Talk:Typeface/archive1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Merge history section from Typography

Several editors have suggested the history section of Typography be split off and either:

• merged with Typeface
• made into a new stand-alone article—History of typography.

Having given it enuff consideration it makes perfect sense to me now. I'm happy to cut and paste the history of type I wrote and adapt it textually to Typeface where necessary, as well as patch up the resulting hole in Typography.

Arbo 16:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC) @

A better option suggested by Bb3cxv is to break out the history section into a stand-alone article: History of Typography. I'm going ahead with that now. The merge with Font proposal has been up for 4 weeks and attracted no comments.

Arbo talk 14:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Done! See new article:>> History of Typography

Arbo talk 15:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Famous typefaces list

Any point in having a "list of famous typefaces"? It seems absurdly open-ended. zadcat 19:27 Sep 10, 2002 (UTC)

I'd like a list of fonts that are used in famous logos Suppafly 17:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Mention Bitstream Vera?

I think we should add Bitstream Vera to the article, like to the font families and so forth. What about it? - Repabil 22:12, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC) A list of fonts used in titles for movies and television.

Blackletter v. Gothic

Anticipating objections: Everywhere in the world, old-style Germanic typefaces are blackletter, but only in the UK are they Gothic — but Gothic applies universally to sans-serif type (especially within the printing trade). Calling old-style Germanic typefaces "blackletter" in the first instance is thus clearer to all readerships.

See OED2 "Gothic":

b. In England, the name of the type commonly used for printing German, as distinguished from roman and italic characters. (Formerly, and still in non-technical use, equivalent to black letter.)

c. Applied in the U.S. to the type called in England GROTESQUE (also sans-ceriph, and, by some type-founders, doric; formerly stone letter).

— mendel ☎ 04:09, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

I think "everywhere" in your comment refers to other English-speaking countries (and indeed, this is an English-language encyclopedia). The UK here follows continental European usage, and I think the other English-speaking countries are the anomaly here. I don't know about the printing trade. gpvos 13:38, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To-do

The following note was moved from the article to here where (I hope) it belongs:

To do:

decorational fonts

Sample image for Grotesques

chocolateboy 19:18, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Computer font

this article doesn't address font in the computer.

for example, i have one question: are fonts as we found in OS X or Windows, just a set of math descriptions of glyphs? in particular, it must also contain a mapping from the glyph to a particular encoding system? and therefore, it also contains meta data about what encoding system this font is used for?

For example, when someone says "you need a unicode font", does it just mean a set of glyphes that contains the vast majority of characters in the uncode set, or does it mean even just a font with just ascii glyphs and a bit more but comes with a unicode mapping?

Xah Lee P0lyglut 19:08, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

P0lyglut has a good point. I came here looking for this exact information:

I propose a Font article that links to Typeface but describes the encoding tables and other meta-information that accompanies the glyphs.

User:Ewg 16:58, 2004 May 15 (UTC)

Redundancy

pangram is explained three times in one article

geez.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Omegatron (talk • contribs). 21 August 2004

Reorganise

I suggest that we reorganize this article and break out sections into separate articles. We should create a separate Font/Fount article, as well as a computer font article (that's a large topic!). The fount article would deal with historic meanings of the word, as well as the contemporary meaning.

The details about font families should be broken out into a separate article, but briefly discussed here.

Some of the things included in this article are general typography topics, and should be broken out.

Serifs can easily make up an article of their own. There are many types of serifs. The current coverage of them is sufficient for this article.

Further, we must reduce the Latin script POV in this article, specifically by discussing and including images of glyphs from other scripts. — David Remahl 22:06, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Do not forget to include this: font family (HTML). — Monedula 11:12, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Definition of "font"

Definition of "font" is MISSING!

The article just starts talking about "font families" without making it clear what a font is and how the definition of it differs from a typeface. The article for font is just a disambiguation page lnking back to this page. Someone should define the term properly, both in a historical context and in modern computer usage. --Schnolle 21:53, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

After a definition was added…

I believe the following definition is misleadingly incomplete: "In metal type, the word font denoted a complete typeface in a particular size (usually measured in points), weight (e.g., light, book, bold, black), and orientation (e.g., roman, italic, oblique)." A "font" is a measurement of quantity, not a typeface.

