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- From: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh)
- Subject: comp.fonts FAQ: General Info (1/3)
- Message-ID: <font-faq-1_759515252@ora.com>
- Followup-To: poster
- Summary: This posting answers frequently asked questions about fonts.
- It addresses both general font questions and questions that
- are specific to a particular platform.
- Sender: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh)
- Supersedes: <font-faq-1_757281740@ora.com>
- Reply-To: norm@ora.com (Norman Walsh)
- Organization: O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.
- Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 16:27:34 GMT
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Expires: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 16:27:32 GMT
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- Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu comp.fonts:6511 comp.answers:3557 news.answers:14497
-
- Archive-name: fonts-faq/part1
- Version: 2.0.3
-
- Frequently Asked Questions About Fonts
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- The comp.fonts FAQ
- Version 2.0.3.
- January 24, 1994
- Compiled by Norman Walsh
-
- Copyright (C) 1992, 93 by Norman Walsh <walsh@cs.umass.edu>.
-
- Portions of the OS/2 section are Copyright (C) 1993 by David J.
- Birnbaum. All rights reserved. Reproduced here by permission.
-
- Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
- document provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
- preserved on all copies.
-
- Subject: Table of Contents
-
- 1. General Information
- 1.1. Font Houses
- 1.2. What's the difference between all these font formats?
- 1.3. What about "Multiple Master" fonts?
- 1.4. Is there a methodology to describe and classify typefaces?
- 1.5. What is the "f" shaped "s" called?
- 1.6. What about "Colonial" Typefaces?
- 1.7. Where can I get ... fonts.
- 1.8. Where can I get fonts for non-Roman alphabets?
- 1.9. What about fonts with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) sy...
- 1.10. How can I convert my ... font to ... format?
- 1.11. Are fonts copyrightable?
- 1.12. Typeface Protection
- 1.13. File Formats
- 1.14. Ligatures
- 1.15. Built-in Fonts
- 1.16. Glossary
- 1.17. Bibliography
- 1.18. Font Encoding Standards
- 1.19. TrueType
- 1.20. Unicode Information
- 1.21. Can I Print Checks with the MICR Font?
- 1.22. Rules of Thumb
- 1.23. Acknowledgements
- 1.24. A Brief Introduction to Typography
- 1.25. Pronounciation of Font Names
- 1.26. What does `lorem ipsum dolor' mean?
- 2. Macintosh Information
- 2.1. Macintosh Font formats
- 2.2. Frequently Requested Mac Fonts
- 2.3. Commercial Font Sources
- 2.4. Mac Font Installation
- 2.5. Mac Font Utilities
- 2.6. Making Outline Fonts
- 2.7. Problems and Possible Solutions
- 2.8. Creating Mac screen fonts
- 3. MS-DOS Information
- 3.1. Frequently Requested MS-DOS fonts
- 3.2. MS-DOS Font Installation
- 3.3. What exactly are the encodings of the DOS code pages?
- 3.4. MS-DOS Font Utilities
- 3.5. Converting fonts under MS-DOS
- 3.5.1. Converting Mac Type 1 fonts to MS-DOS format
- 3.5.2. Converting PC Type 1 and TrueType fonts to Mac format
- 3.5.3. Converting PC Type 1 fonts into TeX PK bitmap fonts
- 3.5.4. Converting TeX PK bitmaps into HP LaserJet softfonts (and vice...
- 3.5.5. TrueType to HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts (HACK!)
- 3.6. MS-DOS Screen Fonts (EGA/VGA text-mode fonts)
- 4. OS/2 Information
- 4.1. Preliminaries
- 4.2. Fonts under DOS
- 4.3. Windows
- 4.4. Differences between Windows and OS/2
- 4.5. Installation under Windows and Win-OS/2
- 4.6. FontSpecific PostScript Encoding
- 4.7. AdobeStandardEncoding
- 4.8. AdobeStandardEncoding under Windows (and Win-OS/2)
- 4.9. AdobeStandardEncoding under OS/2
- 4.10. Consequences for OS/2 users
- 4.11. Advice to the user
- 4.12. OS/2 2.1 and beyond
- 5. Unix Information
- 6. Sun Information
- 6.1. Fonts Under Open Windows
- 6.1.1. Does OpenWindows support Type 1 PostScript fonts?
