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.
1,795
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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 ...
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5
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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 ...
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6
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What is so good about Helvetica?
For as long as I have known, a majority of designers have been beyond enamoured with Helvetica. While I can see that it's a nice typeface, I really don't understand the hype.
Some research into the ...
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19
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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 ...
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7
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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 ...
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8
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"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 ...
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3
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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-...
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1
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Why is the minus sign not on the same height as the plus sign?
I noticed that the horizontal lines of - and + signs are not on the same height for non-monospaced fonts. That looks ugly to me.
What is the design principle or reason behind that?
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44
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8
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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 ...
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Is monospacing URLs in academic papers still advised?
When papers are written in the academic world, URLs are often set in monospace.
The reason for this seems to be historic and is described in this Q&A at TexSE.
It may be summarized as a leftover ...
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4
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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 ...
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1
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Why do some fonts make I, l, 1 look the same?
Why do some fonts make the I,l,1 characters look identical?
There are fonts where they don't just look similar - they are the same exact pixel locations.
Why were they ever created?
I'm guessing ...
29
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3
answers
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I need a font like this but don't know which terms to look for
I have an idea for a logo, and an idea of what the font should look like. However, I don't know how to go about describing that to find a font.
I know that the lines of the S should be parallel as ...
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4
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What is the difference between a well constructed and a poorly constructed font?
I'm speaking of both, fonts optimised for print, and fonts optimised for screens. Serif and sans-serif doesn't matter. Commercial or free — also doesn't matter.
What matters is the quality of the ...
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28
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5
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What is the difference between Glyph and Font?
I was going through one document and I came across this term 'glyph'. The term was new to me so looked into wiki for its definition. I felt both glyph and font is same. Am I correct? Else please tell ...
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28
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6
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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 ...
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26
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8
answers
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What is the actual problem with Calibri?
Recently I've been seeing many pages and blogs with some sour distaste for Microsoft's Calibri typeface, mashing it as if it was the new Comic Sans or something.
At first I tought the problem was ...
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26
votes
2
answers
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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?
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6
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What are the more respected sans serif fonts that come standard on most computers?
I've been tasked with making a powerpoint theme for the company I work for and one of the requirements is that it uses a font that comes standard with most computers. What are some of the built-in ...
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2
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Embedding fonts in inkscape
Does any body know what is the current status of embedding fonts into an svg file that is readable by inkscape. I find the lack of embedded fonts severely impedes portability of svg files, particular ...
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3
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23
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7
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Which font's digits resemble Nixie tube digits?
I will try to mimic Nixie tube digits in an application. For responsiveness and scalability I won't use any rasterized images of actual tubes, this will be a sufficiently adequate mock which just ...
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23
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1
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How can I open a PDF in illustrator and convert text with a missing font into outlines
I have a PDF that is editable in Illustrator. I have to open the PDF in Illustrator and edit individual parts of the document but I am missing the font that is used in the PDF. When I open the PDF in ...
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How to convert a WOFF2 webfont into a TTF desktop font?
Googling leads me to everythingfonts . com which is down, at least for the last two days but it may have been down for a while.
Googling "woff2 to ttf" -everythingfonts has very few results ...
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4
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Why are fonts from the 19th century not in the public domain?
(This is probably more a "copyright" question than anything, but I have not found an appropriate StackExchange site for this kind of question.)
Why are fonts like Akzidenz-Grotesk, that were made way ...
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4
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How can I make a font monospaced?
Suppose that I have a font in a modestly popular format (.ttf, .otf, etc.), and I have the legal rights to modify it. As it stands, it is a normal font with different charaters (glyphs?) varying in ...
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20
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5
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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 ...
- 1,115
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votes
4
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9k
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Why is Corbel listed as bad font for body text in Butterick's Practical Typography?
We are creating branding guidelines for a nonprofit voluntary organization. Only around 10 people will create content, but a lot more people will need to be able to view documents and publications ...
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20
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4
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What are great fonts for information-heavy data tables?