The definition provided in the article superimposes the latter-days definition of font upon the original meaning. In the movable type days (my typographical career spanned the period from hot metal to digital typography), the font was the unit by which type foundries sold their wares. Although what constituted a font varied from one foundry to another and by typeface/size sold by the same foundry, a font was a useful quantity of the various sorts making up the font. See Webster's Third. A book printer might order X number of fonts of 9 point Caslon Book, for example. (Many book printers in the movable type days used new type for each book so the completed pages could be preserved for purposes of reprinting.)

When linecasting machines came along, the term's definition began to erode . Mergenthaler sold the "mats" (matrices or individual molds for characters) by the "font." The slippage occurred because the previous definition of font referred to type in absolute quantities of individual characters of movable type, not to the number of individual mats required of each character to predictably be able to complete a line of type without running out while the mats of previous lines were still being automatically redistributed to the Linotype magazine where the mats were stored in channels for each character type, pending reuse for another line. Some typographers reconciled the conflicting meanings by describing typefaces" of a particular type as a font. However, when I was still an active International Typographical Union journeyman such sloth in terminology frequently drew rebukes because Mergenthaler had never been forgiven for misappropriating the term. Such was the oral tradition by which the craft and terminology of printing survived fairly intact for some 500 years.

The meaning of font came under more pressure to morph again when phototypesetting came along. The original meaning of the term as a unit of measurement for quantities of movable type was even less applicable to a situation in which a font comprised only one character each in negative relief on a rotating piece of film or glass.

During the period of the transition from hot type to cold type to digital typesetting, most of the trade's oral tradition was wiped out as less skilled workers displaced the professional typographers, trashing the continuity of the oral tradition. E.g., the International Typographical Union -- which had for decades been the oldest surviving trade union in the U.S. -- became insolvent because of loss of employment contracts and severely declining membership. In 1988, it merged into the Communications Workers of America. How severely the oral tradition was compromised is perhaps illustrated by the fact that the I.T.U. -- once powerful and at the bleeding edge of trade unionism in the U.S. for more than 150 years, has not yet so much as earned its own page on Wikipedia. An oral tradition that had survived over 500 years was thrown over a cliff with scant notice of its occurrence.

Because so much of typography was undocumented and passed on via the oral tradition, I can not aim you at many citations on this topic. Webster's Third has the original definition. The subject was covered in some detail in the seven-volume early 1950s edition of the I.T.U.'s Lessons in Printing, which required that all apprentices, inter alia, pass a separate graded test on every chapter before attaining the status of journeyman, although that work obviously did not address the period when the meaning of font finally succumbed to the havoc wrought by software engineers.

The section of the article defining font needs work. The term is not a synonym for typeface and we dishonor our predecessors by not defining it correctly even in a historical summary of the term's origins. It is far too late, IMHO, to reverse the redefinition of font, but we might still preserve the word's history. My 2 cents.

--Marbux (who still has not figured out how to format his user name properly). 15 November 2005

Computer font redirects here

this is less than optimal.

going to Computer font takes you back to Typeface. There should be a separate page for Computer Font that doesn't have a redirect here. I'll check back later - please remove the redirect - if we're going to make a Computer Font page, it should be independent from the get go - redirects to "parent" pages should only happen when the parent in completely inclusive of the material in the child page, and will likely stay that way (such as USA / United States of America / America / United States / etc.)

I've spent many years designing computer fonts, so I could easily contribute a great deal to such a page, but I'm not experienced enough in matters most wikipedial to fix the errant redirects.

Hwarwick

Just click on Computer font, and when the page about Typeface appears, click on (Redirected from Computer font) at the top of the page. When you see 1. REDIRECT typeface, click Edit this page. In the edit box, remove #REDIRECT and put in any text you like. The redirect is then transformed into a regular article. — Monedula 08:12, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Default Fonts

What fonts come with standard installation of Windows? Linux? Sockpuppy 15:46, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

For Windows, see this page. For Linux, it will depend on the distribution. --Zundark 12:48, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia font

This may be a stupid question, but what is the font used on Wikipedia? I have searched for it and cannot find it.