- 6.1.2. Improving font rendering time
- 6.1.3. Making bitmap fonts for faster startup
- 6.1.4. Converting between font formats (convertfont, etc.)
- 6.1.5. Xview/OLIT fonts at 100 dpi
- 6.2. Where can I order F3 fonts for NeWSprint and OpenWindows?
- 7. NeXT Information
- 7.1. Tell me about NeXTstep fonts
- 7.2. Tell me more about NeXTstep fonts
- 7.3. Porting fonts to the NeXT
- 7.4. Font availability
- 7.5. Why can I only install 256 fonts on my NeXT?
- 8. Amiga Information
- 9. X11 Information
- 9.1. Getting X11
- 9.2. Historical Notes about X11
- 9.3. X11 Font Formats
- 9.4. X11 Font Server Information
- 9.5. Fonts and utilities for X11
- 10. Utilities
- 10.1. PS2PK
- 10.2. TeX Utilities
- 10.3. MFPic
- 10.4. fig2MF
- 10.5. GNU Font Utilities
- 10.6. Font Editors
- 10.7. The T1 Utilities
- 10.8. Where to get bitmap versions of the fonts
- 10.9. Converting between font formats
- 10.10. Getting fonts by FTP and Mail
- 10.11. MetaFont to PostScript Conversion
- 10.12. How to use Metafont fonts with Troff
- 10.13. PKtoBDF / MFtoBDF
- 10.14. PKtoPS
- 10.15. PKtoSFP / SFPtoPK
- 10.16. PostScript to MetaFont
- 10.17. Mac Bitmaps to BDF Format
- 11. Vendor Information
-
- Subject: 1. General Information
-
- Many FAQs, including this one, are available by anonymous ftp from
- rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. Each posted
- section of the FAQ is archived under the name that appears in the
- "Archive-name" header at the top of the article.
-
- This FAQ is a work in progress. If you have any suggestions, I would be
- delighted to hear them.
-
- This FAQ is maintained in TeXinfo format. A Perl script constructs the
- postable FAQ from the TeXinfo sources. TeX DVI, PostScript, and Info
- versions of this FAQ are available from ftp.shsu.edu in
- /tex-archive/help/comp-fonts-FAQ. A "Gopher" server is also maintained
- at shsu.edu which can provide interactive access to the FAQ. Finally,
- an online, hypertext version of the FAQ is maintained (experimentally)
- on jasper.ora.com where an HTTP server runs. For example, point
- XMosaic (or a similar WWW browser) to http://jasper.ora.com/.
-
- The posted version of the FAQ is organized in a quasi-digest format so
- that it is easy to find the questions you are interested in. All
- questions that appear in the table of contents can be found by searching
- for the word "Subject:" followed by the question number.
-
- The "TeXinfo" distribution from the Free Software Foundation contains a
- program called "Info" that can be used to read the Info version of the
- FAQ in a hypertext manner. The "TeXinfo" distribution can be obtained
- from prep.ai.mit.edu in the /pub/gnu directory. At the time of this
- writing, texinfo-2.16.tar.gz is the most recent version. Info files
- can also be read in hypertext form by GNU Emacs.
-
- Future versions of the FAQ will make more use of the hypertext
- capabilities provided by the Info format. At present, the FAQ is
- organized as a simple tree. A plain ASCII, postable version of the FAQ
- will always be maintained.
-
- All trademarks used in this document are the trademarks of their
- respective owners.
-
- Standard disclaimers apply.
-
- Subject: 1.1. Font Houses
-
- This section will be expanded on in the future. It contains notes about
- various commercial font houses.
-
- Compugraphic
- ============
-
- See "Miles, Agfa Division"
-
- Miles, Agfa Division
- ====================
-
- Compugraphic which was for a while the Compugraphic division of Agfa,
- is now calling itself "Miles, Agfa Division" (yes, the Miles drug
- company), since CG's off-shore parent Agfa has been absorbed by Miles.
