Vera is a digital typeface ( computer font)

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

with a liberal

license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

. It was designed by

Jim Lyles Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim' ...

from the now-defunct

Bitstream Inc. Bitstream Inc. was a type foundry that produced digital typefaces. It was founded in 1981 by Matthew Carter and Mike Parker among others. It was located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The font business, including MyFonts, was acquired by Monotyp ...

type foundry, and it is closely based on Bitstream Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It is a TrueType font with full hinting instructions, which improve its rendering quality on low-resolution devices such as computer monitors. The font has also been repackaged as a Type 1 PostScript font, called ''Bera'', for LaTeX users. Vera consists of

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...

sans-serif 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 seri ...

, and monospace fonts. The Bitstream Vera Sans Mono typeface in particular is suitable for technical work, as it clearly distinguishes "l" (lowercase L) from "1" (one) and "I" (uppercase i), and "0" (zero) from "O" (uppercase o), in similar fashion as Verdana and Tahoma fonts. Bitstream Vera Sans is also the default font used by the Python library

Matplotlib Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming language and its numerical mathematics extension NumPy. It provides an object-oriented API for embedding plots into applications using general-purpose GUI toolkits like Tkinter, wxPytho ...

to produce plots.

Unicode coverage

Bitstream Vera itself covers Basic Latin and Latin 1-Supplement letters. It comprises only 300

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

Licensing and expansion

Bitstream Vera was released in 2003 with generous licensing terms and minimal restrictions that are nearly identical to those found in the

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 International, ...

, which was not formalized until two years later. The main restrictions were a prohibition on reselling the fonts as a standalone product (though selling as part of a software package is acceptable), and that any derivative fonts not be distributed under the name "Vera" or use the Bitstream trademark. The DejaVu fonts are a prominent expansion of the Bitstream Vera fonts. File:BitstreamVera.svg, Variants of Bitstream Vera File:Helvarial.svg, Comparison between Helvetica, Arial, and Bitstream Vera, three common

typefaces

References

External links

* (Previously hosted at gnome.org -- but page no longer exists.)
Official download page

Bitstream Vera derivatives
a
DejaVu fonts

Hack
is a derivative of Bitstream Vera Mono Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2002 Humanist sans-serif typefaces Monospaced typefaces Open-source typefaces Typefaces designed by Jim Lyles Unified serif and sans-serif typeface families {{typography-stub

Unicode coverage

Licensing and expansion

See also

References

External links