[Clipart] OCAL identified by IBM as resource for Linux migrations

[Jose Hevia]

> Jonadab wrote:
> 
> > you will probably want some specialty/novelty fonts.  I've found the
> > free[1] ones at larabiefonts.com are of pretty good technical quality
> > and cover a fair range of styles, although some of them tend toward
> > the bizarre.
> 
> I would also recommend the freeware fonts by Nick Curtis.  They're now
> at typOasis: http://moorstation.org/typoasis/designers.htm .  (Most of
> the other designers there are also worth looking at.)
> 
> > Of course, it will be nifty to see if SVG fonts can really take off;
> > that would allow for the creation of open-source fonts (which currently
> > is technically possible but to get any kind of quality involves
expensive
> > commercial packages such as Fontographer) using open-source tools. 
> 
> I don't really see how SVG fonts would make things any easier -
> designing good quality outline fonts is hard, and the format you
> save them in makes little difference.


  I think this is exactly the reason it could be very good. People have
not a lot of time to create complete font collections, but if it's easy
enough ,a lot of people could join just to make one or two letters each
own simply with inks. 
  Someone could improve bad ones if it uses a open license.
  I saw something at Levien.com (creator of Gill that evolved to->
sodipodi->Inkscape) he is developing a nice font editor based on Cornu
Spirals, and he wants this technology included into inkscape.


> Also, it's difficult to take SVG fonts seriously at present because they
> don't support hinting.  Font hinting was in the SVG 1.2 draft some time
> ago, but it seems to have been dropped now (at least, I can't find it).
> 
> > Does Inkscape have any way to trace around the letters in your card 
> > and create SVG shapes based on them?
> 
> Yes: Object to Path.  This creates paths using the path data from
> the font file.
> 
> You inevitably lose the font hinting and easy editability of the 
> original text if you do this, so it's not an ideal solution even
> when there are no copyright problems.
> 
> > Also, what would the copyright implications be of doing so with
> > non-public-domain fonts?
> 
> I think the outlines are covered by the copyright of the font.
> 
> You could instead render the text at a large size and then trace 
> it with potrace (better than AutoTrace for this sort of thing).
> This would produce paths that are different from those of the font
> file, but I'm not sure this is enough to avoid the copyright.

  You could instead buy an ancient book ,scan it and produce paths (like
adobe folks did before digitally making fonts). Typography is an old art.
  I wish I could create forms in inkscape and assign it(label) a
keyboard key, and write with it as if it were a font.

For sure the problem will be that the SVG standard doesn't include it
(until a proprietary app includes). 
Well,sorry for the Off topic.
It's nice to see the list ,and the project is not dead.               
                                          Jose Hevia