- So typographically speaking, Compugraphic, CG, Agfa, A-G ag, and Miles
- all refer to the same company and font library. Their proprietary fonts
- are still CG Xyz, but the name is Miles Agfa.
-
- Subject: 1.2. What's the difference between all these font formats?
-
- This question is not trivial to answer. It's analogous to asking what
- the difference is between various graphics image file formats. The
- short, somewhat pragmatic answer, is simply that they are different
- ways of representing the same "information" and some of them will work
- with your software/printer and others won't.
-
- At one level, there are two major sorts of fonts: bitmapped and outline
- (scalable). Bitmapped fonts are falling out of fashion as various
- outline technologies grow in popularity and support.
-
- Bitmapped fonts represent each character as a rectangular grid of
- pixels. The bitmap for each character indicates precisely what pixels
- should be on and off. Printing a bitmapped character is simply a
- matter of blasting the right bits out to the printer. There are a
- number of disadvantages to this approach. The bitmap represents a
- particular instance of the character at a particular size and
- resolution. It is very difficult to change the size, shape, or
- resolution of a bitmapped character without significant loss of quality
- in the image. On the other hand, it's easy to do things like shading
- and filling with bitmapped characters.
-
- Outline fonts represent each character mathematically as a series of
- lines, curves, and 'hints'. When a character from an outline font is
- to be printed, it must be 'rasterized' into a bitmap "on the fly".
- PostScript printers, for example, do this in the print engine. If the
- "engine" in the output device cannot do the rasterizing, some front end
- has to do it first. Many of the disadvantages that are inherent in the
- bitmapped format are not present in outline fonts at all. Because an
- outline font is represented mathematically, it can be drawn at any
- reasonable size. At small sizes, the font renderer is guided by the
- 'hints' in the font; at very small sizes, particularly on
- low-resolution output devices such as screens, automatically scaled
- fonts become unreadable, and hand-tuned bitmaps are a better choice (if
- they are available). Additionally, because it is rasterized "on
- demand," the font can be adjusted for different resolutions and 'aspect
- ratios'.
-
- Werenfried Spit adds the following remark:
-
- Well designed fonts are not scalable. I.e. a well designed 5pt font is
- not simply its 10pt counterpart 50% scaled down. (One can verify this
- by blowing up some small print in a copier and compare it with large
- print; or see the example for computer modern in D.E. Knuth's TeXbook.)
- Although this fact has no direct implications for any of the two
- methods of font representation it has an indirect one: users and word
- processor designers tend to blow up their 10pt fonts to 20pt or scale
- them down to 5pt given this possibility. Subtle details, but well...
-
- LaserJet .SFP and .SFL files, TeX PK, PXL, and GF files, Macintosh
- Screen Fonts, and GEM .GFX files are all examples of bitmapped font
- formats.
-
- PostScript Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 fonts, Nimbus Q fonts, TrueType
- fonts, Sun F3, MetaFont .mf files, and LaserJet .SFS files are all
- examples of outline font formats.
-
- Neither of these lists is even close to being exhaustive.
-
- To complicate the issue further, identical formats on different
- platforms are not necessarily the same. For example Type 1 fonts on
- the Macintosh are not directly usable under MS-DOS or Unix, and
- vice-versa.
-
- It has been pointed out that the following description shows signs of
- its age (for example, the eexec encryption has been thoroughly hacked).
- I don't dispute the observation and I encourage anyone with the
- knowledge and time to submit a more up to date description.
-
- It has further been suggested that this commentary is biased toward
- Kingsley/ATF. The omission of details about Bitstream (and possibly
- Bauer) may be considered serious since their software lies inside many
- 3rd-party PostScript interpreters.
-
- The moderators of this FAQ would gladly accept other descriptions/
- explanations/viewpoints on the issues discussed in this (and every
- other) section.
