RISC OS Font Questions

[Mike Kerpan]

As I work on putting together a RISC OS system, I have a few questions:

1. Does anybody still sell fonts in RISC OS format? If so, how do they
compare in quality with fonts available for other platforms?

2. Is there an easy way to convert TTF/OTF fonts to RISC OS format?
Thanks to funding from Google, a number of really nice Open Source fonts
have recently appeared on the 'Net and it would be great if I could
create some RISC OS versions...

3. What's the general quality of existing PD fonts for RISC OS? I managed
to find an ISO image of a CD full of PD fonts put together by EFF. I know
that EFF's commercial fonts are at leas OK, but are the PD fonts even
worth the space they take up?

Mike

[Martin Hansen]

Hi Mike,
See discussion at;

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thread/c8dda83400662dc7

Regards,
Martin.

http://www.RISCOScode.com

[Michael J. Kerpan]

On Nov 21, 10:00 am, Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> See discussion at;
>

> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thre...
>
> Regards,
> Martin.
>
> http://www.RISCOScode.com

Well, that solves the conversion question. I'm still curious about the
availability and quality of existing RISC OS fonts, though.

Mike

[Dr Peter Young]

Have a look at http://thefonts.com/A/index.htm

With best wishes,

Peter.

--
Peter \ / zfc Lu \ Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52
and \/ __ __ \ England.
family / / \ | | |\ | / _ \ http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk
/ \__/ \_/ | \| \__/ \______________ pny...@ormail.co.uk

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <a05a25f0-f585-42fe...@m7g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>

on 21 Nov 2011 Michael J. Kerpan wrote:

> Well, that solves the conversion question. I'm still curious about the
> availability and quality of existing RISC OS fonts, though.

The main suppliers of fonts EFF and APDL, who now sell the fonts formerly
sold by iSV. There was also a set of Monotype fonts available through
LOOKsystems and you may find that these are in stock at CJE Micro's, for
example. There were a couple of font editors, Dr Fonty and Font Fiend, from
iSV too. I cannot remember which superseded the other.

How do you judge quality? Most of the fonts available for RISC OS only
contain Latin-1 characters. The EFF fonts cover some of the other ISO Latin
ranges as well as having Cyrillic and Hebrew available in specific fonts.

If you'd been asking ten to fifteen years ago, the font rendering on RISC OS
was better than anything on Windows, and the underlying font format, with
scaffolding and hinting, was technically better than the alternatives on
other platforms.

Now I don't suppose there's so much difference. I think on the whole the EFF
fonts are regarded as very high quality. The Monotype ones are pretty good
quality conversions also, and have the advantage of having recognisable
names.

Some of the PD fonts you'll find don't even have a full range of ASCII
characters: it all depends!

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Philip Draper]

In message <ca79ce355...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk>

Dr Peter Young <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:

> On 21 Nov 2011 "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> On Nov 21, 10:00 am, Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
>>> Hi Mike,
>>> See discussion at;
>>>
>>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thre...
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Martin.
>>>
>>> http://www.RISCOScode.com

>> Well, that solves the conversion question. I'm still curious about the
>> availability and quality of existing RISC OS fonts, though.

> Have a look at http://thefonts.com/A/index.htm

The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
fonts. Isn't it still in business. The last lot I bought had Windows
versions of the fonts too. They used to do a CD of 'public domain'
fonts at one time as well.

Philip.


--
Philip Draper

Phi...@borehamh.demon.co.uk

[Dr Peter Young]

On 21 Nov 2011 Philip Draper <Phi...@borehamh.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <ca79ce355...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk>
> Dr Peter Young <pny...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:

>> On 21 Nov 2011 "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> On Nov 21, 10:00 am, Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
>>>> Hi Mike,
>>>> See discussion at;
>>>>
>>>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thre...
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Martin.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.RISCOScode.com

>>> Well, that solves the conversion question. I'm still curious about the
>>> availability and quality of existing RISC OS fonts, though.

>> Have a look at http://thefonts.com/A/index.htm

> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
> fonts. Isn't it still in business.

Yes, theirs is the link I gave!

[Jim Nagel]

Dr Peter Young wrote on 22 Nov:

>> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
>> fonts. Isn't it still in business.

> Yes, theirs is the link I gave!

Yes, and I spoke to Edward Detyna at EFF by email yesterday.

--
Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk
>> "from" address is genuine but will change. website has current one.

[Martin Hansen]

On Nov 22, 11:57 am, Jim Nagel <jimnewsm...@abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
> Dr Peter Young  wrote on 22 Nov:
>
> >> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
> >> fonts. Isn't it still in business.
> > Yes, theirs is the link I gave!

> Yes, and I spoke to Edward Detyna at EFF by email yesterday.

> Jim Nagel                        www.archivemag.co.uk

Jim,
You might like to let Edward Detyna know there is are issues with
each of the the two versions of the Quicksand font, currently doing
the rounds, one produced using their converter.
If they could come up with a definative solution it'd either make them
some cash, or raise awareness that they are the premiem supplier
of RISC OS fonts ;-)

The issues are being discussed at;

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thre...

