Open-source Unicode typefaces

Screenshot of type set in several different free (libre) sans-serif typefaces: Latin Modern Sans, Liberation Sans, Arimo, FreeSans, Nimbus Sans L, Tex Gyre Heros, Droid Sans, Roboto, Noto, Bitstream Vera Sans, and DejaVu Sans.
Examples of several libre, sans-serif typefaces.

A few projects exist to provide free and open-source Unicode typefaces, i.e. Unicode typefaces which are open-source and designed to contain glyphs of all Unicode characters. However, there are also numerous projects aimed at providing only a certain script, such as the Arabeyes Arabic font. The advantage of targeting only some scripts with a font was that certain Unicode characters should be rendered differently depending on which language they are used in, and that a font that only includes the characters a certain user needs will be much smaller in file size compared to one with a large number of glyphs. Unicode fonts in modern formats such as OpenType can in theory cover multiple languages by including multiple glyphs per character, though very few actually cover more than one language's forms of the unified Han characters.

History

GNU Unifont

GNU Unifont is a bitmap-based font created by Roman Czyborra that is present in most free operating systems and windowing systems such as Linux, XFree86 or the X.Org Server. The font is released under the GNU General Public License Version 2+ with a font embedding exception.

Fixed

The Fixed X11 public-domain core bitmap fonts have provided substantial Unicode coverage since 1997.

21st Century

2000s

Free UCS Outline Fonts

The Free UCS Outline Fonts [1] (also known as freefont) is a font collection project. The project was started by Primož Peterlin and is currently administered by Steve White. The aim of this project has been to produce a package of fonts by collecting existing free fonts and special donations, to support as many Unicode characters as possible. The font family is released as GNU FreeFont under the GNU General Public License. It also supports several font formats, including PostScript, TrueType, and OpenType. For this reason the fonts are derived from original work made in FontForge, and stored in .sfd (Spline Font Database) files. The most recent release is from May 2012.

SIL fonts

SIL International offers a large number of fonts, editors, translation and book production systems[2] as part of their goal to bridge the digital divide to minority languages. This site contains many utilities for Windows systems, including right-to-left editors, keymappers, RTF translators, and high-quality, free Unicode fonts. SIL publish their fonts under their own SIL Open Font License. Typefaces include Charis SIL, Doulos SIL and Gentium.

MPH 2B Damase

Mark Williamson's MPH 2B Damase is a free font encoding many non-Latin scripts, including the Unicode 4.1 scripts in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane: Armenian, Cherokee, Coptic, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic, Deseret, Georgian, Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Limbu, Linear B (partial coverage), Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Phoenician, Shavian, Syloti Nagri (no conjuncts), Tai Le (no combining tone marks), Thaana, Tifinagh, Ugaritic, and Vietnamese.[3]

IndUni fonts

The IndUni fonts are a GPL-licensed font family with many accents and combining characters, especially suitable for Indic, Indian and Nepali (Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi) and Middle Eastern languages and Urdu in transliteration. It also includes characters for Avestan and for the Pinyin representation of Chinese, a set of Cyrillic characters and a basic set of Greek letters. The fonts implement almost the whole of the Multilingual European Subset 1 of Unicode. Also provided are keyboard handlers for Windows and the Mac, making input very easy.

They are based on fonts designed by URW++ Design and Development Incorporated, and offer lookalikes for Courier, Helvetica, Times, Palatino, and New Century Schoolbook.[4]

2010s

Noto fonts

Noto is a font family designed to cover all the scripts encoded in the Unicode standard. It is designed with the goal of achieving visual harmony (e.g., compatible heights and stroke thicknesses) across multiple languages/scripts. Commissioned by Google, the font is licensed under the SIL Open Font License.[5] Until September 2015, the fonts were under the Apache License 2.0.[6]