-
- [Ed Note: Liam R. E. Quin supplied many changes to the following
- section in an attempt to bring it up to date. Hopefully it is a better
- reflection of the state of the world today (12/07/92) than it was in
- earlier FAQs]
-
- Henry Schneiker <reachable electronically?> wrote the following
- description of the differences between several scalable font
- technologies:
-
- ((( semi-quote )))
-
- There has been a lot of confusion about font technologies in recent
- times, especially when it comes to Type 1 versus Type 3 fonts, "hints,"
- PostScript compatibility, encryption, character regularizing, kerning,
- and the like.
-
- * Encryption (eexec)
-
- All fonts produced with Adobe's font technology are protected
- through data encryption. The decryption is provided by the `eexec'
- (encrypted execute) PostScript operator and, until recently, was
- only present in Adobe's licensed PostScript.
-
- Adobe has published the details of the Type 1 font format in the
- `Black Book', Adobe Type 1 Font Format (version 1.1), Adobe
- Systems Inc., 1990. The encryption was mainly used because of
- font copyright problems; unencrypted fonts can also be used, but
- these tend to use an efficient binary encoding, also in documented
- the Type 1 book, and so are still not readable PostScript.
-
- * Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 font formats
-
- There are generally three font formats used in Adobe PostScript
- printers: Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5. Type 1 fonts are Adobe's
- downloadable format. Type 3 fonts are third-party downloadable
- format. Type 5 fonts are the ROM-based fonts that are part of your
- printer.
-
- There is no functional difference between a Type 1, Type 3, or
- Type 5 font. A Type 3 font can do anything a Type 1 or Type 5 font
- can do. The only real difference between them is where the
- `BuildChar' routine comes from. For Type 1 and Type 5 fonts it's
- built into the printer. For Type 3 fonts it's built into the font.
- In other words, anything a Type 1 font can do a Type 3 font can
- also do.
-
- [Ed note: the reverse is not true. Type3 fonts can do things that
- Type1 fonts cannot. But they aren't hinted...]
-
- When PostScript is asked to generate a character, PostScript looks
- in the font's dictionary for FontType. If FontType is 1 or 5
- PostScript executes an internal routine that knows how to
- interpret the font data stored in CharStrings. If FontType is 3
- PostScript executes the routine BuildChar from the font's
- dictionary to interpret the font data (often stored in
- CharStrings).
-
- However, each BuildChar routine is written to read data formatted
- in a method convenient to the vendor. Adobe, Altsys, Bitstream, and
- Kingsley/ATF all format their font data differently and, hence,
- have different BuildChar routines.
-
- [Ed note: relative hard disk efficiency of Kingsley vs. Adobe fonts
- deleted on 12/07/92]
-
- Type 5 fonts are special in that they often include hand-tuned
- bitmaps for the commonly used sizes, such as 10- and 12-point.
- Other sizes are generated from the outlines in normal fashion.
-
- Don't confuse Type 1, Type 3, and Type 5 fonts with Bitstream's
- Type A, Type B, Type C, and Type F. They are not the same and
- serve only to confuse the issue.
-
- * Resolution `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.
-
- [Ed note: deleted some paragraphs that are no longer true. Times
- change...]
-
- * Optical Scaling
-
- Optical Scaling modifies the relative shape of a character to
- compensate for the visual effects of changing a character's size.
- As a character gets smaller, the relative thickness of strokes,
- the size of serifs, the width of the character, the
- inter-character spacing, and inter-line spacing should increase.
- Conversely, as a character gets larger, the relative thickness,
- widths, and spacing should decrease.
-
- Contrast this with linear scaling, in which all parts of a
- character get larger or smaller at the same rate, making large
- characters look wide and heavy (strokes are too thick, serifs are
- too big) while small characters look thin and weak.
-
- * Kerning
-
- As applied to PostScript fonts, kerning refers to kern pairs. A
- kern pair specifies two characters (e.g., A and V) and the
- distance to move the second character relative to the first. The
- typical use of a kern pair is to remove excessive space between a
- pair of characters. However, it may also be used to add space.