It is sans-serif. See also font family (HTML). — Monedula 06:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

It depends on what skin you are using (see your preferences). There is a CSS stylesheet for each skin. The default is MonoBook, which specifies only the sans-serif font family; it is up to your browser to choose a sans-serif font. On Windows, unless you've changed anything, you probably get Arial.—mjb 19:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for font article's inclusion in Wikipedia

Hello, this area is far removed from my interests or specialities so I'm asking here; I stumbled upon an article for Andreas® Std Regular while browsing through the orphans list and was wondering whether it qualifies as notable enough to merit inclusion or not, and if so, where it should be linked in to. Cheers, MC MasterChef 14:33, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is notable. It got moved to Andreas (typeface) in February 2006.—mjb 19:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

TrueType: Apple or Microsoft?

"In particular, Apple Computer has patented some of the hinting algorithms for TrueType"

Is this true? Isn't TrueType Microsoft's baby? Maybe add a link reference if it is correct? Astrophil 19:27, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

See the TrueType article. Some information about the Apple patents can be found on the FreeType site. --Zundark 20:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! That clears it up for me. Astrophil

Type

This article is utterly useless. We are not introduced to how type came about. We are not informed of the modernisation of type.

This article merely goes about brushing briefly over the anatomy of type and then focuses on "font". There is so much for to typefaces than this, and it could be done in a more coherent way.

(end rant)

Thank you for your suggestion regarding [[: regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]]]! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. — David Remahl 13:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

"...utterly useless..." is an overstatement. The subject of this article is Typeface, and while I agree it needs to be expanded with more detail on that subject, information on the wider aspects of typography can be found in the Typography article I am working on. Be patient with that one---it will take the better part of a year to write.

The statement "...brushing briefly over the anatomy of type and then focuses on font..." is about right for the scope of this Typeface article. "There is so much for to typefaces than this, and it could be done in a more coherent way." that is (will eventually be) covered in the Typography article.

Arbo 11:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Methinks there is some confusion of terms. Typography is broadly speaking first and foremost about the *setting* of type. the article that is being created under that title is instead about the history of type itself. That should be under "type" or "typeface" instead.

Thomas Phinney 08:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thomas, the Typography article is unfinished, incomplete. It begins with a history of type itself, and moves on to typography and the use of type. When writing that article I reasoned it was neccessary to explain where type came from before explaining what typography is and how its done. Since writing the history (itself incomplete) I have put almost no effort into completing the narrative on the use of type because WP gets very frustrating to work on at times. If you want to break up the Typography article and put some of its content into Typeface/Font, I don't mind at all. That's up to you.

Wikipedia's quality and contributor problems are entrenched and severe. The content is less about the article topics and more a reflection of the Wikipedians who create them. In short, this thing is kiddy grade. The veracity and coherence of the articles is best described as "hopeless, not even close". All the typography and font-related articles for example, except for Typography, have been written by people who are not experts on the subject. That's analogous to putting a carpenter in charge of child care or nuclear physics—absurd, non-sensical, a farce. And the results are typically just as farcical. Its a pretend encyclopedia. I am limiting my contributions to advice on talk pages.

Arbo 06:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Blackletter

I think we should somehow move all but the basic facts about blackletter fonts from this page to the main Blackletter article and provide a "Main Article: Blackletter" link at the top of that section. However, I'd rather not attempt this unless I have to, since I have no knowledge whatsoever about blackletters. Does anyone want to try? Vontafeijos 04:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Proportionality

Both words in the picture should be the same, to allow for a just comparison, since one is porportional and the other is monospace, the letters and obvioiusly spacing are different. I suggest a word that is neutral and one that uses letters and numbers that are different sizes to show the differences. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.250.51.234 (talk • contribs). 10 December 2005

Serif =? "roman"

I'm sure the contributor list overlaps substantially, but there is a discussion under the article on "serif" about whether the term "roman" can be used to refer to a serif typeface (or, perhaps, whether that usage used to exist but is now outmoded). If anyone wants to weigh in… —Bentorr 00:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Font families

AFAIK the definition under 'font families' is wrong. Times is a 'font family' (i.e. a group of fonts varying only in weight, angle, etc). Serif, sans-serif etc. are not 'font families' - I'm not sure what the official name for these is but for now 'types of font' might do. So I've taken the liberty of changing this. Ben Finn 14:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yay, thanks Ben! That was really bugging me, last time I read it. Thomas Phinney 08:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Fonts/typefaces in corporate logos

Is there any interest in having a subject on which typefaces are used in popular corporate logos? Suppafly 03:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Extralpha?

