I wish to identify the below typeface, which is similar or identical to Times New Roman, except for a "tied" percent sign. I need it for MS Word so welcome suggestions of similar typefaces available in Word.
-
3simply click to any of the thousand web sites (example whatfontis.com ) where you upload an image, and it tells you what font it is.– FattieCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 11:30
-
3@Fattie: Sadly it's not always that simple. I tried it on OP's behalf with both WhatTheFont! and What Font Is. WhatTheFont! suggested a good match (Plantin Std Roman) as its top hit, but with the wrong percent style. What Font Is didn't even get close until I went a ways down the list to find CG Times Regular.– Tim PederickCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 14:21
-
4Long shot, but check whether the book has a colophon that tells you what font it uses. You could also ask the publisher directly.– DMPalmerCommented Apr 14, 2019 at 3:18
-
1I’m surprised no one has quibbled about the phrase “which is similar or identical to Times New Roman, except for…”. To me, this Plantin-based typeface looks nothing like Times New Roman, except inasmuch as they are both serifs with a fairly tall x-height.– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Apr 14, 2019 at 10:15
-
1@syre Yes, to the untrained eye, I’m sure it does – I was only surprised that none of the other regulars here had pointed out that the two are not considered particularly similar in general.– Janus Bahs JacquetCommented Apr 14, 2019 at 10:55
|
Show 3 more comments
4 Answers
There are probably hundreds of fonts which fits your description, so finding one that fits your taste might be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
I assume that the font needs to be free, so I would suggest the following:
- Enter a site with free fonts like dafont or Google Fonts.
- Choose a preview text with many different letters and a %-sign. For example: "handgloves %".
- Since Times new Roman is a classic serif font you should confine your search to only include serif fonts.
- Scroll through the pages and find a font you like which has the tied %-sign.
- Download and install it on your system. Most free fonts will work in MS Word.
-
1Thank you. My bad as I realize that my question doesn't clearly state that I am looking for the exact font in the image, or the next best approximation.– syreCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 11:59
-
Do you have a better image? It's really low resolution. Or better yet: a PDF so you can just select the text and see the name of the font?– WolffCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 12:09
-
I've updated the OP with the best resolution I've got. It's a scan so a PDF would only be as good as OCR is at recognizing the font. Acrobat detected Times New Roman, which doesn't have the same percent sign.– syreCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 13:55
-
-
Yes I have tried several but had a similar experience to the one @Tim_Pederick describes in his comment to the OP.– syreCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 14:31
The text is definitely Plantin, a precursor of Times, not Times itself. Additional clear differences from Times are the gap in the P and the slanted sides of the M. The percent sign is left unexplained because all Plantin samples I see have a disconnected percent. The tied percent in this book appears to be a substitution or customization.
If the percent style is the main feature you like and want to replicate, then you have various options that people have mentioned. If you care about all the other ways the book's typeface differs from Times, you will have to use Plantin.
At first, I thought the most likely candidate was Linotype's Times, because it has the right style of percent sign and it's included with Apple operating systems. (Microsoft's Times New Roman is provided by Monotype.)
However, as you mentioned in comments, the book is from 1988, before "standard" fonts bundled with OS or office software really took over the typography world.
It does look like a Times, and there are other digitisations of the original 1930s metal type; Adobe's is another one with this style of percent sign. There are also related typefaces, like Plantin (here is MTI's Plantin).
However, none that I have found have both this percent sign and the distinctive italic forms seen here (like the p that Wolff pointed out in comments, and the swash v).
-
-
1I agree that it's very similar to some kind of Times. But the italics doesn't look like Times. Look at the p where the lines intersect. In the versions of Times I have access to there is a normal serif.– WolffCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 14:39
-
2@syre: Ah, well, if it's from 1988 then it could be anything! I only said Linotype's because I figured that a font included with a popular OS was likely... but that's only really true from about the 1990s. And none of the three I've looked at have the italic p that Wolff points out! Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 14:53
-
1When I search WhatTheFont I find some similar fonts which have the right kind of italics - none of them are Times. I cropped the image and edited it first though.– WolffCommented Apr 13, 2019 at 15:04
-
@syre are you absolutely certain this existed as a digital font? Rather than e.g. as physical type from a Linotype machine? I have no idea about when French publishers made the transition; nor how many holdouts there were still using older publishing technologies in 1988.– WildcardCommented Apr 15, 2019 at 7:56
This could be a Caslon. The following is a preview using William Caslon Text. This version is not a free font.
The body text could also be STIX Two Text. This is a free font.
-
3Neither of those comes close to matching all the detailed letter and number glyph shapes in the book, whereas Plantin does.– nanomanCommented Apr 14, 2019 at 0:35
-
1