-
- * PostScript clones
-
- There are currently several printer manufacturers on the market
- with PostScript clones. To be viable, a PostScript clone must
- comply with the `red book' (PS Language Reference Manual).
-
- In order to avoid paying royalties to Adobe, and because Adobe's
- Type 1 font format was originally proprietary, many PostScript
- interpreters use some other font format. Sun uses F3, and some
- other vendors use Bitstream's Speedo format, for example. The
- only real problem this causes is that the widths of characters
- (the `font metrics') may vary from Adobe's, so that programs that
- assume the Adobe character widths will produce poor quality
- output. Bitstream fonts used to be particularly bad in the early
- days, but they and most or all of the other vendors have solved
- those problems.
-
- * Apple TrueType [Ed note: formerly "Royal (`sfnt')"] format and
- System 7
-
- Apple's new System 7.0 supports a new format of outline font that
- will allow high-quality characters of any size to be displayed on
- the screen. TrueType stores font outlines as B-spline curves
- along with programmed resolution hints. B-spline curves are faster
- to compute and easier to manipulate than the Bezier curves used in
- PostScript.
-
- Adobe is not going to support Apple's new format by converting the
- Adobe/Linotype library to B-spline format. There are two reasons
- for this: First, there is no support for font encryption (yes, the
- hooks are there, but nothing is implemented). Second, Adobe does
- not want to dilute PostScript and its font library. However, the
- Macintosh is too big a market to simply turn away from. Therefore,
- Adobe will provide its Font Manager to display its own fonts on
- the Mac screen. Apple ships Adobe's ATM for this purpose.
-
- ((( unquote )))
-
- Subject: 1.3. What about "Multiple Master" fonts?
-
- Multiple Master Fonts are an extension to the Adobe font format.
- providing the ability to interpolate smoothly between several "design
- axes" from a single font. Design axes can include weight, size, and
- even some whacko notions like serif to sans serif. Adobes' first
- Multiple Master Font was Myriad - a two-axis font with WEIGHT (light to
- black) on one axis, and WIDTH (condensed to expanded) along the other
- axis. In the case of Myriad, there are four "polar" designs at the
- "corners" of the design space. The four designs are light condensed,
- black condensed, light expanded, and black expanded.
-
- Given polar designs, you can set up a "weight vector" which
- interpolates to any point within the design space to produce a unique
- font for a specific purpose. So you can get a "more or less condensed,
- somewhat black face".
-
- Multiple Master Fonts can be used on any PostScript printer. Multiple
- Master Fonts need a new PostScript operator known as makeblendedfont.
- The current crop of Multiple Master Fonts supply an emulation of this
- operator so the printer doesn't need this operator.
-
- A short tutorial on Multiple Master Fonts and makeblendedfont appears
- in PostScript by Example, by Henry McGilton and Mary Campione,
- published by Addison-Wesley.
-
- Danny Thomas contributes that there are a few PostScript interpreter
- (version)s which have bugs that appear with the emulation of the
- makeblendedfont operator used to support Multiple Master fonts. There
- weren't many exhibiting this problem, though it may have happened even
- with one Adobe interpreter.
-
- Subject: 1.4. Is there a methodology to describe and classify typefaces?
-
- There is a standard, Panose, but it is mostly ignored by typographers
- (not because it's bad, just because they don't need it). The Panose
- system is documented, among other places, in the Microsoft Windows 3.1
- Programmer's Reference from Microsoft Press.
-
- The ISO also has a scheme, but it is not Panose.
-
- At least one book by a respected authority, Alexander Lawson, Printing
- Types: An Introduction, describes another, less rigorous system [ed: of
- his own], which is exposited in "An Introduction" and used without
- exposition in his later "Anatomy of a Typeface".
-
- There is another book, Rookledges International Typefinder, which has a
- very complete system that uses tell-tales of individual glyphs as well
- as overall style to index most known faces right in the book.
-
- J. Ben Leiberman has another book on type face description.
