Approximation of old font needed

[Andy Mabbett]

I'm about to publish (what's the web equivalent of "reprint"?) an old
paper article, whose heading is in this font:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigsonthewing/2446437162/>

Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS (I'll
make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

Thank you.

--
Andy Mabbett
Says "NO! to compulsory UK ID Cards": <http://www.no2id.net/>
and: "Free Our Data": <http://www.freeourdata .org.uk>
(both also on Facebook)

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Scripsit Andy Mabbett:

I'm about to publish (what's the web equivalent of "reprint"?) an old
paper article, whose heading is in this font:
>
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigsonthewing/2446437162/>

It looks like a relatively simple Fraktur font.

Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS (I'll
make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

I'm afraid there is no Fraktur font installed on most web users'
computers, so in terms of authoring for the WWW, using CSS is
ineffective. You could use an image, but what's the point? A Fraktur
heading for modern-style text doesn't look good.

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Petr Vileta]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Scripsit Andy Mabbett:
>

>I'm about to publish (what's the web equivalent of "reprint"?) an old
>paper article, whose heading is in this font:
>>
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigsonthewing/2446437162/>

>
It looks like a relatively simple Fraktur font.
>

>Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS
>(I'll make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

>
I'm afraid there is no Fraktur font installed on most web users'
computers, so in terms of authoring for the WWW, using CSS is
ineffective. You could use an image, but what's the point? A Fraktur
heading for modern-style text doesn't look good.

Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft offer
freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft". This software
create *.eot font file from any (?) font in author's computer.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/

I used it few times for some webpages.
--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

[Joshua Cranmer]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Scripsit Andy Mabbett:
>

>I'm about to publish (what's the web equivalent of "reprint"?) an old
>paper article, whose heading is in this font:
>>
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigsonthewing/2446437162/>

>
It looks like a relatively simple Fraktur font.
>

>Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS (I'll
>make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

>
I'm afraid there is no Fraktur font installed on most web users'
computers, so in terms of authoring for the WWW, using CSS is
ineffective. You could use an image, but what's the point? A Fraktur
heading for modern-style text doesn't look good.
>

Ever hear of @font-face? MS supports it, Safari does in recent builds;
there's been some discussion on the matter over in the W3C public
mailing list (mostly about IP rights and licensing matters).

--
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

[Jonathan N. Little]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Petr Vileta wrote:

Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft offer
freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft". This
software create *.eot font file from any (?) font in author's computer.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/

I used it few times for some webpages.

Not really. This is *www.authoring* not *MS.authoring*. That puppy never
really hunted anyway...

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO

http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Scripsit Petr Vileta:

Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft
offer freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft".

This has been discussed a few times over the years on different forums.
Every time, when someone asks for a real-life example, the advocates of
"Weft" turn silent. So can _you_ cite an example of a site (preferably
yours) that actually uses "Weft" for anything else than trivial
one-paragraph demos purported to illustrate the technique?

(The point is that when you try something real, you soon notice that
"Weft" is a mess.)

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

On 27 Apr, 18:43, Andy Mabbett <usenet200...@p igsonthewing.or g.uk>
wrote:

Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS (I'll
make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blacklette r" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blacklette r" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

No, I did not suggest anything of the kind. I simply classified the font
as being a relatively simple Fraktur font.

It's unlikely that a Fraktur font has the name "Fraktur" as such. That
would actually be rather stupid, since the idea of a proper name (of a
font or anything else) is to distinguish it from objects of the same
kind. To see some actual names of Fraktur fonts, check

http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/fraktur/

You _could_ write a long list of Fraktur font names (note that not all
fonts on those pages are really Fraktur), and _then_ you could perhaps
say that you will "trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that
has a hope of achieving it", for some value of "suitable". But it would
take time and effort to test that the fonts are at least tolerable. Even
then, the odds of getting a Fraktur font would be 0.0187278%. (Remember
that 83.6% of all percentages have been souped up from someone's head ,
and the rest 17.4% are based on miscalculations .)

And you wouldn't make _my_ browser display any Fraktur, since the only
Fraktur font on my current computer is "F Fraktur 1".

Moreover, you would have the "s" problem. The letter "s" has two shapes
in Fraktur fonts, to be used according to certain (though somewhat
varying) rules. Along with the Unicode principles, the code position for
"s" should stand for the short variant (looking like common "s") and the
long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S).
But the various Fraktur fonts may deal with this differently. For
example, in "F Fraktur 1", the position for "s" has the long variant
whereas the small variant is in code position A8(used for the diaeresis
¨ in Latin 1, so it's a fairly free position, but this is still trickery
that might not be compatible with anything).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

On 28 Apr, 13:10, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorp...@cs.tu t.fiwrote:

Scripsit Andy Dingley:
>

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blacklette r" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

>
No, I did not suggest anything of the kind. I simply classified the font
as being a relatively simple Fraktur font.

True, but spoken from your hallowed lips, the mere whisper of its name
is as an RFC 2119 MUST, write large in letters of fire. 8-)

Your critique of the practicality of it was about CSS font control in
general. Within that particular arena of pointless endeavour, Fraktur
(as you did mention) is as good a name to sacrifice your cargo-cult
chickens to as any.

