Questions tagged [fonts]

Questions about matching fonts, using fonts together, manipulating fonts, font selection and font purchase and usage rights. Please use a more specific tag if available.

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107 votes
5 answers
172k views

What does the size of the font translate to exactly?

I have a 40 pixel font that I'm trying to translate into custom images. I'm trying to match the size of the image exactly, but I'm having some problems getting exactly the right size. Basically, what ...
PearsonArtPhoto's user avatar
61 votes
8 answers
22k views

"Serifs improve fast, easy readability for long text" - myth or truth?

It's an old question, but an important one. Let's see if we can get a good, nuanced, ideally evidence-based answer. So, old-school wisdom (certainly, how I was taught back in the day) says that serif ...
user56reinstatemonica8's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
41k views

May I use Google Fonts for creating a logo with commercial purposes?

I want to create a logo for a contest, the winner will be paid and the winning logo will be the institutional logo of an academic entity, so I need a font which can be used freely or at a cheap cost ...
franz1's user avatar
  • 285
20 votes
5 answers
36k views

Font (anti)aliasing in Photoshop

I'm using Photoshop for designing websites and whenever I compare a photoshop design with the live browser preview the fonts appear to be rendered differently. Basically any anti-aliasing method I ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 1,125
67 votes
7 answers
82k views

What is the difference between a font and a typeface?

Originally, the typeface is a particular design of type, while a font is a type in a particular size and weight. In short, a typeface usually gathers many fonts. Nowadays, with the digital design of ...
F'x's user avatar
  • 2,332
29 votes
6 answers
99k views

How to package all faces of a font into one family file (Mac)

I've got a few fonts I've purchased over the past few years. These are decent quality fonts with, on average, 8–15 different faces for the family. The problem I have is each face is listed ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 209k
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Central, simplified, "pen" strokes of a font glyph

Take a look at this picture: The red lines inside a glyph is what I'm referring to as "central" or "pen" strokes. Imagine you drawing the letter using a pen, so you only have thin strokes which ...
scriptin's user avatar
  • 265
20 votes
5 answers
7k views

"Wire" (one dimensional) font

All fonts I have ever heard of are two dimensional: each glyph is basically a two dimensional region (a closed contour or some closed contours), which the software or printer somehow strokes or fills ...
Giovanni Mascellani's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
27k views

Using Google Fonts for print work

My experience with building websites is limited, but i have used Google Fonts (GF) for some basic presentation websites before. I was recently given some branding guidelines built by other providers ...
Lucian's user avatar
  • 29.3k
8 votes
5 answers
10k views

Font Awesome as Photoshop Custom Shape Set

Everytime I need to use font awesome in photoshop, I'll always copy an icon from website and paste in photoshop. I can print it into pdf and copy into illustrator as vector but I want them as ...
Ferdi Çıldız's user avatar
70 votes
19 answers
423k views

What are Google Webfonts or Typekit alternatives to Avenir Next Pro?

I'm looking for fonts, available from Google Webfonts (ideally) or Typekit, that would look similar to Avenir Next Pro, specifically, Bold and Demi: Any similar-looking fonts, with good cross-browser ...
julien_c's user avatar
  • 1,463
17 votes
8 answers
33k views

Handwriting font that at random picks characters?

First, I don't know much about creating fonts. I work with a childrens book author and want to create a font from her handwriting. This means that I have to have more then one character per letter ...
gardefjord's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
1k views

When designing a latin-based typeface, how are diacritics handled?

I was looking into designing a font that could include characters with diacritics but outside of knowing any other language besides English I was unsure if there was a reference or method designers ...
user9447's user avatar
  • 18.3k
7 votes
5 answers
15k views

How to create a new glyph = letter + ogonek in InDesign

I've got a font, which doesn't have polish diacritic chars which I need. I'm trying to construct them, by merging two glyphs - a letter and ogonek or acute accent, which are provided by my font. I ...
Rafał Rawicki's user avatar
5 votes
7 answers
1k views

Modern design - What's that?

I am working on redesigning my website and iterating through fivesecondtests. The overall feedback is improving but no matter what I change, several people have mentionned that my designs look "...
Sylverdrag's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is it legal to convert a not-freely-distributable font to "path" and distribute it?

Suppose, I am creating a logo in a vector graphics editor (for example Inkscape) and I use there the font which cannot be freely distributed (for example Myriad Pro which can be obtained by ...
Peter Sivák's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
6k views

Can I use the Google font 'Lato' for a logo design?