Comparison

Font nameLicenseVersion / dateNotes
Amiri FontOFL0.111 (30 Dec 2017)Arabic script, Naskh style
Bitstream VeraBitstream Vera fonts license2002
CardoOFLUnicode 6 and MUFI v3-compatible
Caslon RomanOFL or BSD-like license2001-12-16
CMU familyOFLAn updated version of Computer Modern (CMU is an abbreviation for Computer Modern Unicode).
CulmusGPL 2 + font exception0.132 (18 Jan 2018)A basic collection of Hebrew fonts aimed at Hebrew-speaking GNU/Linux and Unix community
DejaVu fontslicense2.35 (17 May 2015)A modification and wide extension of Bitstream Vera fonts
Droid fontsApache licenseA collection of fonts developed for Google's Android mobile phone operating system
EB GaramondOFL
ET BookMIT
Fedorovsk UnicodeGPL, OFLOld Cyrillic script
Fira SansOFL
Fixed1997The Fixed X11 public-domain core bitmap fonts have provided substantial Unicode coverage since 1997.
Fixedsys Excelsiorpublic domain3.01 / 2007
GentiumOFL or BSD-like license5.000 (2014-10-28)
Ghostscript GPL, AFPL, LPPL[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] URW ++ Type 1 fonts, a free alternatives to 35 basic PostScript fonts—e.g. Type 1 version of Nimbus Roman No9 L, Nimbus Sans L, Nimbus Mono L, URW Bookman L, URW Gothic L and others
GNU UnifontGPL 2+GNU Unifont is a bitmap-based font created by Roman Czyborra that is present in most free operating systems.
Hanazono Minchō[in Japanese] (permissive license) One of the few free software fonts that includes the whole CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C block, as well as many other (related) CJKV characters, such as the Kangxi Radicals and CJK Radicals Supplement blocks.
JomolhariOFLTibetan script
JunicodeGPL0.7.8 / 30 December 2012
Kelvinch Font OFL, free for any use Most Latin blocks fully populated + Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian & Runes. Comes in Roman, Italic, Bold & Bold Italic.
Latin ModernGUST licence
LatoOFL2.015 / 6 August 2015Covers all Latin alphabets, along with Cyrillic, Greek, and IPA
Linux LibertineGPL, OFL5.3.0 / July 2012Linux Libertine is a digital typeface created by the Libertine Open Fonts Project, which aims to create free and open alternatives to proprietary typefaces such as Times Roman.
Liberation fontsOFL2.00.0 / July 18, 2012Liberation is the collective name of four TrueType font families: Liberation Sans, Liberation Sans Narrow, Liberation Serif and Liberation Mono. These fonts are metrically compatible with Monotype Corporation's Arial, Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, and Courier New (respectively). Versions since 2.00 use OFL while older versions use GPL + font exception.
Liberastika fonts GPL + font exception Is a derivative of Liberation fonts with improved Cyrillic
M+ FONTS Permissive free software licence[15] v 060 / 2015-06-15
Menaion Unicode GPL, OFL Old Cyrillic script and Glagolitic script
Monomakh Unicode GPL, OFL Latin and Old Cyrillic script
New Athena UnicodeOFL
Noto fontsOFLCommissioned by Google
Old Standard TT GPL, OFL A Unicode font family for classical, medieval and Slavic studies — alternative download at fontspace.com
Ponomar Unicode GPL, OFL Old Cyrillic script
RobotoApache license2.001047; 2015A collection of fonts developed for Google's Android mobile phone operating system
SIL fontsOFLTypefaces include Charis SIL, Doulos SIL and Gentium.
Ubuntu Font FamilyUbuntu Font LicenseUbuntu 11.10 / 7 March 2011
UniFrakturOFL
Source Sans Pro and Source Code ProOFL2012By Adobe
Source Serif ProOFL2014By Adobe
Source Han SansOFL2014By Adobe
Source Han SerifOFL2017By Adobe
SymbolaNo license, "free for any use"[16]10.23 (December 2017)Versions of Symbola from version 10.24 onward are released under a license that prohibits commercial and educational use.
TeX Gyre collection of fonts GUST licence
Oxygen fontsGPL + font exception or OFL Created by the KDE community, this font is optimised for the FreeType font rendering system and works well in all graphical user interfaces, desktops and devices. Alternative download at fontsquirrel.com

See also

References

  1. ↑ Free UCS Outline Fonts
  2. ↑ NRSI: Computers and Writing Systems
  3. ↑ Details for MPH 2B Damase
  4. ↑ IndUni fonts, by John Smith
  5. ↑ "Noto Font". Retrieved November 24, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Add NEWS for license change - googlei18n/noto-fonts". Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  7. ↑ "Ghostscript SVN - URW fonts". Google Code. Google. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  8. ↑ "Debian package - gsfonts". packages.debian.org. Debian. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  9. ↑ "Fonts and font facilities supplied with Ghostscript". Ghostscript. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  10. ↑ URW++ making original 35 fonts available under LPPL, tug.org, retrieved 2010-05-06
  11. ↑ Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts., archived from the original on 2002-10-23, retrieved 2010-05-06
  12. ↑ Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts. (TXT), tug.org, retrieved 2010-05-06
  13. ↑ "Fonts and TeX". 2009-12-19. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
  14. ↑ Five years after: Report on international TEX font projects (PDF), tug.org, 2007, retrieved 2010-05-06
  15. ↑ "License". M+ Outline Fonts. osdn.jp.
  16. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180307012615/http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/
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