[Hamara-devel] Fonts packaged with Hamara

Wed Oct 21 16:32:07 BST 2015

My point here is compatibility - in an ideal world, no-one would use Word and the awful fonts it installs - perhaps it is the OS fallbacks that may be the issue here?

Do we need to specify if not Arial, then Liberation Sans? If not Verdana, then DejaVu Sans? They are closest alternatives in each case. I can offer FOSS alternatives for the major ‘web-safe’ font groups.

So as in web development, we always set as ‘Helvetica’, Arial, Sans-serif which dictates the order of fallback, and in the case of Linux / Hamara - what is the ‘default’ sans-serif font?

After a bit of further reading, it looks like the MS fonts are out of the picture anyway! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_Web>

I hope Comic Sans is eventually deleted from existence, on a side note...

In a commercial sense, compatibility is important - a brand has it’s chosen typefaces, and I almost always use Google Fonts now for their wide compatibility.

The Ubuntu font is quite widely used now, indeed it is available through Google Fonts service. I used it in some branding once, come to think of it!

What I would love to see, is fonts being embedded in such documents, in the same fashion that they are in PDFs. Cross-platform font compatibility is one of the banes of a designers life, which PDF partly solved many years back.

Sam Sayer
Creative Director
DeType Ltd <http://www.detype.com/>

Skype: SamasUK <skype:SamasUK>
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	 <http://www.detype.com/>
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 <http://www.detype.com/>
> On 21 Oct 2015, at 16:16, shirish <shirish at hamaralinux.org> wrote:
> 
> at bottom :-
> 
> On Wednesday 21 October 2015 08:33 PM, Sam Sayer wrote:
>> I am wondering if we can include some more fonts in forthcoming Hamara releases. I do notice quite a difference in what the OS chooses as a replacement for common fonts such as Arial - it is replaced by a serif font - a big typography faux pas! (to be honest it’s mainly font geeks like me who get bothered!).
>> 
>> This is more apparent when setting fall-back fonts for web / html email, and also sharing of Libre Offie documents between different OS - it has quite disastrous results at times.
>> 
>> After a bit of digging it looks like Arial, Tahoma etc (the traditional ‘web safe’ fonts):
>> 
>> (http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/83113/can-microsoft-fonts-be-bought-and-included-in-the-linux-core <http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/83113/can-microsoft-fonts-be-bought-and-included-in-the-linux-core>)
>> 
>>> A font like tahoma can be found in the wine fonts package. There's also a package called ttf-ms-fonts which includes some the fonts you mentioned and can be legally installed. See for example this information for arch linux <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MS_Fonts>.
>>> 
>>> Includes:
>>> 
>>> Andalé Mono
>>> Arial
>>> Arial Black
>>> Comic Sans
>>> Courier New
>>> Georgia
>>> Impact
>>> Lucida Sans
>>> Lucida Console
>>> Microsoft Sans Serif
>>> Times New Roman
>>> Trebuchet
>>> Verdana
>>> Webdings
>>> Wingdings
>> 
>> See also: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microsoft_fonts <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microsoft_fonts>
>> 
>> So - that would be a good start.
>> 
>> Another consideration is bundling some of the Google Fonts in, which mostly have an SIL Open Font License.
>> I have started to see a lot of people using Google Fonts in documents now.
>> 
>> Namely:
>> 
>> Lato
>> Cabin
>> Source Sans Pro
>> Source Code Pro
>> Open Sans
>> Droid Sans
>> Drois Serif
>> PT Sans
>> PT Serif
>> EB Garamond
>> Exo
>> Martel
>> Martel Sans
>> Merriweather
>> Merriweather Sans
>> Michroma
>> Quicksand
>> Raleway
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 	
>> Sam Sayer
>> Creative Director
>> DeType Ltd <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 	
>> 	
>> Skype: SamasUK <skype:SamasUK>
>> Mobile: 07545 803087 <tel:07545803087>
>> detype.com <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 
>>  	
>> 8 Ise Road
>> Kettering, Northants <tel:07545803087>
>> NN15 7DX <tel:07545803087>
>>  <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 
>> 
>> 	 <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 	 <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 
>>  <http://www.detype.com/>
>> 
> 
> Dear Sam,
> 
> I do not think we need to worry about fonts that much as Debian has quite a bit. The last count I had was somewhere around 400 font packages that Debian has.
> 
> What probably would be an issue would be how good the typeface is and things like that. I have added list of all fonts which are available in Debian.
> 
> See also https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts as well as http://fonts.debian.net/ and https://pkg-fonts.alioth.debian.org/review/debian-font-review.html to have a preview of all the fonts and how they look or can look.
> 
> Also, as rightly pointed out that Google has also done quite a few fonts which have SIL copyleft license which can be packaged as well.
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/Fonts/Missing
> 
> Lastly, Ubuntu also made an alternative some years back, the license was ambiguous the last time I saw it.
> 
> http://font.ubuntu.com/
> 
> It is an alternative to MS-fonts as well.
> 
> Hope the above helps :)
> -- 
> Regards,
> Shirish Agarwal,
> Community Lead,
> Hamaralinux.org
> <fonts-font-utilities-terminal-fonts-all-available-under-debian.txt>

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