leading provider of advanced font products today announced the release
of a study of free and shareware fonts that can be found on the web. The
study analyzed over 4500 TrueType® fonts that can be downloaded by
Macintosh®, Windows® and Linux® users to determine their viability for
use in ideas being considered by the W3C for linking downloadable fonts
to web pages as part of the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specification.
There are three primary issues with free/shareware fonts: technical,
aesthetic and Intellectual Property (IP). This report addressed only the
technical issues and not any of the aesthetic or IP issues that relate
to the often dubious origins of many free fonts.
The study found that out of the 4572 fonts tested, 4385 fonts (95.9%)
failed one or more of six tests that were performed. The tests checked
the fonts to ensure proper character sets, trademark and copyright
strings, TrueType hinting tables, and font embedding setting. The
TrueType and OpenType® font formats were referenced by Ascender in its
analysis of each of these important font features.
The test results were as follows:
* Code Page 1252 character set -- 80.8% failed (missing one or more
characters)
* Mac Roman character set -- 95.9% failed (missing one or more
characters)
* Trademark string -- 1.7% failed (missing a trademark string)
* Copyright string -- 68.9% failed (missing a copyright string)
* Proper TrueType hinting tables - 8.9% failed (had improper/incomplete
tables)
* Embedding bit -- 30.3% failed (bit set to "Restricted" or improper
fsType bit)
"As the W3C and other stakeholders in the web design and type community
evaluate various ideas to improve fonts on the web, we felt it was
important to identify the quality and integrity issues associated with
free and shareware fonts" said Bill Davis, the study's author. "The vast
majority of these fonts have significant problems that would preclude
their use in any serious or commercial manner."
The Ascender team was involved in developing the most popular fonts used
on the web today, including Mac OS X and Windows system fonts. Ascender
is recognized as experts in creating TrueType and OpenType fonts, and
knowledgeable in the myriad of issues involved with designing and
developing fonts for on-screen reading and use on the web. Ascender
undertook this study to help the public and web community better
understand the issues with fonts on the web.
Copies of the study are available at no charge from the Ascender Corp.
website at: http://www.ascendercorp.com/webfontstudy.html
About Ascender
Ascender® Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products
specializing in type design, font development and licensing. Ascender's
founders are font industry experts and have been involved in developing
some of the most important and influential fonts used in computers and
mobile devices. Ascender provides multilingual, custom font development
for a wide range of customers including creative professionals,
enterprises and hardware & software developers. Ascender also provides
fonts for download to graphic designers and consumers through the
Ascender Font Store website.
Ascender Corporation | http://www.ascendercorp.com
25 Northwest Point Blvd * Suite 975 * Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 * USA
Phone: (847) 357 0730 * Fax: (847) 357 0731
All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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Press Contact: Bill Davis
Company Name: ASCENDER CORP
Email: email protected from spam bots
Phone: 847-357-0730
Website: http://www.ascendercorp.com
AndhraNews.net News for May 8, 2006