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Moreover, you would have the "s" problem. The letter "s" has two shapes
in Fraktur fonts, to be used according to certain (though somewhat
varying) rules. Along with the Unicode principles, the code position for
"s" should stand for the short variant (looking like common "s") and the
long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S).

It is U+017F or ſ
The "long s" is even included in Microsoft's WGL4. So it is likely
that one gets at least a "Latin long s".

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Scripsit Andreas Prilop:

>the long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN
>SMALL LETTER LONG S).

>
It is U+017F or ſ

Right, thanks for the correction.

The "long s" is even included in Microsoft's WGL4. So it is likely
that one gets at least a "Latin long s".

The effect isn't particularly esthetic, since in non-Fraktur fonts, it
doesn't look right (but rather as the upper half of the integral sign,
with or without a serif at the bottom and a drop at the other hand).

Apparently _most_ Fraktur fonts have a "short s" in place of "s", which
is OK, but then the problem is how to get the "long s". I don't think
there are many nontrivial texts with no need for "long s" when set in
Fraktur.

Although it seems clear that there is little hope of using Fraktur on
web pages, I studied the issue a bit, for eventual special usage and
also for non-www usage like printed publications.

I checked the fonts described at

http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/fraktur/

and quite a many of them produce garbage or nothing when asked to
display U+017F. So you would need to keep the font family list short,
listing only fonts that have a decent "long s". Besides, some of them
(like Monarchia) are fake Fraktur, with some Fraktur features but a
general impression of something else.

This would leave us Karolinus Fraktur, Fleischmann Gotisch PT (which I
wouldn't call Fraktur proper), EF Justus Fraktur, Alte Schwabacher, and
maybe EF Feder Fraktur. Not that many, among dozens of fonts called
"Fraktur".

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Petr Vileta]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Jonathan N. Little wrote:

Petr Vileta wrote:
>

>Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft
>offer freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft".
>This software create *.eot font file from any (?) font in author's
>computer. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...bedding/weft3/
>I used it few times for some webpages.

>
Not really. This is *www.authoring* not *MS.authoring*. That puppy
never really hunted anyway...

Is nice to meet anti-MS fanatic :-) I'm working on Windows based PC (but for
Win + Lin servers) and I offer solution how to do it using Windows. Maybe
exist any other software for creating embeded fonts for Linux or OS/2 but I
haven't knowledge about it. It's all.

Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_OpenType

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/fonts.html

http://www.w3.org/Submission/2008/SUBM-EOT-20080305/

BTW: I'm running one domain on my Linux server where eot font work well for
Windows and Linux visitors too.
--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

[Petr Vileta]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Scripsit Petr Vileta:
>

>Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft
>offer freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft".

>
This has been discussed a few times over the years on different
forums. Every time, when someone asks for a real-life example, the
advocates of "Weft" turn silent. So can _you_ cite an example of a
site (preferably yours) that actually uses "Weft" for anything else
than trivial one-paragraph demos purported to illustrate the
technique?

For example http://www.q-artplzen.cz
Menu used Verdana and all other Tahoma fonts. But other then Windows visitors
not have these fonts and for this reason I used embeded fonts for this site.
Domain is hosted on Linux server of course ;-)

To be correct I must say that Weft is not too user friendly, sometime hang
during font create but when you create eot font this work in almost all known
browsers.
--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

[Petr Vileta]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Andy Dingley wrote:

On 27 Apr, 18:43, Andy Mabbett <usenet200...@p igsonthewing.or g.uk>
wrote:
>

>Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS
>(I'll make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

>
Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blacklette r" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

Except for Windows visitors ;-) I have basic instalation of Win-XP and I have
not these fonts.
--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

[Jonathan N. Little]

Re: Approximation of old font needed

Petr Vileta wrote:

Jonathan N. Little wrote:

>Petr Vileta wrote:
>>

>>Ehm, sorry, but Andy can create "web" font for server. Miscro$oft
>>offer freeware (really, freeware from M$) for this called "Weft".
>>This software create *.eot font file from any (?) font in author's
>>computer. http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...bedding/weft3/
>>I used it few times for some webpages.

>>
>Not really. This is *www.authoring* not *MS.authoring*. That puppy
>never really hunted anyway...

>
Is nice to meet anti-MS fanatic :-)

I am not, take a peek at my header.

I'm working on Windows based PC (but
for Win + Lin servers) and I offer solution how to do it using Windows.

Ditto. Point is it is *not* a solution, not even for Windows. As Jukka
said, show a real working example of this technology. It is bogus-ware.
Microsoft doesn't even use it. Therefore it is a non-solution.

Maybe exist any other software for creating embeded fonts for Linux or
OS/2 but I haven't knowledge about it. It's all.
>
Some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_OpenType

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/fonts.html

http://www.w3.org/Submission/2008/SUBM-EOT-20080305/

>

So far none of those birds flew either.

BTW: I'm running one domain on my Linux server where eot font work well
for Windows and Linux visitors too.

For Linux visitors? How? IE + Wine?


--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO

http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com