What is "extralpha"? Google returns 3 hits, one of which is a wikipedia mirror. I think the section should be deleted. Bleedstupid 18:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Every reference on google, minus one entry where someone has a username of extralpha appears to be copied from wikipedia. Unless some other source for the definition can be found, I would agree that it should be removed. Suppafly 17:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Font categories

I've reworked the font categories to bring them more in line with typical foundry classification schema. I've combined "Symbol" and "Pi" (we even had the same font as an example of both!) I've renamed "Novelty" to "Display" (which is more encompassing). I agree with the discussion above about "extraalpha" and deleted it—it's just too obscure. Finally, I've added a section for monospaced fonts. Please let me know if you have any objections to my changes. —Chowbok 18:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe some language could be added to say some thing to the effect of "Display is sometimes refered to as Novelty" or something like that Suppafly 02:53, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I would consider "Novelty" a subset of "Display", rather than a synonym. But I agree it'd be good to put in a note about it. —Chowbok 03:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice work guys. :-) You're doing this article favours I don't have time to do myself. So thankyou very, very much. Type designers appreciate what you are doing, because making fonts takes a long, long time.

Reliable information on font classification schemes can be found at http://www.typophile.com/ Make yourself a login there and search by keyword; you'll find plenty of threads already exist, containing heaps of info and lots of good links to more on this stuff. Typophile represents the type industry itself, and gladly offer free access to what amounts to the virtual sum total of knowledge on typography. Arbo 21:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Parent vs. child categories

I've started a discussion at Category talk:Typefaces#Should typefaces go in parent category? about typeface categorization. I encourage anyone here to weigh in. —Chowbok 00:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Italicized font names

This is really, really bugging me, so I have to get a second opinion. A lot of articles on individual fonts (Courier (typeface) and Times New Roman, for instance) have started to italicize every mention of the font name. That seems very weird to me, because I've never seen them that way, even in books on typography. Is there some justification for this? I'm tempted to start undoing the italics. -Vontafeijos 05:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's ridiculous. They're not ships. I say go ahead and undo that when you see it. —Chowbok 15:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Correct. Font names do not need to be in italics. Thanks again. Arbo 21:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the input. -Vontafeijos 00:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I did it throughout the Arial Unicode MS article purely for consistency, since someone had already started it. I don't mind changing it back.—mjb 19:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Open source fonts

I beg to ask why links to serious, information-packed articles on open-source fonts is "link-spam"? (Articles from Newsforge, no less).

If anything, open-source fonts should be a prominent part of this article.

If no serious explanation is given, I will move the links back. Dovi 18:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, "link spam" was a little too harsh. I shouldn't have called it that. But we can't have a link to every font download page on the web, even limited to open-source. The page would quickly be overwhelmed by links. I don't really see why those fonts are particularly significant. —Chowbok 19:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Simply because they are not only high-quality, but also open-source. Although perhaps I am missing something: Is there an article I don't know about that deals with issues of copyright limitations in this area? The links would certainly belong there. It is arguable that a serious trend is starting of releasing fonts into the domain of open-source? Dovi 19:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think adding a section about font copyright issues in general and open source fonts in particular would be very welcome. Please add it if you are so inclined. I just don't think links to those particular fonts' download pages are appropriate. After all, we don't have a link to the X11 fonts, which are much more commonly-used open-source fonts. —Chowbok 20:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Dovi;

"...open-source fonts should be a prominent part of this article."

Why? Specifically I mean: Why should OS fonts be given any more prominence than commercial or freeware fonts? OS fonts are notable because they are new to typography, but "notable" does not equate to "prominent". To people who use open source software and operating systems, open source fonts may seem prominent, but those people do not represent the majority view. To the majority of font users, including lay font users, professional typographers and graphic designers, open source fonts are a minor phenomenon in the font world.

"...Simply because they are not only high-quality, but also open-source..."

Those aren't reason(s) enough for OS fonts to be considered prominent.

"...It is arguable that a serious trend is starting of releasing fonts into the domain of open-source?"

The trend is there—it has begun—but it isn't a major trend yet. It remains the exception not the status quo. WP articles have to construct an objective view.

