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GNU FreeFont

{{short description|Font family}}

{{Infobox font

| name = FreeMono

| image = FreeMonoDemonstration.png

| style = Monospace

| classifications = Mechanistic

| foundry = GNU Savannah

| creationdate = 19 February 2002

| releasedate = 7 April 2005

| latest_release_version = {{wikidata|property|preferred|references|edit|Q3093285|P348|P548=Q2804309}}

| latest_release_date = {{wikidata|qualifier|preferred|single|Q3093285|P348|P548=Q2804309|P577}}

| creator = Primož Peterlin, Steve White

| characters = 4,160

| glyphs = 4,178

| license = GPL-3.0-or-later with Font-exception-2.0

| website = {{url|https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/}}

| arabic = yes

| cyrillic = yes

| devangari = yes

| greek = yes

| hebrew = yes

| hindi =

| ipa = yes

| latin = yes

}}

{{Infobox font

| name = FreeSans

| image = FreeSansDemonstration.png

| style = Sans-serif

| classifications = Neo-grotesque

| date = 2002–2009

| creator = Primož Peterlin, Steve White

| characters = 4,622

| glyphs = 6,272

| license = GPL-3.0-or-later with Font-exception-2.0

| arabic = yes

| cyrillic = yes

| devangari = yes

| greek = yes

| hebrew = yes

| hindi =

| ipa = yes

| latin = yes

}}

{{Infobox font

| name = FreeSerif

| image = FreeSerifDemonstration.png

| style = Serif

| classifications = Transitional

| date = 2002–2009

| creator = Primož Peterlin, Steve White

| characters = 8,087

| glyphs = 10,537

| license = GPL-3.0-or-later with Font-exception-2.0

| arabic = yes

| cyrillic = yes

| devangari = yes

| greek = yes

| hebrew = yes

| hindi =

| ipa = yes

| latin = yes

}}

GNU FreeFont (also known as Free UCS Outline Fonts) is a family of free OpenType, TrueType and WOFF vector fonts, implementing as much of the Universal Character Set (UCS) as possible, aside from the very large CJK Asian character set. The project was initiated in 2002 by Primož Peterlin and is now maintained by Steve White.

The family includes three faces: FreeMono, FreeSans, and FreeSerif, each in four styles (Regular, Italic/Oblique, Bold, and Bold Italic/Oblique).

The fonts are licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later license with the Font-exception-2.0, ensuring they may be both freely distributed and embedded or otherwise utilized within a document without the document itself being covered by the GPL. The fonts can be obtained libre from GNU Savannah.{{cite web|url=http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/ |title=GNU Project Archives |publisher=Ftp.gnu.org |access-date=2015-02-26}} They are also packaged on certain Linux distributions, including Ubuntu{{cite web|url=https://packages.ubuntu.com/source/bionic/fonts-freefont|title=Source Package: fonts-freefont |access-date=2022-07-08}} and Arch Linux.{{cite web|url=https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/gnu-free-fonts/|title=gnu-free-fonts |access-date=2022-07-08}}

Design

The glyphs of GNU FreeFont come from many sources, all of which are compatible with the GPL.{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/sources/resources.html|title=Gnu FreeFont: Global fontware|access-date=2022-07-08}}

The core Latin characters are derived from the Type 1 fonts donated by URW++ to the Ghostscript project.{{cite web|url=http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ |title=Ghostscript, Ghostview and GSview |publisher=Cs.wisc.edu |access-date=2015-02-26}} Specifically, the design notes of GNU FreeFont state that:{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/design-notes.html|title=Gnu FreeFont: Design notes|access-date=2022-07-08}}

The Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic, and International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) characters are partially based on Omega, which is an extension of TeX.{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/sources/|title=GNU FreeFont: Sources by script|access-date=2022-07-08}} The Greek characters are also based on a set of Greek Type 1 fonts compiled by Angelo Haritsis, in addition to Alexey Kryukov's Tempora LCG Unicode. The Cyrillic range also includes Valek Filipov's Gnome Cyrillic and Tempora LCG Unicode. Valek Filippov further added some composite Latin Extended-A glyphs.

The Devanagari range in serif is from the Velthuis TeX font,{{cite web|url=http://dante.ctan.org/tex-archive/language/devanagari/velthuis/|title=Index of /tex-archive/language/devanagari/velthuis/|website=Dante.ctan.org|access-date=2017-01-20}} while the range in sans is based on Gargi;{{cite web|url=https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/gargi |title=Gargi : Free Unicode OpenType Font – Summary [Savannah] |publisher=Savannah.nongnu.org |access-date=2013-08-25}} Bengali and Gurmukhi ranges are based on Harsh Kumar's BharatBhasha project[http://www.bharatbhasha.org.in/bharatbhasha.htm] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807172502/http://www.bharatbhasha.org.in/bharatbhasha.htm |date=August 7, 2007 }} and others. The Gujarati and Oriya ranges are based on Samyak fonts. The Ethiopic range is based on the Ethiopic metafont project at the University of Hamburg.{{cite web|url=http://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/language/ethiopia/ethiop/|title=Index of /tex-archive/language/ethiopia/ethiop/|website=Dante.ctan.org|access-date=2017-01-20}}

Unicode coverage

File:Venn diagram showing Greek, Latin and Cyrillic letters.svg

In the latest release of 2012-05-03, FreeSerif includes 10,537 glyphs, FreeSans includes 6,272 glyphs, and FreeMono includes 4,178 glyphs.

The family covers characters from the following Unicode blocks: {{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/coverage.html|title=Gnu FreeFont support for OpenType OS/2 character ranges |access-date=2022-08-04}}

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See also

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • [https://www.gnu.org/software/freefont/ GNU FreeFont]
  • [http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/freefont/ Free UCS Outline Fonts Project]

{{Free and open-source typography}}

{{GNU}}

Category:Free software Unicode typefaces

FreeFont

Category:Computer-related introductions in 2002