[Openfontlibrary] looking for corefonts replacements, how to replace?, and site search

[Denis Jacquerye]

On 4/12/07, Ed Trager <ed.trager at gmail.com> wrote:
> > A good subsitute would have original designs for glyphs but the same
> > metrics as the non-free font it aims to replace.
> >
>
> The Bitstream Vera set of fonts actually have different metrics than
> the corresponding MS Core fonts, right?  There was a post on the this
> list about somebody I think in Australia who has taken the Bitstream
> set and changed the font metrics to match MS Core font metrics.  How
> "bad" is that, I wonder?  How different are they?  Also, has the Deja
> Vu project changed the overall font metrics at all, I wonder, to
> accomodate all of those extended Latin and other added characters?

DejaVu fonts keep the same metrics as Bitstream Vera. For specific
languages and scripts we would like to use the BASE table but that is
not yet supported by any OpenSource font shaper, nor by any font tool
except TTX.

> Many people are interested in the issue of "document fidelity" --
> where, for example, pagination of a document does not change across
> OSes.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that there are some
> well-known commercial fonts that also have the same font metrics -but
> different glyph designs- as some other better known commercial fonts.
> Presumably the reasoning is the same: to allow drop-in substitution of
> the alternate font while still retaining "document fidelity".
>
> I wonder who has solid information on this issue?

As far as I know only a couple of MS corefonts have free substitutes
Arial - Nimbus Sans or FreeSans
Courier New -
Times New Roman - Nimbus Roman or FreeSerif
Verdana - (Bitstream Vera Sans/DejaVu Sans with a few exceptions)
These substitutes are close but differ in glyph design and even more
so with kerning. Document fidelity is impossible unless you use the
same font.

This leaves Andale Mono, Arial Black, Comic Sans MS,  Georgia, Impact,
Trebuchet and without substitutes.

The new Vista fonts (Candara, Constantia, etc.) are also available for
download, but they don't have substitute.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

Some fonts like Myriad Pro, Minion Pro come with Acrobat, Lucida fonts
with Sun's Java.

-- 
Denis Moyogo Jacquerye --- http://home.sus.mcgill.ca/~moyogo
Nkótá ya Kongó míbalé --- http://info-langues-congo.1sd.org/
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