free to clarify it for me ;-) ] On low-resolution bitmap devices (where ragged, ugly characters are the norm) which support more than two colors, it is possible to provide the appearance of higher resolution with anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing uses shaded pixels around the edges of the bitmap to give the appearance of partial-pixels which improves the apparent resolution. baseline The baseline is an imaginary line upon which each character rests. Characters that appear next to each other are (usually) lined up so that their baselines are on the same level. Some characters extend below the baseline ("g" and "j", for example) but most rest on it. bitmap A bitmap is an array of dots. If you imagine a sheet of graph paper with some squares colored in, a bitmap is a compact way of representing to the computer which squares are colored and which are not. In a bitmapped font, every character is represented as a pattern of dots in a bitmap. The dots are so small (300 or more dots-per-inch, usually) that they are indistinguishable on the printed page. character (1) The smallest component of written language that has semantic value. Character refers to the abstract idea, rather than a specific shape (see also glyph), though in code tables some form of visual representation is essential for the reader's understanding. (2) The basic unit of encoding for the Unicode character encoding, 16 bits of information. (3) Synonym for "code element". (4) The English name for the ideographic written elements of Chinese origin. download Downloading is the process of transferring information from one device to another. This transferral is called downloading when the transfer flows from a device of (relatively) more power to one of (relatively) less power. Sending new fonts to your printer so that it "learns" how to print characters in that font is called downloading. font A particular collection of characters of a typeface with unique parameters in the 'Variation vector', a particular instance of values for orientation, size, posture, weight, etc., values. The word font or fount is derived from the word foundry, where, originally, type was cast. It has come to mean the vehicle which holds the typeface character collection. A font can be metal, photographic film, or electronic media (cartridge, tape, disk). glyph (1) The actual shape (bit pattern, outline) of a character image. For example, an italic 'a' and a roman 'a' are two different glyphs representing the same underlying character. In this strict sense, any two images which differ in shape constitute different glyphs. In this usage, "glyph" is a synonym for "character image", or simply "image". (2) A kind of idealized surface form derived from some combination of underlying characters in some specific context, rather than an actual character image. In this broad usage, two images would constitute the same glyph whenever they have essentially the same topology (as in oblique 'a' and roman 'a'), but different glyphs when one is written with a hooked top and the other without (the way one prints an 'a' by hand). In this usage, "glyph" is a synonym for "glyph type," where glyph is defined as in sense 1. hints When a character is described in outline format the outline has unlimited resolution. If you make it ten times as big, it is just as accurate as if it were ten times as small. However, to be of use, we must transfer the character outline to a sheet of paper through a device called a raster image processor (RIP). The RIP builds the image of the character out of lots of little squares called picture elements (pixels). The problem is, a pixel has physical size and can be printed only as either black or white. Look at a sheet of graph paper. Rows and columns of little squares (think: pixels). Draw a large `O' in the middle of the graph paper. Darken in all the squares touched by the O. Do the darkened squares form a letter that looks like the O you drew? This is the problem with low resolution (300 dpi). Which pixels do you turn on and which do you leave off to most accurately reproduce the character? All methods of hinting strive to fit (map) the outline of a character onto the pixel grid and produce the most pleasing/recognizable character no matter how coarse the grid is. kerning (noun): That portion of a letter which extends beyond its width, that is, the letter shapes that overhang - the projection of a character beyond its sidebearings. (verb): To adjust the intercharacter spacing in character groups (words) to improve their appearance. Some letter combinations ("AV" and "To", for example) appear farther apart than others because of the shapes of the individual letters. Many sophisticated word processors move these letter combinations closer together automatically. outline font/format See 'scalable font' point The (more or less) original point system (Didot) did have exactly 72 points to the inch. The catch is that it was the French imperial inch, somewhat longer than the English inch, and it went away in the French revolution. What most people now think of as points were established by the United States Typefounders Association in 1886. This measure was a matter of convenience for the members of the Association, who didn't want to retool any more than they had to, so it had no relationship to the inch. By that date, people realized that the inch was an archaic measure anyway; the point was set to be 1/12 of a pica, and an 83-pica distance was made equal to 35 centimeters. (Talk about arbitrary!) Thus the measure of 72.27/in. is just an approximation. Of course, when PostScript was being written, it was necessary to fit into an inch-measured world. For the sake of simplicity PostScript defined a point as exactly 1/72". With the prevalance of DTP, the simplified point has replaced the older American point in many uses. Personally, I don't see that it matters one way or the other; all that counts is that there's a commonly-understood unit of measurement that allows you to get the size you think you want. That is, after all, the point ;) scalable font A scalable font, unlike a bitmapped font, is defined mathematically and can be rendered at any requested size (within reason). softfont A softfont is a bitmapped or scalable description of a typeface or font. They can be downloaded to your printer and used just like any other printer font. Unlike built-in and cartridge fonts, softfonts use memory inside your printer. Downloading a lot of softfonts may reduce the printers ability to construct complex pages. symbol set The symbol set of a font describes the relative positions of individual characters within the font. Since there can only be 256 characters in most fonts, and there are well over 256 different characters used in professional document preparation, there needs to be some way to map characters into positions within the font. The symbol set serves this purpose. It identifies the "map" used to position characters within the font. typeface The features by which a character's design is recognized, hence the word face. Within the Latin language group of graphic shapes are the following forms: Uncial, Blackletter, Serif, Sans Serif, Scripts, and Decorative. Each form characterizes one or more designs. Example: Serif form contains four designs called Old Style, Transitional, Modern, and Slab Serif designs. The typeface called Bodoni is a Modern design, while Times Roman is a Transitional design. User Contributions: 1 Star Wars Home Theatre ⚠ cpau nd Starwars Wars youtube.com/watch?v=KgUoGsWrFEs Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Part6 - Part7 - Part8 - Part9 - Part10 - Part11 - Part12 - Part13 - Part14 - Part15 - Part16 - Part17 [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh)
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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