Arbo 18:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC) @

Type sample guidelines

I believe we need to set some guidelines for the type sample images for each individual face article. What format should we use? It is suggested that by uploading an SVG file, we are uploading copyrighted shapes. The current trend seems to be to include an image of the name of the typeface set in the typeface, then have a second image of the lowercase 'g' and the sentence "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog." One user has added the lowercase alphabet and a few common punctuation marks as the bottom line of the image (see Helvetica). Should we set an image box size? or some guidelines for pt size for each element?--Andrew c 00:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Where was it suggested that SVGs are copyvios? Sounds fishy to me. For the test sentence, you probably mean "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (jumps, not jumped).—mjb 00:34, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, 'jumps', not 'jumped' (however, the title caps seems to be intentional). And here is where I got the idea that SVGs of fonts are copyvios.--Andrew c 00:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm, so, is anyone versed enough with copyright policy to determine whether SVG images are bad or not? Here's the argument I made to Andrew c, copied from his talk page:

The font test drive facility on the Adobe website and other font vending websites render type outlines as bitmaps, not vector outlines. You could of course import these bitmaps into Illustrator but they would remain bitmaps of fixed resolution, usually of a maximum 72 points in type size, rendered at between 72 and 96 dots per inch; try to convert those bitmaps into vector outlines and the resolution would be pitifully low and of little practical use.

The conditions governing the use of material at adobe.com and every other website with a font test drive facility specifically prohibit use of such bitmaps for anything other than assessing a font for purchase (if you don't like the look of it in test drive you're at liberty to walk away). Uploading and distribution of such bitmaps constitutes a violation of the relevant site's conditions of use.

Arbo 11:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Try extracting type outlines from a locked PDF—extremely difficult to pull off, and even if you manage to you would only posess the glyph outlines but no metrics information, spacing and other meta data essential to a complete font. Making font samples from discrete glyph outlines is a hit and miss affair, more like creating an illustration and not even involving the keyboard or actual typing.

Arbo 11:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll make a few more posts around town and see if we can't get more interest.--Andrew c 14:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I got another reply that seems to suggest SVG is probably not the best format. Read more here: Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#SVG and fonts.--Andrew c 20:36, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hm, okay. So the general consensus seems to be to rasterise them? [3] there's all the font samples so far.. what size should we rasterise them to? atanamir 23:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should set a fixed width or height, and let the other dimension vary depending of the face. Maybe 100px high for the title, and 200px for the sample? As for a standard format, I like what you have done and see no need to really change it. Could you share your technique so others (namely myself) can copy it and contribute to this project in a standardized manner?--Andrew c 23:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I used adobe illustrator; would you like me to post the AI files somewhere? atanamir 00:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

That could work. Or I could just recreate one of your existing files and then use that as a future template. I could also help rasterize some of the existing files as well.--Andrew c 00:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

By professional typography standards 100px by 200px is a small sample. Man, that's tiny. I recommend at least 300px by 600px to make glyph details visible.

Arbo 12:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The thing to bear in mind is that using a copyrighted font in Wikipedia is fair-use (because it's a copyrighted work, of which a mere rendering is just a derivative work). So the wikipedia fair use policy applies, and the fair use guidelines give a pretty good idea of how such font samples should be handled. A key guideline is "The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible" (from WP:FAIR). I'd say, for font samples, this means:

• SVG clearly has a lot more info in it than a bitmapped render, and a bitmapped render is good enough for the purposes of the font articles - so we have to use a bitmap render (as y'all have already decided)
• we clearly can't reproduce all, or even a significant proportion, of the glyphs (so the quick-brown-fox... is too much). Personally I'd say we should put in the name of the font and leave it at that. In cases where there's some special characteristic of the font (such as an unusual Q, a special style of ligature, or something emblematic about a serif) then I'd say that the article should have a second (or more) small image, which just contains that special feature, as described in the article.
• there is some latitude in the interpretation of "low-resolution images should be used instead of high-resolution", but we still need to be careful. Personally I think 300x900 is much too large. I'd recommend having the image at the scale we'll finally use it in the article - if we had a bigger image (which we downscale for the article) we can't say we're using the least amount of fair use content (yes, someone could argue that a printed Wikipedia will require higher resolution images, and for free images it's certainly better to upload as big as possible - but there is no printed Wikipedia right now, and we can't make fair-use claims for hypothetical future projects).