-
- Terry O'Donnell adds the following comments:
-
- The current ISO system was initiated (I believe) by Archie Provan of
- RIT--a successor to Mr. Lawson. Whereas in typographic practice or
- teaching--only a high level classification is necessary - times have
- changed and the current ISO system aims to accomplish something beyond
- the high level. A major goal is to aid software to help users make
- selections. For example, a naive user might ask for all fonts on a font
- server which have a Roman old style appearance. Another goal would be
- to help users with multi-lingual text: a user creating a document in
- English using e.g. Baskerville wants to know what Arabic or Japanese
- language font on his system/file server would harmonize well with the
- Baskerville. It is not all in place yet--but the more detailed ISO
- classes--and the current addition of non-latin typefaces--are an
- attempt to address this issue.
-
- A second goal is to help with the font substitution problem. Neither
- ISO or Panose address the metrics issues in font substitution--but both
- might aid software in picking the nearest style of available available
- fonts.
-
- Subject: 1.5. What is the "f" shaped "s" called?
-
- Both the "f" with half a crosbar (roman) and the integral sign (italic)
- are called long-S.
-
- Subject: 1.6. What about "Colonial" Typefaces?
-
- Why does colonial printing have that "Colonial" feel?
- =====================================================
-
- Colonial type was either very roughly treated by moist salt air on the
- crossing and in colonial port cities, or was copied locally by tacky
- techniques (such as driving used foundry type into soft lead to make
- very soft deformable matrices), and the paper was very rough, which
- abrades both the serifs and the hairlines. So except for the best work
- done with new, european types, the serifs were much smaller, even
- broken off, than the original founder/punchcutter intended. Thins
- could be abraded by rough paper to nothingness, esp after humid salt
- air had leached the hardener out of the alloy.
-
- What fonts are good for mock-colonial uses?
- ===========================================
-
- For example, what fonts have the following features: old-style figures
- (non-lining numbers), the long s character, slightly irregular shapes
- (a la type produced by colonial printers), and a decent complement of
- ligatures. And what about free or cheap faces like this?
-
- I don't know if any exist with all of 1-5. As I believe you get what
- you pay for, especially in fonts, I haven't looked at free and
- cheap-copy fonts.
-
- Microsoft's expansion set for their Win3.1 optional fonts has Garamond
- Expert & Expert Extensions, which has a good complement of ligatures
- and I think I remember it having the long ess too. I forget about
- OSFigs; it should tho'. Monotype's metal faces "16th Century Roman"
- and "Poliphilus" may be available in digital; if so, they imitate early
- presswork with early and are very close to what one wants.
-
- "A commercial supplier [not yet sampled] is Image Club Graphics in
- Calgary (1-800-661-9410). It is called Caslon Antique. It is supplied
- as both roman and italic, together, for $25. They advertise in
- MacWorld/MacUser/MacBlah. I am unable to tell from abcDEF123 if the
- numerals are old-style, but I think not. Ligatures? long-S? Not yet
- known. Guillemots, though, are there. ... Letraset, circa 1977,
- showing a Caslon Antique with modern numerals, no ligatures, and only
- UKPounds and German ss extensions." [Ike Stoddard]
-
- NB: Caslon Antique is not a Caslon per se: "The last Caslon to mention
- is that ubiquitous but unrelated Caslon Antique, which possesses no
- similarity whatsoever to the original. This old reprobate was
- introduced by Barnhart Brothers of Chicago under the name Fifteenth
- Century. Its negative reception lasted until about 1918, when, with a
- simple name change to Caslon Antique, it became the most commonly
- selected type for reproductions of colonial American printing. It is
- now seen in everything from liquor advertisments to furniture
- commercials" [Lawson, 1990,Anatomy]
-
- Miles Agfa (Compugraphic) has always had a Caslon Antique; I don't know
- if it is available for TrueType or Type 1, but Agfa has been doing
- TrueType bundles at reasonable prices. [wdr]
-
- What fonts could a colonial printer have had?
