GNU FreeFont

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.

FreeMono
CategoryMonospace
ClassificationMechanistic
Designer(s)Primož Peterlin, Steve White
FoundryGNU Savannah
Date created19 February 2002
Date released7 April 2005
Characters4,160
Glyphs4,178
LicenseGNU GPLv3 + font exception
Websitewww.gnu.org/software/freefont/
Latest release version20120503
FreeSans
CategorySans-serif
ClassificationNeo-grotesque
Designer(s)Primož Peterlin, Steve White
Characters4,622
Glyphs6,272
LicenseGNU GPLv3 + font exception
FreeSerif
CategorySerif
ClassificationTransitional
Designer(s)Primož Peterlin, Steve White
Characters8,087
Glyphs10,537
LicenseGNU GPLv3 + font exception

GNU FreeFont (or FreeSans) is used in VLC and other software.

The fonts are licensed under the GNU GPLv3 with a font exception, 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 family includes three faces: FreeMono, FreeSans, and FreeSerif, each in four styles. These fonts can be obtained gratis from GNU Savannah.[1]

History

At the core of the collection are 35 Type 1 fonts donated by URW++ Design & Development GmbH[2] for Ghostscript project[3] to be available under the GPL. The basic Cyrillic range is based on Valek Filipov's Cyrillic and Omega Serif, via Tempora LCG Unicode. Valek Filippov added some composite Latin Extended-A glyphs. Angelo Haritsis compiled a set of Greek Type 1 fonts, used in FreeSans and FreeMono. The Devanagari range in serif is from the Velthuis TeX font,[4] while the range in sans is based on Gargi;[5] Bengali and Gurmukhi ranges are based on Harsh Kumar's BharatBhasha project[6] 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.[7]

Unicode coverage
Upper case letters of European alphabets in FreeSerif

In the latest release of 2012-05-03:

  • FreeSerif face includes 10,537 glyphs, with regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles.
  • FreeSans face includes 6,272 glyphs, with regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique styles.
  • FreeMono face includes 4,178 glyphs, with regular, oblique, bold and bold oblique styles.

The family covers characters from the following Unicode blocks:

  • Basic Latin
  • Latin-1 Supplement
  • Latin Extended-A
  • Latin Extended-B
  • IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Extensions
  • Spacing Modifier Letters
  • Combining Diacritical Marks
  • Greek
  • Cyrillic
  • Cyrillic Supplement
  • Arabic
  • Hebrew
  • N'Ko
  • Thaana
  • Syriac
  • Armenian
  • Georgian
  • Devanagari
  • Bengali
  • Gujarati
  • Gurmukhi
  • Oriya
  • Sinhala
  • Tamil
  • Malayalam
  • Tai Le
  • Ethiopic
  • Thai
  • Kayah Li
  • Cherokee
  • Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
  • Hanunóo
  • Buginese
  • Vai
  • Phonetic Extensions
  • Phonetic Extensions Supplement
  • Diacritical marks
  • Cyrillic Extended-B
  • Tifinagh
  • Osmanya
  • Coptic
  • Glagolitic
  • Gothic
  • Ugaritic
  • Old Persian
  • Phoenician
  • Runic
  • Braille
  • Supplemental Arrows-A
  • Latin Extended Additional
  • Greek Extended
  • General Punctuation
  • Super and Sub scripts
  • Currency Symbols
  • Letterlike Symbols
  • Number Forms
  • Arrows
  • Mathematical Operators
  • Miscellaneous Technical Symbols
  • Enclosed Alphanumerics
  • Box Drawing
  • Block Elements
  • Geometric Shapes
  • Miscellaneous Symbols
  • Dingbats
  • Alphabetic Presentation Forms
  • Vietnamese
  • Western music
  • Byzantine music
  • Mah Jong tiles
  • Dominoes

See also

References
  1. "GNU Project Archives". Ftp.gnu.org. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  2. "(URW)++ Homepage". Urwpp.de. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  3. "Ghostscript, Ghostview and GSview". Cs.wisc.edu. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
  4. "Index of /tex-archive/language/devanagari/velthuis/". Dante.ctan.org. Retrieved 2017-01-20.
  5. "Gargi : Free Unicode OpenType Font – Summary [Savannah]". Savannah.nongnu.org. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
  6. Archived August 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Index of /tex-archive/language/ethiopia/ethiop/". Dante.ctan.org. Retrieved 2017-01-20.
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