Additionally, as the images are fair-use, additional care (and work, frankly) has to be taken when placing them into articles:

• they need a fair-use rationale, specific to the article in question
• a fair-use sample of font X can (largely) only be used in the article about font X - not about a more general class of fonts of which X is a member (so it's fine to use Trebuchet MS in the Trebuchet MS article, but (mostly) not in the sans serif article. The best reason for that is that there exist uncopyrighted (or GFDL compatible) sans-serif fonts that the sans serif article could use, and so using Trebuchet in the sans serif article breaks the "No free equivalent is available" guideline. That said, if the sans-serif article was explicitly comparing the characteristics of Trebuchet with other sans-serif fonts (that is, Trebuchet was directly the subject of the discourse, and not just a passing example) then it would be fair use to use a (small) sample of Trebuchet there.

I notice, incidentally, that folks seem to be putting copyright messages (claiming copyright themselves) and equally putting licences like GFDL on the samples (Image:Serif and sans-serif 01.png is one such example). Unless the contributor owns the copyright of the font, that's a bogus practice. Merely typing a few characters into GIMP and saving the result isn't a creative, copyrightable work - so the contributor in that case can't claim copyright and (as they're not the copyright owner) can't pick the licence of the work. The copyright of the font applies to the sample (and if the font is uncopyrighted, so is the sample).

Sorry if this whole thing seems like a rant - by and large it looks like the font articles are making fairly responsible use of fair-use font imagery. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

To clarify:

• The main copyvio issue regarding font samples centers on whether the user making and uploading the sample is licensed (by the font's End User License Agreement) to use the font at all. A person not in posession of a license to use a font distributed with an EULA is not authorized to use it in any way. Full stop. Fair use, sample size, etc — none of that applies unless the user is authorized by EULA to use the font. A user is either authorized (by the font's EULA) or not. If not, the user is not within their rights using that font—for anything, including making samples for WP.

• End User License Agreement for a font and authorization to use it are obtained legitimately by 1) Purchasing the font retail; 2) Purchasing other software which comes with bundled font(s); 3) Fonts gifted to one user by another, provided the first user acquired the font legitimately as per (1) or (2), passes on the EULA and all other materials that came with the font, and destroys the font file(s) and EULA before gifting the font(s) to the second user.

• Claiming fair use of an unlicensed font would be equivalent to supposed fair use of an unlicensed copy of Photoshop to make an original diagram for inclusion in WP. If the user is authorized by EULA and legitimate ownership of the software, s/he can work out the fair use issue to their own satisfaction, within reason, as per the terms & conditions of the font's EULA. If Wikipedians don't accept that advice, don't want to believe it, or simply choose to ignore it, that may cause problems. Commercial font makers and distributors may take issue with samples made with illicit copies of their fonts.

"...Unless the contributor owns the copyright of the font..."

• No user "owns" the copyright to a font, nor do they "own" any copyright(s) to the font unless that person is the licensed vendor, distributor, or the original creator of the font. The user only acquires authorization to use the font with legitimate posession of the font's EULA. The only significant font copyvio issue Wikipedians have to come to grips with. The font data itself remains the property of the actual copyright holder—usually the creator, and in some cases the authorized distributor or vendor.

"...The thing to bear in mind is that using a copyrighted font in Wikipedia is fair-use (because it's a copyrighted work, of which a mere rendering is just a derivative work). So the wikipedia fair use policy applies, and the fair use guidelines give a pretty good idea of how such font samples should be handled..."

• Almost correct, but not quite. There is no need to claim fair use when using a copyrighted font in WP. Provided the user is authorized by EULA to use the font, s/he can use it for anything they like, any number of times, for any purpose (except some type vendors and makers require an extra fee for logos made with their fonts). Artworks created with a copyrighted font, such as font samples for WP, are not deemed "derrivative works" because they are only renderings made with the font, or simply using the font as permitted by the EULA. A derrivative work of a font is defined as another font made from the digital file, instructions and character outlines of an extant copyrighted font.