I am creating a logo and would like to use the Google Font 'Lato', can I use this font in my logo design or are there copyright/limitations I need to worry about? I can't find anything online other ...
Kaitlin's user avatar
  • 31
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

Font management tools for Mac

It's been a few years since I've visited this topic, one which has been one of Apples biggest issues since OS9. Font management. I have been using Font Explorer however I've never been very impressed ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 309
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

Ideas how to create oldschool gold logo similar to Labyrinth

I need to create Labyrinth style logo, but with the text "Puzzled Pint" for the small event I'm hosting. It should be similar to this: Does anyone have any tutorial? Or even some advice? I extracted ...
Zbyszek Kisły's user avatar
222 votes
13 answers
103k views

What is wrong with Comic Sans?

There's a great TEDxExeter talk by a colleague of mine, Simon Peyton-Jones, about the recent advances in the English lower school 'computer science' curriculum. Like all of his slide decks he uses ...
dumbledad's user avatar
  • 3,139
47 votes
3 answers
7k views

Why should I ever use Unicode’s special characters for Roman numerals?

This is to answer a question which arose in the comments on this question on the Unicode characters for Roman numerals: Why is this necessary or preferred over the usual way of typing ai, ai-ai, ai-...
Wrzlprmft's user avatar
  • 14.8k
44 votes
8 answers
43k views

A font that's readable with a 5px height

For use in Photoshop, I'm looking for a font that's exactly 5 px high but still readable. I tried some system fonts myself like Arial, Tahoma, Segoe UI but it all results in a pixely mess. Ideally ...
Gerlof Leuhof's user avatar
41 votes
4 answers
392k views

How to use San Francisco font on Windows?

I'm doing all graphic design in a startup company of some friends, and a major part of our product is developing an app that should run on everything after iPhone 4. So after some researching (I have ...
Z Marci's user avatar
  • 411
26 votes
2 answers
19k views

Optimum line height in relation to font size

Is there an agreement on what the optimum mathematical proportion of line height and the size of a text is? And if there is, is it the same for print and web?
Yisela's user avatar
  • 26.4k
15 votes
3 answers
17k views

Name for type that has the same width and height

I know monospaced type (font) means all characters have the same width. Is there a similar name for fonts where all character have the same width and height?
Zach Saucier's user avatar
  • 13.4k
13 votes
2 answers
49k views

Fonts for technical reports

I'm building an MS Word template for my reports. I am not sure what to use for fonts. I see lots of reports from clients and others using Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambrai, ...
dassouki's user avatar
  • 241
13 votes
4 answers
4k views

How to manually identify a font when the automatic services fail?

A common problem: Designer has spotted a delicious font being used on/offline, but there are no references what is the name of the font. The designer either gets unsatisfactory results from automatic ...
Jari Keinänen's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

Font that doesn't move when text is edited

What is the characteristic of a font called when each symbol has its own space and it cannot move the other symbols after changing. For example, if I have time in the format hour:minute:second, and ...
user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
27k views

Styles of the Lowercase "a"

I've noticed that many posters, advertisements, etc -- as well as many fonts -- use the lowercase letter "a" as shown in "figure 1". However, I've always hand-written it as what it looks like in "...
sharedphysics's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
166k views

Folder to put fonts for Illustrator CS6 without having to install fonts in system

I remember there used to be a folder I could just put fonts in and they would work for Adobe InDesign. I thought it was a folder called fonts in the same directory the InDesign document was. I tried ...
at.'s user avatar
  • 697
9 votes
3 answers
3k views

Does anyone know of any font families that 6, 9, 8, 0 look the same upside down as right side up?

Does anyone know of any font families that 6, 9, 8, 0 look exactly the same upside down as right side up? The 6 upside down would look like 9 and vice-verse. Thanks!
whoacowboy's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
8k views

Distinguishing real and faux bold and italics

Some software (such as Microsoft Word) will silently use oblique or "faux" italics and bold styles when the appropriate font variant is not available. For italics, I've been using the test of typing ...
Scribblemacher's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

Why does browser add bluish and brownish colors to a solid font color?

I'm wondering why my browser (Firefox) add blue tints on the right and brown tints on the left of a solid grey (#333333) font color as shown in the image below. Could somebody explain to me why this ...
cooxie's user avatar
  • 183
8 votes
3 answers
55k views

Is it possible to add new characters to a font?

