True type fonts are very
easy to come by, and large amounts of them are typically included
in packages like Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. Getting Word
Perfect is an easy way to get an enormous amount of fonts ( and
if you're really cheap, you could buy a legacy version of Word Perfect for
windows. The fonts on the CD are readable. )
Microsoft's Font Download
Microsoft have also made several TrueType fonts available. The
.exe file is simply an archive, you can extract it
using unzip.
You can get them from
the download site
Luc's Webpage
Luc Devroye's webpage
has links to several sites with free fonts available.
What's unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they
are not ``warez fonts''.
Web sites with truetype fonts
There are several web sites offering freely available downloadable
fonts. For example,
the freeware connection has links to a number of archives.
Foundries
Several foundries sell TrueType fonts. However, most of them
are quite expensive, and for the same money, you'd be better
of with Type1 fonts. I'll discuss these more in the Type1 fonts
section. The one place that does do sell true type fonts
at low prices is
buyfonts.
Please read the section on ethics before you buy cheap fonts.
Many foundries ship fonts with Windows and Mac users in mind.
This can sometimes pose a problem. Typically, the ``Windows fonts''
are fairly easy to handle, because they are packed in a zip
file. The only work to be done is converting the pfm file
to and afm file ( using pfm2afm ).
Macintosh fonts are more problematic, because they are typically
made available in .sit.bin format -- stuffit archives.
Unfortunately, there is no tool for Linux that can unpack stuffit archives
created with the newer version of stuffit.
The only way to do it is run Executor ( Mac emulator ), or try running
stuffit in dosemu or Wine.
Once the sit.bin file is unpacked, the Macintosh files can
be converted using t1unmac which comes with the
t1utils package.
Unfortunately, some vendors only ship Type1 fonts in Macintosh format
( stuffit archives ). However, according to font expert
Luc Devroye, all major
foundries make Type1 fonts available for Mac and Windows.
Free Stuff
ctan
have a number of good fonts, many of which are free.
Most of these are in Metafont format, though some are also
Type1 fonts.
Also, see
Bluesky
who have made available Type1 versions of the computer modern
fonts. ( The computer modern fonts are of excellent quality --
to purchase anything of comparable quality and completeness
will cost you around $500-. They are comparable to the premium
fonts. )
Luc Devroye's webpage
has links to several sites with free fonts available.
What's unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they
are not ``warez fonts''.
URW have released the standard postscript fonts resident in most
printers to the public domain. These fonts are quite good.
The
Walnut Creek Archive
has several freely available fonts, and shareware fonts.
Some of these are obvious ripoffs ( and not very good ones ).
If a font doesn't come with some kind of license, chances are
it's a ripoff.
Also
Winsite
have several Type1 fonts ( in the fonts/atm subsection of their
windows 3.x software ). Unfortunately, several of
these have afm files which have mistakes and are missing
all kerning pairs ( you can fix the afms by editing
the "FontName" section of the afm files. It should match
the fontname given in the font shape file. Of course, adding
kerning pairs is a topic beyond the scope of this document. )
Luc Devroye's webpage
includes several free fonts he designed, as well as a lot of
links, and fascinating discussion on the topic of typography.
This site is a ``must-visit''.
There are also several links to many foundries.
Commercial Fonts
Value vs Premium: Why Should I buy Premium Fonts ?
So you're wondering -- why do some fonts cost a lot and others
are cheap ?
These fonts are the ``standard postscript
fonts'' resident in most postscript printers. Also the famous
Why should I buy the more expensive ones ?
My take on it is that for a casual user, the value fonts
( such as those on the Bitstream CD ) are just
fine. However, if you're using the fonts for ``real work'', or
you're just a hard core font junkie, then the better quality
fonts are a must-have -- and most of the quality fonts are either
free ( for example, Computer Modern ), or they are upmarket commercial
fonts.
The advantage of the cheaper fonts is self evident -- they are cheaper.
The quality fonts also have their advantages though.
Ethical issues: The cheaper fonts
are almost always ripoffs. Type design takes a long time and
and experienced designer. Fonts that are sold for less than $1-
per font were almost certainly not designed by the vendor.
CDs with insane quantities of fonts on the are almost always
ripoffs ( the possible exceptions being collections from major
foundries that cost thousands of dollars ).
Usually, the ripoffs lack the quality of fonts from respectable
founries.
Completeness: The higher quality fonts ( notably
from Adobe ) come in several variants, with some nice supplements to
provide the user with a more complete font family.
There are often bold, italic,
and demibold variants, swash capitals, small caps,
old style figures, and extra
ligatures to supplement the font. More recently, Adobe have a multiple
master technology which gives the user ( almost ) infinite variation
within one font family.
Quality: A lot of the freely available fonts or the cheap
ripoffs lack fairly essential features such as kerning pairs and
decent ligatures. They are basically cheap copies. In contrast,
reputable designers take a lot of trouble to study the original
design, and rework it to the best of their ability.
Authenticity: The person who designed Adobe Garamond
( Robert Slimbach ) actually studied the original designs of
Claude Garamond. In fact reputable foundries always
carefully research their designs, rather than just swiping something
off the net, and modifying it with Fontographer.
Value
An excellent place to go for a CD packed with several Type1
fonts of reasonable quality is
Bitstream.
Bitstreams more noted products include their
250 font CD
and their
500 font CD
( the latter goes for $50- at the time of writing ).
These are fairly good quality fonts, and are a fairly good starting
point for the casual user.
The fonts used in Corel's products are (mostly) licensed from bitstream.
Matchfonts offer more modestly priced fonts --
they are distributed in ``packs'' of about 8 fonts
for $30. This includes some nice calligraphic fonts.
All fonts seem to be offered in a usable format
( the windows ATM fonts come in a .exe file.
Don't let the extension fool you -- it's just a zip archive ).
These are not ripoffs as far as I can tell.
EFF
sell TrueType fonts for $2- per hit.
They also have ``professional range'' postscript and TrueType
fonts for $16- per typeface.
Premium
Adobe have several
high quality, fonts available at
Adobe's type website.
Some of these are expensive, but they have several
more affordable bundles -- see
Adobe Type Collections.
Adobe have some of the most complete font families on the market,
for example,
Garamond,
Caslon,
and their
multiple masters
( Myriad and Minion, used on their website are among the nicer
of their multiple masters. )
Berthold Types Limited
is a major foundry, who offer several quality fonts. Some of
them are resold through Adobe, all are directly available
from Berthold. Same price ballpark as Adobe.
ITC develop several
quality fonts ( including some of the ones Corel ships with
their products ) at
http://www.itcfonts.com
They offer family packages for about $100-180 US.
Their fonts, come in both Type1
and TrueType format. It's better to choose the
``Windows'' package, because Mac formats are difficult
to handle on Linux.
Linotype
are a well known foundry who offer fonts by legendary designers
including Herman Zapf. ( yep, the guy ``Zapf Chancery'' is named after.
He also designed Palatino. )
Monotype
develop most of the fonts shipped with Microsoft
products. One of the older and well respected foundries.
Tiro Typeworks
sell good quality, if somewhat expensive typefaces.
Their typefaces are very complete, for example, they
include complete sets of ligatures, and smallcaps, titling
fonts, etc.
UNIX is listed as one of the OS options -- which is a welcome
surprise after seeing the words ``Windows or Mac'' too many times..