Regards,
Martin.

http://www.piLEARN.com

[EFF Fonts]

On Nov 22, 2:15 pm, Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
> On Nov 22, 11:57 am, Jim Nagel <jimnewsm...@abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Dr Peter Young  wrote on 22 Nov:
>
> > >> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
> > >> fonts. Isn't it still in business.
> > > Yes, theirs is the link I gave!
> > Yes, and I spoke to Edward Detyna at EFF by email yesterday.
> > Jim Nagel                        www.archivemag.co.uk
>
> Jim,
> You might like to let Edward Detyna know there is are issues with
> each of the the two versions of the Quicksand font, currently doing
> the rounds, one produced using their converter.
> If they could come up with a definative solution it'd either make them
> some cash, or raise awareness that they are the premiem supplier
> of RISC OS fonts ;-)

I have had a good look at Quicksand Bold Oblique font and it looks
like an
old fashioned driving licence - do you remember them? If you tried to
work
out what you were allowed to drive you could spent a whole day and
still
be no wiser. OT fonts encode glyphs into three "indexes": CharString,
(local) Subroutines and Global subroutines. The latter two should
contain bits
that are repeated in various glyphs, so by using them one saves space.
A typical straightforward font contains no Global subroutines and a
few
local ones. This font contains 112 of each type and they frequently
call
each other! The offending letter "E" calls 24 subroutines. In order to
work
out what is happening one has to work out by hand byte by byte
appropriate
codes to see what goes wrong. A "normal" letter would start with
"width",
hinting instructions followed by the first point on the glyph, Letter
"E"
starts with 3 calls to subroutines, when it gets back from them it has
three numbers for the first point 85, 155, -2. It takes the first two
as
the position and disregards the third as a mistake. As it happens,
the first one is a mistake and the latter two are the correct position
(155, -2)

I have not worked out yet why it is so and the whole detailed
description
I wrote above was to explain why I cannot do it quickly. Unfortunately
I will be out of office for a week but I will try to work out what is
going wrong as soon as I can.

Edward Detyna

Electronic Font Foundry

[EFF Fonts]

On Nov 21, 11:17 pm, Philip Draper <Phi...@borehamh.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
> In message <ca79ce3552.pnyo...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk>
>           Dr Peter Young <pnyo...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:

>
> > On 21 Nov 2011  "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow.maxw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Nov 21, 10:00 am, Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
> >>> Hi Mike,
> >>> See discussion at;
>
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.acorn.misc/browse_thread/thre...
>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> Martin.
>
> >>>http://www.RISCOScode.com
> >> Well, that solves the conversion question. I'm still curious about the
> >> availability and quality of existing RISC OS fonts, though.

> > Have a look athttp://thefonts.com/A/index.htm

>
> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
> fonts. Isn't it still in business. The last lot I bought had Windows
> versions of the fonts too. They used to do a CD of 'public domain'
> fonts at one time as well.
>
> Philip.
>
> --
> Philip Draper
>
>     Phi...@borehamh.demon.co.uk

Philip,

We still do, we still do...

http::/thefonts.com

and click on Risc OS fonts

Best regards,

Edward

Electronic Font Foundry

[Mike Kerpan]

Dr Peter Young wrote:


> Have a look at http://thefonts.com/A/index.htm

Some of those are quite nice and it looks like all the basics are covered,
even if one has to play "guess the original font name" in order to find said
basics. Just out of curiosity, were these originally digitized by EFF or did
they license their outlines from a third party like URW?

Mike

[Dave Wisnia at home]

In message <jagpqp$j5i$1...@dont-email.me>

They produced them as far as I know.

--
With very best wishes
Dave Wisnia

[Philip Draper]

In message <6c3bb045-c28c-4e22...@y7g2000vbe.googlegrou
ps.com>

EFF Fonts <eff....@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 21, 11:17 pm, Philip Draper <Phi...@borehamh.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> In message <ca79ce3552.pnyo...@pnyoung.ormail.co.uk>
>>           Dr Peter Young <pnyo...@ormail.co.uk> wrote:
>>

[snip]

>>>>
>>> Have a look athttp://thefonts.com/A/index.htm
>>
>> The Electronic Font Foundry used to produce very beautiful RISC OS
>> fonts. Isn't it still in business. The last lot I bought had Windows
>> versions of the fonts too. They used to do a CD of 'public domain'
>> fonts at one time as well.
>>
>> Philip.

> Philip,

> We still do, we still do...

> http::/thefonts.com

> and click on Risc OS fonts

> Best regards,

> Edward

> Electronic Font Foundry

Whoops - sorry Edward. Long may EFF flourish.

[Harriet Bazley]

On 21 Nov 2011 as I do recall,

I've been using the PD fonts as my main source of fonts for years (and
spent a considerable time cataloguing them via a Powerbase database to
eliminate the 'bad' ones, which render OK to screen but then crash the
printer drivers, and to eliminate the many duplicates). For what I
paid (i.e. nothing) they are extremely good value. Be aware that many
of them don't contain multiple families (i.e. no italics) and only
contain the ASCII characters (so watch it if your DTP program inserts
'smart' quotes). This doesn't make them unusable for, say, posters, it
just means you need to be a little careful.

(The current version of !Fontdata lists 1167 distinct usable families,
of which 377 contain at least some non-ASCII characters, 156 contain
more than one weight (I'm surprised, I thought it was more than that),
117 feature a smallcaps variant, 255 contain capital letters only and
119 are, or contain, outline variants....)

--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==

Time flies like an arrow - fruit flies like a banana