I've got a font called Lato, and I need to add the characters İ, Ğ, ğ, Ş and ş. How can I do this? 1st photo is the original. 2nd photo is the same font that I upgraded:
user15725's user avatar
  • 179
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

TTF and other "modern" font systems, and font size differences

I have no formal (and precious little informal) graphic design training. Fairly famous Computer Science person Dr. Donald Knuth long ago developed a font description system called Metafont. In and of ...
Pointy's user avatar
  • 209
7 votes
4 answers
14k views

Replacing a font in many illustrator files

I have several hundred Illustrator files that are formatted similarly, and for legal reasons I need to replace a font in all of them. Even with the 'Find font' tool, that's a hell of a lot of fonts to ...
Marcus Downing's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
3k views

Difference in glyphs of I and l

In many fonts I come across, I see that the glyph uppercase i - I is same as lowercase l. Why is it so? Why don't font designers add a differentiating factor between the two glyphs? This specially ...
user3459110's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
2k views

Best font for programming?

I am looking for the best font for not only programmers but all people which are "forced" to sit long hours in front of a computer and staring at screen. I expect less distraction, less eye tiredness, ...
tsykora's user avatar
  • 163
6 votes
2 answers
4k views

What font can I use for a Japanese book?

I have a PDF book to be translated in Japanese, and what wondering which fonts to use. My main languages are French and English and I have no experience with asian fonts. I would not be able to say ...
decasteljau's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
5k views

Term for fonts with fixed versus variable stroke widths

Comparisons between "serif fonts" and "sans-serif fonts" generally compare Times-Roman or Times New Roman against Helvetica or Arial. The presence of serifs on the former and lack of them on the ...
supercat's user avatar
  • 559
5 votes
2 answers
10k views

Embedding pdf in illustrator

So, I'm using adobe illustrator for creating vectorial figures, mainly for graphs. In illustrator, creating graphs is not so well implemented, so I'm using another tool to make them (e.g. R, xmgrace, ...
Jorge Leitao's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
5k views

managing fonts in illustrator

Is there a better way to manage fonts in Illustrator instead of the default drop-down? I am on CS6 and Windows7 I have several hundred fonts and I wish there was a more intuitive way to browse ...
jotamon's user avatar
  • 159
4 votes
2 answers
485 views

How to know which second typeface should be used, given a contextual typeface?

When searching for how to "italicize" a word in an italic context, I come up with an idea that changing the typeface is the solution that still convey the psychological effect that an italic-in-roman ...
Ooker's user avatar
  • 1,853
4 votes
1 answer
1k views

Anticipating problems with a Google Webfont's rendering cross-platform

Web fonts can sometimes look great on one machine, but awful on another, due to differences in rendering not just between browsers, but also with the same browser between operating systems. Most ...
user56reinstatemonica8's user avatar
3 votes
6 answers
645 views

What font to enhance 1-2 words within block of Helvetica/Arial?

I'm trying to find an alternative to simply "bold/italic" words that I want to enhance within a continuous block of Helvetica/Arial text. For example: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur ...
pepe's user avatar
  • 273
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

Font management tool across multiple machines

I have mac pro, imac and mac air and all of which I use at various times in the work flow creating a range of media. I have various fonts across all three and have been trying to manage with font ...
Fred Schenkelberg's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
12k views

Can I manage the fonts that appear on Illustrator's Type drop down

On mac, I have many more fonts on my computer than I use daily. Is there a way to control which ones appear on Illustrator etc.'s menus? I see that I can use Font Book to 'disable' the fonts. Is that ...
pitosalas's user avatar
  • 133
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

InDesign script to replace all fonts in a document

I realize that this can be done with the find font dialogue box but I have too many files that require this text update to make that method practical. I've tried tinkering around with GREP but I'm ...
Stegathesaurus's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
681 views

Is there a simple way to fill in a grungy font to make it solid?

I'm looking to make the entire letter solid. I want to complete the grungy white space and fill it out with solid black. Is there a simple way to do this?
Rob's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
1 answer
656 views

Finding a font used on old topographic maps

On the first generation of Romanian topographic maps (before 1900), there was a certain font used for labeling natural features. It looks like this: I managed to find a reference from 1907 for the ...
Cezar B's user avatar
  • 113