Q.: Fonts like that used in Le Petit Prince?

[tlvp]

I'd welcome suggestions for fonts that might (i) be commonly available on
Mac or Windows systems and (ii) give something of the flavor of the French
Grammar School cursive handwriting font used in many editions of St.
Exupery's {Le Petit Prince}. Preferably freely reusable, as the intention
is to use such a font in a contemporary, privately distributed, children's
book. Many thanks for any usable pointers. Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2014-07-21 7:10, tlvp wrote:

> I'd welcome suggestions for fonts that might (i) be commonly available on
> Mac or Windows systems and (ii) give something of the flavor of the French
> Grammar School cursive handwriting font used in many editions of St.
> Exupery's {Le Petit Prince}.

Cursive (handwriting) fonts are rare as pre-installed fonts, and I would
be very surprised to find a font that is commonly available on Windows
systems, not to mention being available across major platform differences.

> Preferably freely reusable, as the intention
> is to use such a font in a contemporary, privately distributed, children's
> book. Many thanks for any usable pointers. Cheers, -- tlvp

There are various free cursive fonts at https://www.google.com/fonts
(select only �Handwriting� under �Filters�) but few of them look similar
to what you seem to mean: a simple cursive font, with (almost) vertical
axis, apparently meant to reflect a schoolchild�s careful handwriting.
What comes closest, in my opinion, is Vibur. But it has a rather
peculiar �q�, it lacks ���, it has a rather non-cursive �L�, etc.

It depends on the intended format of distribution whether you can use
(free) fonts embedded in the book itself. PDF and Word formats allow
embedding, and so does HTML+CSS, but if you use EPUB format, it�s
different: most EPUB readers do not support embedded fonts (@font-face
fonts).

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[tlvp]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:05:05 +0300, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> 2014-07-21 7:10, tlvp wrote:
>
>> I'd welcome suggestions for fonts that might (i) be commonly available on
>> Mac or Windows systems and (ii) give something of the flavor of the French
>> Grammar School cursive handwriting font used in many editions of St.
>> Exupery's {Le Petit Prince}.
>
> Cursive (handwriting) fonts are rare as pre-installed fonts, and I would
> be very surprised to find a font that is commonly available on Windows
> systems, not to mention being available across major platform differences.
>
>> Preferably freely reusable, as the intention
>> is to use such a font in a contemporary, privately distributed, children's
>> book. Many thanks for any usable pointers. Cheers, -- tlvp
>
> There are various free cursive fonts at https://www.google.com/fonts

> (select only “Handwriting” under “Filters”) but few of them look similar

> to what you seem to mean: a simple cursive font, with (almost) vertical

> axis, apparently meant to reflect a schoolchild’s careful handwriting.

> What comes closest, in my opinion, is Vibur. But it has a rather

> peculiar “q”, it lacks “œ”, it has a rather non-cursive “L”, etc.

>
> It depends on the intended format of distribution whether you can use
> (free) fonts embedded in the book itself. PDF and Word formats allow

> embedding, and so does HTML+CSS, but if you use EPUB format, it’s

> different: most EPUB readers do not support embedded fonts (@font-face
> fonts).

Hi, Jukka, fancy meeting you here :-) ! Yes, indeed, Vibur is very much an
example of the sort of font I was fishing for, thank you very much. The
ultimate use to which the font to be chosen will be put will be as font
embedded in a PDF file for a (series of?) children's book(s) to be printed,
on paper, in limited quantity (well, printed on demand).

Of Windows fonts known to me, Brush Script Italic is narrower and more
slanty than I'd like, Edwardian Script ITC too elegantly formal, Kunstler
Script and Palace Script MT likewise; Lucida Handwriting Italic too slanty,
probably, Viner Hand ITC too ... mmm ... unsuitable, too, somehow.

Close candidates include Freestyle Script, French Script MT, Segoe Script,
and your Vibur. There's also something I find attractive in Vladimir Script
-- though it doesn't match my original description at all, does it :-) ?

Mac fonts are an unknown resource for me. The children's book author has
both Mac and Windows systems available, but hasn't explored their font
resources yet (hence reports having "found no script fonts" :-) ).

Your suggestions here, both of individual font and the Google Fonts trove,
are very welcome. Thanks again! Cheers, -- tlvp