- =============================================
-
- According to D.B.Updike in the classic reference "Printing Types: Their
- History, Forms & Use", he indicates that most colonial work was with
- types of the Caslon Old Style fonts and cheap copies of same in the
- 18th C. Before that, it would have been the older Dutch & English
- faces, almost always lagging English tastes. If you can find the
- Oxford Fell types, they are classic Dutch-as-used-by-englishmen.
- Anything with a Dutch moniker and the Oldstyle adjective is probably
- ok; Van Dijck if you find it, say (died 1673).
-
- Ben Franklin recommended Caslon faces. But these were not available in
- England before 1720, first full broadside in 1734. Lawson declares that
- the first printing of the Declaration of Independance was in Caslon.
-
- Wilson's Scotch Modern was the "modern" font that surfaced in quantity
- in america. If the Scotch Roman your vendor has is sort-of like-Bodoni
- but nicer than his Bodoni, that's it. It wasn't available until late
- 1700s, though.
-
- Subject: 1.7. Where can I get ... fonts.
-
- Before I go any farther, let me extol the virtues of the Archie servers.
- If you need to find something on the net, and you have any idea what it
- might be called, Archie is the place to go. In North America, telnet to
- "archie.rutgers.edu" and login as "archie". There are many other
- servers around the world, any Archie server can give you a list of other
- servers. There are better documents than this to describe Archie and
- you should be able to find them from the above starting point. If you
- have trouble, feel free to ask norm (via Email please, no need to
- clutter comp.fonts with a query about Archie ;-).
-
- In addition to the telnet option, several archie clients exist including
- a very nice X11 implementation (Xarchie)
-
- * Adobe Type 1 Fonts in MS-DOS/Unix Format:
-
- ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts
-
- ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts/atm
-
- archive.umich.edu:/msdos/mswindows/fonts
-
- * Adobe Type 1 Fonts in Mac Format:
-
- mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/type1
-
- sumex-aim.stanford.edu:/info-mac/font
-
- * Adobe Type 3 Fonts in Mac Format:
-
- mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/type3
-
- * TrueType fonts in MS-DOS Format:
-
- ftp.cica.indiana.edu:/pub/pc/win3/fonts/truetype
-
- * TrueType fonts in Mac Format:
-
- mac.archive.umich.edu:/mac/system.extensions/font/truetype
-
- * TeX PK/PXL/GF fonts:
-
- The TeX community has it's own support groups that can provide
- better answers to this question. The canonical list of MetaFont
- fonts is posted occasionally to comp.text.tex. The comp.text.tex
- newsgroup (or the Info-TeX mailing list, if you do not have access
- to news) are good places to start. Email norm if you need more
- specific information.
-
- * LaserJet bitmap fonts:
-
- wuarchive.wustl.edu:/mirrors/msdos/laser
-
- Also on other simtel20 mirrors...
-
- If you know of other archive sites (the above list is no where near
- complete) or other formats that are available on the net, please let us
- know.
-
- The sites above represent places where shareware and public domain fonts
- are available. Many, many typefaces are not available in shareware
- form. And many shareware faces are less than adequate for a variety of
- reasons, particularly at small sizes. It seems to be the consensus of
- the comp.fonts community that "you get what you pay for." If you need a
- professional quality font, you should probably buy it from a
- professional.
-
- A list of font vendors (annotated with information about non-Roman
- alphabets) was contributed by Masumi Abe. Masumi was Adobe's Manager of
- Typographic Marketing for Asia, he has since left Adobe.
-
- The list is quite long and it is posted separately. It can be retrieved
- via anonymous ftp from /pub/norm/comp.fonts on ibis.cs.umass.edu.
-
- Subject: 1.8. Where can I get fonts for non-Roman alphabets?
-
- As mentioned above, the list of font vendors is annotated with
- information about non-Roman alphabets. Commercially, Masumi suggests
- that Linguists' Software is the current [ed: as of 7/92] leading
- supplier of non-Roman fonts.
-
- Subject: 1.9. What about fonts with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols?
-
- I summarized Scott Brumage's recent post for the FAQ:
-
- Shareware or free (PostScript Type 1 and/or TrueType):
- ======================================================
-
- * TechPhon
-
- Seems to lack some characters and has no zero-offset characters
- (for accents).
