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Free Software Unicode Typefaces
There are Unicode typefaces which are open-source and designed to contain glyphs of all Unicode characters, or at least a broad selection of Unicode scripts. 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 many 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 20th century Fixed The Fixed X11 public-domain core bitmap fonts have provided substantial Unicode coverage since 1997. GNU Unifont GNU Unifont is a bitmap-based font creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sans-serif Libre Typefaces (fonts)
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and Modern typography, modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: , , , , and . Sans-serif typefaces have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word , meaning "without" and "serif" of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word meaning "line" or pen-stroke. In printed media, they are more commonly used for Display typeface, display use and less for body text. Before the term "sans-serif" became standard in English typography, a number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it can be used for many other purposes as well. PostScript was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Brotz, Ed Taft and Bill Paxton from 1982 to 1984. The most recent version, PostScript 3, was released in 1997. History The concepts of the PostScript language were seeded in 1976 by John Gaffney at Evans & Sutherland, a computer graphics company. At that time, Gaffney and John Warnock were developing an interpreter for a large three-dimensional graphics database of New York Harbor. Concurrently, researchers at Xerox PARC had developed the first laser printer and had recognized the need for a standard means of defining page images. In 1975–76 Bob Sproull and William Newman developed the Press format, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia, and used by many other minority languages. , around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great, probably by the disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius, who had previously created the Gl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypriot Syllabary
The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary (also Classical Cypriot Syllabary) is a syllabary, syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. It has been suggested that the script remained in use as late as the 1st century BC. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras I, Evagoras of Salamis, Cyprus, Salamis. It is thought to be descended from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary, itself a variant or derivative of Linear A. Most texts using the script are in the Arcadocypriot Greek, Arcadocypriot dialect of Greek language, Greek, but also one bilingual, the Amathus bilingual, a Greek and Eteocypriot language, Eteocypriot, was found in Amathus. Origin It is thought that the Cypriot syllabary is derived from the Cypro-Minoan syllabary; the latter is thought to be derived from the Linear A script, and certainly belongs to the circle of Aegean script (other), Aegean scripts. The most obvious change is the dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armenian Alphabet
The Armenian alphabet (, or , ) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasus. It was developed around 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader. The script originally had 36 letters. Eventually, two more were adopted in the 13th century. In reformed Armenian orthography (1920s), the ligature is also treated as a letter, bringing the total number of letters to 39. The Armenian word for 'alphabet' is ('), named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet: ' and '. Armenian is written horizontally, left to right. History and development Possible antecedents One of the classical accounts of the existence of an Armenian alphabet before Mesrop Mashtots comes from Philo of Alexandria (20 BCAD 50), who in his writings notes that the work of the Greek philosoph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supplementary Multilingual Plane
In the Unicode standard, a plane is a contiguous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecimal format (U+''hhhhhh''). Plane 0 is the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), which contains most commonly used characters. The higher planes 1 through 16 are called "supplementary planes". The last code point in Unicode is the last code point in plane 16, U+10FFFF. As of Unicode version , five of the planes have assigned code points (characters), and seven are named. The limit of 17 planes is due to UTF-16, which can encode 220 code points (16 planes) as pairs of Word (computer architecture), words, plus the BMP as a single word. UTF-8 was designed with a much larger limit of 231 (2,147,483,648) code points (32,768 planes), and would still be able to encode 221 (2,097,152) code points (32 planes) even under the current limit of 4 bytes. The 17 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andika (font)
Andika (, from the verb root for 'to write' in Swahili) is a sans-serif typeface developed by SIL International for the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic scripts. It is designed for literacy programs and beginning readers, but also has support for IPA transcription and a large number of diacritics. The font offers four family members: roman, bold, italic and bold italic. Andika supports OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ... and AAT technologies for advanced rendering features. It is licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), and can be downloaded free of charge. Version 6.2 of the font includes over 3,800 glyphs, including stylistic variants and ligatures. Stylistic variants include primer-style forms of letters such as ''a'', ''g'' and ''t'' and the digit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gentium
Gentium (, from the Latin for "of the nations") is a Unicode serif typeface family designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are free and open source software, and are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), which permits modification and redistribution. Gentium has wide support for languages using the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts, as well as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and other phonetic notation, excluding mostly paleographic and medievalist characters. Gentium includes over 4,500 glyphs and advanced typographic features through OpenType and formerly Graphite. Gentium was designed for use at 10-11 points. Wide counters and low stroke contrast improve readability at small point sizes. Long ascenders allow diacritics stacking. In 2003, the Gentium font was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) as one of the best designs of the previous five years. History The original rele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doulos SIL
Doulos SIL (Ancient Greek for "slave") is a serif typeface developed by SIL International, very similar to Times or Times New Roman. Unlike Times New Roman, Doulos only has a single face, Regular. The goal of its design according to the SIL International website is to "provide a single Unicode-based font family that would contain a comprehensive inventory of glyphs needed for almost any Roman- or Cyrillic-based writing system, whether used for phonetic or orthographic needs." Along with Charis SIL and Gentium, it is licensed under the SIL Open Font License The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Global, the ... (OFL). This font has a cousin specially designed for numbered musical notation named Doulos SIL Cipher. Version 7, published in June 2025, may be the last version to be suppor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charis SIL
Charis SIL or Charis () is a slab serif typeface developed by SIL International based on Bitstream Charter, one of the first fonts designed for laser printers. The font offers four family members: roman, bold, italic, and bold italic. Its design goal is to "provide a single Unicode-based font family that would contain a comprehensive inventory of glyphs needed for almost any Roman- or Cyrillic-based writing system, whether used for phonetic or orthographic needs." Charis SIL supports Graphite (SIL), Graphite, OpenType, and Apple Advanced Typography, AAT technologies for advanced rendering features. Along with Doulos SIL and Gentium, it is licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), and can be downloaded free of charge. Version 6.2 of the font, with over 3,800 glyphs, was released on 1 February 2023. Version 7 was released on 2 June 2025. Variant forms of many characters can be chosen in the word-processor. For example, for primer (textbook), primer-style 'a' and 'g', app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SIL Open Font License
The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Global, the organization behind ''Ethnologue.'' History The Open Font License was created by SIL Global employees Victor Gaultney and Nicolas Spalinger. Gaultney had previously designed the Gentium font and was unsatisfied with existing font licenses. The Open Font License was designed for use with many of SIL's Unicode fonts, including Gentium Plus, Charis SIL, and Andika. The license was in a "public review" stage between 2005 and 2007 and version 1.1 was published in February 2007. Prior to the release of the OFL, the Bitstream Vera fonts had been released in 2003 under most of the same terms and conditions. Open-source fonts are a popular choice among designers, and most open-source fonts utilize the Open Font License. For example, it wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Divide
The digital divide is the unequal access to information technology, digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. The digital divide worsens inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age, people without access to the Internet and other technology are at a disadvantage, for they are unable or less able to connect with others, find and apply for jobs, shop, and learn. People who are homeless, living in poverty, elderly people, and those living in rural communities may have limited access to the Internet; in contrast, urban middle class and upper-class people have easy access to the Internet. Another divide is between producers and consumers of Internet content, which could be a result of educational disparities. While social media use varies across age groups, a US 2010 study reported no racial divide. History The historical roots of the digital divide in America refer to the increasing gap that occurred during the ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