I'm designing a web application which has lots of data tables with business information both as numbers (sales, hours etc) and text (product names, region names etc).
What fonts are great for dense ...
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Font overload in academic documents
I'm a researcher in cryptography and regularly read and write acedemic papers which are, to say the least, not objects of great beauty.
Recently I've noticed that the guideline not to use more than ...
user13562
19
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5
answers
6k
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"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 ...
18
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3
answers
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How to change font of all the text in an SVG image at once using inkscape?
I am using GeoGebra to render geometric figures. Really nice software but it seems the text font cannot be changed in it.
I know I can change font of text using inkscape by individually selecting all ...
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17
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1
answer
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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 ...
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What font is used on the "Passengers" movie poster?
This is the poster in question:
And here is a close-up of the font I'd like to know:
I would like to know what font is used here. Most font recognition engines can't see the "E" without the "...
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16
votes
8
answers
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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 ...
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16
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4
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What kind of character/personality is expressed by fonts that mix capitals and lowercase letters?
I'm trying to guage the purpose of using fonts that have random capitals where there should be lowercase letters.
The question came about simply because I was looking at a design like the one I'm ...
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What exactly is a web font, and what does converting to one involve?
I've read a few articles on this but the actual technical differences between web fonts and desktop fonts still elude me. The more I read on the topic the more I get the feeling that no-one has a ...
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Web safe alternative to roboto?
What's the closest web-safe font to Roboto?
I need to know this in order to provide a decent alternative to Roboto for my apps.
UPDATE: reading the answers, it's clear that the concept of web safe ...
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5
answers
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How to find/browse fonts that include certain rare characters? (unicode/international)
This question is similar to How to know which of my fonts do or don't support certain glyphs?, but for fonts in font shops, not just fonts I already have.
I need to make a design which includes two ...
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5
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How to find open source alternatives to commercial fonts?
What is the best way to find an open source alternative to a commercial font? I was thinking as some service as alternativeto.net or a whatthefont.com that would spit out fonts that are similar to the ...
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Is there a way to select OpenType features in Inkscape?
Today's OpenType fonts have a lot of features included like:
kerning, capital spacing, ligatures, old style figures and stylistic sets.
I miss these features a lot. Is there a way to select ...
user26617
14
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5
answers
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Is there a font that has the same height for every character?
It occured to me that in all fonts I know of, different characters have a different height. Why is this so? Are there fonts where all characters have the same height? If so, is there a name for this ...
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2
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What is a polynomial kerning table?
From Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style:
Names like T.V.R. Murti and T.R.V Murti, for example, pose microscopic typographic problems that no binomial kerning table can solve. ...
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14
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Helvetica: trailing leg in lowercase "a"
Why sometimes I find Helvetica with the letter "a" with the right leg straight and other times I find it with the right leg turned to the right:
Letter "a" with right leg straight:
Letter "a" with ...
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2
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3k
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Why are fonts more expensive when used in games?
I'm a video game developer who loves fonts. I noticed that fonts are often more expensive when they are bought to be used in games.
For example, a font called Daft Brush on HypeForType is sold for $...
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1
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What considerations are there in designing pixel fonts?
I'm designing monospace pixel fonts for a game, and so far I've only been able to work with extremely small sizes (largest I've managed is 5x9) because those ones are the easiest to try and err with. ...
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2
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1k
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Can a typeface be designed to have characters depend on previous characters within a typed word?
I am embarking on a project to design my own font for a personal project that will resemble my handwriting. I have read a few good guides to get a broad view of what it will take for me to achieve ...
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3
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1k
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What percentage of page does/should a text occupy “inkwise”
I am interested what is the total area of a book page that is occupied by text.
Basically, how much ink do I need to spend to print a page with text.
I have experimented with different fonts like ...
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7
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Can I use the font "Product Sans" for a commercial poster?
I want to make a poster for my middle school yearbook, but I don't know if I can put them up due to font copyright.
On befonts.com, the Product Sans font is marked for "personal and commercial use". ...
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2
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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, ...
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