• Many of you probably have numerous fonts on your computer that are in fact renamed pirated knockoffs of commercial fonts, and in many instances you will not even know that the font you're using is just that—pirated material someone decided to change the internal name of and distribute free of charge. Most "free font" archive websites contain between dozens and hundreds of such pirated fonts. Using them to make samples for any purpose, WP included, is a breach of the font's EULA. So please, unless you are absolutely certain of the font you want to use, check it first to make sure it isn't pirated. The quickest way of identifying a font is to ask on the Type ID board at http://www.typophile.com. If you don't want to go there the best places to look are http://www.identifont.com, http://www.myfonts.com, http://www.fontshop.com, http://www.veer.com, http://www.philsfonts.com All you're being asked to do is make sure first. That is not asking a lot.

"...I'd say we should put in the name of the font and leave it at that..."

• Depending on which letters make up the name of the font, some fonts will be poorly represented by samples using only the name of the font. Ideally come up with a standard string of letters, preferably commonly used words, and use that string for every font sample. That will make the samples informative. Bear in mind that fonts are language tools used mostly to type common words, and for that reason abstract and uncommon strings of letters don't reveal much about how a font performs on a linguistic basis. Lingusitics are inseparable from type design and typography.

• The rhetoric and bold formatting I'm using here is for emphasis only. to get the message across, as it seems that message just isn't getting thru, or you're not interested in hearing it. It is not meant as shouting or abuse.

• Don't take it personally. If you're offended by what I'm saying, it's because you have not yet comprehended what you're dealing with. It's okay to make mistakes—I'm not lambasting, but complaining about errors of judgement and giving professional advice based on experience. I make fonts and sell them, and use them for a living. whereas you guys don't (I assume). What baffles me is how Wikipedians can discuss the copyright issues here at WP without consulting the type industry. That does not make sense. From a professional type-maker's point of view your understanding of copyright law is nowhere near adequate. If the copyright owner of a font decided to hassle WP over a font sample made from an illicitly-obtained font, claims of "fair use" would amount to nothing. The worst thing the copyright owner would likely do is send the Wikipedian who made the sample an invoice for the font—because you're supposed to pay for these things, and the copyright holder is within their rights billing illicit users for the normal retail price for the font in question.

• The latter is unlikely to occur often because a lot of these type samples will be made from fonts bundled with software, and most type vendors are unable to check whether the user obtained that software legitimately or not.

• As for the amount I've written on this topic—relax. All of it is nessessary. It's a complex, thorny issue.

• That's all I have to say on this matter. I wish you all the best. Take care.

Best regards, Arbo 18:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I've refactored the above post to be less of a dick and more civil. Apologies to anyone I may have offended.

Arbo @

Suggested external link

The "7. Designer's Guide for Modern Good Looking Documents" section of the LDP's Font-HOWTO (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Font-HOWTO/typography.html ) is a good introductory summary of Font styles and groups. It might be useful as either a reference or an external link for this or a related page. I'm not sure exactly where it should go, so I'm mentioning it here instead. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

history of the term 'typeface'??

does anyone think there should be a section on the history of the term 'typeface'? i would put it in myself, except that i don't know about the history of the term 'typeface'...after all, the title of the article is 'typeface', so why does the article only include a section on the history of the term 'font', which is a redirect to Typeface? 202.156.6.54 10:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The article only gives the etymology for "font" because "font" is the article's real title, while "typeface" is a redirect. No reason why an etymology for "typeface" can't go in as well tho. I could certainly write it and add it—when I have time to. Thanks for the suggestion.

Arbo 18:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC) @

PD-font

I have created {{PD-font}} and Wikipedia:Public domain#Fonts as reflections of the United States's strange position on the subject of the copyrightability of fonts. Dragons flight 01:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Illustration of different font types

In this otherwise excellent graphic, "monotype" should read "monospace." (I'm a newbie and cannot decide whether this is a major or a minor edit. Sorry.)

Which part of a font is copyrightable and which are not protected by U.S. copyrights?

Which part of a font is copyrightable and which are not protected by U.S. copyrights? --FreAsQ 08:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Is the whole font file copyright protected? --FreAsQ 08:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Are the vector data protected? If so, are the vector data protected if the vectors are used in a vector graphic application file? --FreAsQ 08:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If the vector data is turned into bitmap, is it protected? --FreAsQ 08:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the font and who makes it, and the country of origin, how the user uses the artwork made from the font, plus lots of other factors. It's very complex and Wikipedia is not the best place to ask. You'll get the best answers to these questions at the Typophile website >>.

Best regards, Arbo talk 21:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)