-
- * PalPhon
-
- A phonetic font which you can get by anonymous ftp from
- mac.archive.umich.edu. It is called PalPhon. There are actually
- two fonts: the basic PalPhon and one with additional accents and
- symbols called PalPi. The package includes some documents on using
- the fonts as well.
-
- * SIL-IPA
-
- SIL-IPA is a set of scalable IPA fonts containing the full
- International Phonetic Alphabet with 1990 Kiel revisions. Three
- typefaces are included:
-
- * SIL Doulos (similar to Times)
-
- * SIL Sophia (similar to Helvetica)
-
- * SIL Manuscript (monowidth)
-
- Each font contains all the standard IPA discrete characters and
- non-spacing diacritics as well as some suprasegmental and
- puncuation marks. Each font comes in both PostScript Type 1 and
- TrueType formats. The fonts are also available for Microsoft
- Windows.
-
- These fonts were designed by the Printing Arts Department of the
- Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas, Texas.
-
- Shareware or free (TeX):
- ========================
-
- METAFONT sources of the phonetic symbols developed by
- Tokyo-Shoseki-Printing and Sanseido are available. The font contains
- all of IPA (Internatioanl Phonetic Alphabet) symbols.
-
- You can get phonetic symbols METAFONT (named TSIPA) from
-
- ftp.foretune.co.jp:/pub/tools/TeX/Fonts
-
- The IP address for ftp.foretune.co.jp is 133.123.1.2.
-
- Commercial:
- ===========
-
- Linguist's Software Adobe (ITC Stone Phonetic [#255], Times Phonetic
- [#278])
-
- Subject: 1.10. How can I convert my ... font to ... format?
-
- Conversion from one bitmapped format to another is not generally too
- difficult. Conversion from one scalable format to another is very
- difficult. Several commercial software packages claim to perform these
- tasks, but none has been favorably reviewed by the comp.fonts
- community. ATech's AllType program, in particular, has had poor
- reviews [ed: as of 7/92].
-
- In an effort to settle a long-running and oft-asked question, I'll be
- blunt: as of today [6/93], THERE ARE NO NON-COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS WHICH
- WILL CONVERT FROM ONE SCALABLE FORMAT TO ANOTHER. Not from TrueType to
- PostScript Type 1, Type 3, Type 5, or any other scalable PostScript
- format. Not from PostScript Type 1 to TrueType. Not to or from
- Intellifont. Not to or from Sun F3 format.
-
- There are some commercial programs: AllType, Metamorphosis, Font
- Monger, and even MoreFonts (to/from some proprietary format, I
- believe). And there are probably other commercial programs as well.
- However, as several people have noted, conversion from one scalable
- format to another is a bad idea. If the original font was well hinted,
- the converted font will not be. Of course, if the original was poorly
- hinted, maybe it won't matter much.
-
- For specific conversions, check the platform specific parts of the FAQ.
- Most of the conversions discussed require platform specific tools.
-
- Here is a summary of the conversions discussed (and the section in
- which they appear):
-
- Mac Type 1 PostScript
- To PC Type 1 PostScript (MS-DOS). To TrueType (commercial).
-
- PC Type 1 PostScript
- To Mac Type 1 PostScript (Mac, commercial). To TrueType
- (commercial). To TeX PK (MS-DOS).
-
- TrueType
- To Type 1 PostScript (Mac and MS-DOS, commercial). To HP LaserJet
- bitmaps (MS-DOS, hack!).
-
- TeX PK
- To HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts (MS-DOS).
-
- HP LaserJet bitmap softfonts
- To TeX PK (MS-DOS).
-
- In addition, Adobe ships a copy of Adobe Font Foundry with all of its
- fonts which can convert Type 1 fonts into HP LaserJet softfonts.
-
- Subject: 1.11. 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."
-
- This is Info file comp.fonts.faq.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from
- the input file FAQ.texinfo.
-
- Subject: 1.12. 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.
-
-