Liberation fonts
Encyclopedia
Liberation is the collective name of four TrueType
font families
: Liberation Sans, Liberation Sans Narrow, Liberation Serif and Liberation Mono. These fonts are metric-compatible with Monotype Corporation
's Arial
, Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, and Courier New (respectively), the most commonly used fonts on Microsoft's Windows operating system and Office suite.
fonts Arial
, Arial Narrow and Times New Roman, respectively.
Liberation Mono is styled closer to Liberation Sans than Monotype's Courier New, though its metrics match with Courier New.
The Liberation fonts are intended as free, open-source replacements of the aforementioned encumbered fonts.
All three fonts support code page
s 437, 737, 775, 850, 852, 855, 857, 860, 861, 863, 865, 866, 869, 1250, 1251, 1252, 1253, 1254, 1257, the Macintosh Character Set (US Roman), and the Windows OEM character set.
of Ascender Corp. as Ascender Sans and Ascender Serif. A variant of this font family, with the addition of a monospaced font and open-source license, was licensed by Red Hat
, Inc. as the Liberation font family.
The fonts were developed in two stages. The first release was a set of fully usable fonts, but they lacked the full hinting
capability. The second release, made available in the beginning of 2008, provides full hinting of the fonts.
Liberation Sans and Liberation Serif derive from Ascender Sans and Ascender Serif respectively; Liberation Mono uses base designs from Ascender Sans and Ascender Uni Duo.
In April 2010, Oracle Corporation
contributed the Liberation Sans Narrow typefaces to the project. They are metrically compatible to the popular Arial Narrow font family. With Liberation Fonts 1.06 the new typefaces were officially released.
licensed these fonts from Ascender Corp
under the GNU General Public License
with a font embedding exception, which states that documents embedding these fonts do not automatically fall under the GNU GPL. Thus, these fonts permit free and open source software
(FLOSS) systems to have high-quality fonts that are metric-compatible with Microsoft software.
The Fedora Project
, as of version 9 was the first major Linux distribution to include these fonts by default and features a slightly revised versions of the Liberation fonts contributed by Ascender. These include a dotted zero and various changes made for the benefit of internationalization
.
Some other GNU/Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu
, OpenSUSE
and Mandriva Linux
) included Liberation fonts in their default installations. The open source software OpenOffice.org
includes Liberation fonts in its installation packages for some supported operating systems.
Google distributes versions of these fonts (with additional glyphs and slight changes in line height??) as Tinos, Arimo and Cousine as part of the Google Chrome OS
.
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font families
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
: Liberation Sans, Liberation Sans Narrow, Liberation Serif and Liberation Mono. These fonts are metric-compatible with Monotype Corporation
Monotype Corporation
Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
's Arial
Arial
Arial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with Microsoft Windows, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS X and many PostScript 3 computer printers...
, Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, and Courier New (respectively), the most commonly used fonts on Microsoft's Windows operating system and Office suite.
Characteristics
Liberation Sans, Liberation Sans Narrow and Liberation Serif closely match the metrics of Monotype CorporationMonotype Corporation
Monotype Imaging Holdings is a Delaware corporation based in Woburn, Massachusetts and specializing in typesetting and typeface design as well as text and imaging solutions for use with consumer electronics devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,...
fonts Arial
Arial
Arial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with Microsoft Windows, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS X and many PostScript 3 computer printers...
, Arial Narrow and Times New Roman, respectively.
Liberation Mono is styled closer to Liberation Sans than Monotype's Courier New, though its metrics match with Courier New.
The Liberation fonts are intended as free, open-source replacements of the aforementioned encumbered fonts.
All three fonts support code page
Code page
Code page is another term for character encoding. It consists of a table of values that describes the character set for a particular language. The term code page originated from IBM's EBCDIC-based mainframe systems, but many vendors use this term including Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle Corporation...
s 437, 737, 775, 850, 852, 855, 857, 860, 861, 863, 865, 866, 869, 1250, 1251, 1252, 1253, 1254, 1257, the Macintosh Character Set (US Roman), and the Windows OEM character set.
History
The fonts were developed by Steve MattesonSteve Matteson
Steven R. Matteson is an American typeface designer whose work is included in several computer operating systems and embedded in game consoles, cell phones and other electronic devices...
of Ascender Corp. as Ascender Sans and Ascender Serif. A variant of this font family, with the addition of a monospaced font and open-source license, was licensed by Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
, Inc. as the Liberation font family.
The fonts were developed in two stages. The first release was a set of fully usable fonts, but they lacked the full hinting
Font hinting
Font hinting is the use of mathematical instructions to adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. At low screen resolutions, hinting is critical for producing a clear, legible text...
capability. The second release, made available in the beginning of 2008, provides full hinting of the fonts.
Liberation Sans and Liberation Serif derive from Ascender Sans and Ascender Serif respectively; Liberation Mono uses base designs from Ascender Sans and Ascender Uni Duo.
In April 2010, Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
contributed the Liberation Sans Narrow typefaces to the project. They are metrically compatible to the popular Arial Narrow font family. With Liberation Fonts 1.06 the new typefaces were officially released.
Distribution
Red HatRed Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
licensed these fonts from Ascender Corp
Ascender Corporation
Ascender Corporation is a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States...
under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
with a font embedding exception, which states that documents embedding these fonts do not automatically fall under the GNU GPL. Thus, these fonts permit free and open source software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
(FLOSS) systems to have high-quality fonts that are metric-compatible with Microsoft software.
The Fedora Project
Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is an endeavor sponsored by Red Hat to co-ordinate the development of the Fedora operating system. Founded on September 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux and old Fedora Linux projects...
, as of version 9 was the first major Linux distribution to include these fonts by default and features a slightly revised versions of the Liberation fonts contributed by Ascender. These include a dotted zero and various changes made for the benefit of internationalization
Internationalization
In economics, internationalization has been viewed as a process of increasing involvement of enterprises in international markets, although there is no agreed definition of internationalization or international entrepreneurship...
.
Some other GNU/Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
, OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
and Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux is a Linux distribution distributed by Mandriva. It uses the RPM Package Manager...
) included Liberation fonts in their default installations. The open source software OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
includes Liberation fonts in its installation packages for some supported operating systems.
Google distributes versions of these fonts (with additional glyphs and slight changes in line height??) as Tinos, Arimo and Cousine as part of the Google Chrome OS
Google Chrome OS
Google Chrome OS is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google to work exclusively with web applications. Google announced the operating system on July 7, 2009 and made it an open source project, called Chromium OS, that November....
.
See also
- Droid fontsDroid (font)Droid is a font family created by Ascender Corporation for use by the Open Handset Alliance platform Android and licensed under the Apache License. The fonts are intended for use on the small screens of mobile handsets and were designed by Steve Matteson of Ascender Corporation...
Droid font family by the same font designer. - Free software Unicode typefacesFree software Unicode typefacesA 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...
- Linux Libertine fontsLinux LibertineLinux Libertine is a digital typeface created by the Libertine Open Fonts Project, which aims to create free and open alternatives to Proprietary software typefaces such Times Roman...
Another free softwareFree softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
serif typeface with OpenType features support - Gentium fontGentiumGentium is a Unicode serif typeface designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are free and open source software, and are released under the SIL Open Font License , which permits modification and redistribution. Gentium has wide support for languages using the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets,...
An Open Font License font which defines roughly 1,500 glyphs covering almost all of the range of Latin characters used worldwide.