[Hamara-devel] Fonts packaged with Hamara

Wed Oct 21 17:29:07 BST 2015

in-line :-

On Wednesday 21 October 2015 09:02 PM, Sam Sayer wrote:
> 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?

Probably. For office situations, probably the default one 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Libertine is good enough . I do not 
know if hamara has linuxlibertine installed by default in hamara, in 
Debian it isn't and you have to install it separately :( which makes for 
a somewhat poorer experience a bit.

Btw what platform are you using, are you running hamara, Debian, some 
GNU/Linux distribution or something else ?

> 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?

I don't know but this is what fc-match gives when I try for the same.

$ fc-match -a Sans-Serif | head
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Condensed"
DejaVuSansCondensed.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Condensed"
DejaVuSans-ExtraLight.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "ExtraLight"
DejaVuSans-ExtraLight.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "ExtraLight"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSansCondensed-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Condensed Bold"
DejaVuSansCondensed-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Condensed Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"

But the package itself is also not the default.

See below -

  $ aptitude show fonts-dejavu-core
Package: fonts-dejavu-core
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Multi-Arch: foreign
Version: 2.35-1
Priority: optional
Section: fonts
Maintainer: Debian Fonts Task Force 
<pkg-fonts-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org>
Architecture: all
Uncompressed Size: 3,034 k
Breaks: ttf-dejavu (< 2.20-1), ttf-dejavu-core (< 2.33+svn2514-2~)
Replaces: ttf-dejavu (< 2.20-1), ttf-dejavu-core (< 2.33+svn2514-2~)
Description: Vera font family derivate with additional characters
  DejaVu provides an expanded version of the Vera font family aiming for 
quality and broader Unicode coverage while retaining the original Vera 
style.
  DejaVu currently works towards conformance with the Multilingual 
European Standards (MES-1 and MES-2) for Unicode coverage. The DejaVu 
fonts provide serif, sans and monospaced variants.

  This package only contains the sans, sans-bold, serif, serif-bold, 
mono and mono-bold variants. For additional variants, see the 
ttf-dejavu-extra package.

  DejaVu fonts are intended for use on low-resolution devices (mainly 
computer screens) but can be used in printing as well.
Homepage: http://dejavu-fonts.org/

As can be seen it is an 'optional' font but seems to be nearest or best 
for sans-serif.

$ dpkg -L fonts-dejavu-core
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/BUGS
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/README
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/copyright
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/langcover.txt.gz
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/status.txt.gz
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/changelog.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/fonts-dejavu-core/unicover.txt.gz
/usr/share/fonts
/usr/share/fonts/truetype
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSerif.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSerif-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono-Bold.ttf
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf
/etc
/etc/fonts
/etc/fonts/conf.d
/etc/fonts/conf.avail
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/57-dejavu-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/57-dejavu-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/58-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/58-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/58-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.avail/20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/57-dejavu-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/57-dejavu-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/58-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-lgc-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/57-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/58-dejavu-lgc-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans-mono.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/58-dejavu-lgc-serif.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-sans.conf
/etc/fonts/conf.d/20-unhint-small-dejavu-serif.conf

The last are the configuration files for each font so the user can 
manipulate things a bit.

> 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.

Know and agree with the idea that brand and a typeface being associated 
with them is important. Which one to use is totally upto you though as 
you are our designer and you would have to make some design choices for 
us. If you are asking the wider community which fonts would be good then 
the community might be able to help or vote if you have two or three 
fonts which you think are good enough and we can help on that, although 
as a designer you would be able to veto the same as you are the one who 
has to do all the branding, if you are not happy with a font choice you 
will not give your best.

> 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!

Right.

> 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.
>

True agree with the above.

> 	
> 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/>

<snipped>

-- 
Regards,
Shirish Agarwal,
Community Lead,
Hamaralinux.org