Nimbus Sans

It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, Romanian languages.

Some of the fonts have history predating Helvetica's first release. For example, Nimbus Sans bold condensed, Nimbus Sans bold condensed (D) were dated 1940; Nimbus Sans Black Condensed, Nimbus Sans Black Condensed (D) were dated 1946.

The fonts ended with (D) names have slightly lighter font weights and tighter spacing.

Weight	condensed	medium	extended
Black	roman	roman, italic	roman
Bold	roman	roman, italic	roman
Regular	roman	roman, italic	roman
Light
roman, italic	roman
(D) fonts
Weight	condensed	medium	extended
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman, outline
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic, outline	roman
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman
Ultra Light
roman

Nimbus Sans Poster

It is a version of Nimbus Sans with even tighter spacing than the Nimbus Sans (D) fonts. Other changes include alternate designs for currency symbols.

Weight	condensed	medium
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
Ultra Light
roman

Nimbus Sans Diagonal

It is a version with more right lean than Nimbus Sans italic fonts. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Black weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Mono

It is a monospaced variant of Nimbus Sans. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Regular weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Global

It is a family supporting Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, CJK ideographic, Japanese kanam, Korean Hangul syllables, Thai characters. The family includes 5 fonts in 1 (medium) width, with 4 proportional an 1 monospaced fonts. The proportional fonts are in 4 weights (bold, medium, regular, light), while the monospace font is in medium weight.

Nimbus Sans L

It is a version of Nimbus Sans using Adobe font sources. It was designed in 1987. The family includes 17 fonts in 5 weights and 2 widths, with Nimbus Sans L Extra Black only available in condensed roman format.

A subset of Nimbus Sans L, which includes regular and bold weight fonts in all widths and styles, were released under the GPL

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....

and AFPL

Aladdin Free Public License

The Aladdin Free Public License, abbreviated AFPL, is a license written by L. Peter Deutsch for his Ghostscript PostScript language interpreter.-History:The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points:...

in Type 1 format in 1996 and LPPL

LaTeX Project Public License

The LaTeX Project Public License is a software license originally written for the LaTeX system. Software distributed under the terms of the LPPL can be regarded as free software, however it is not copylefted....

in 2009, and is one of several freely licensed fonts offered by URW++.

Although the characters are not exactly the same, Nimbus Sans L has metrics almost identical to Helvetica and 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...

. Nimbus Sans L is one of the Ghostscript

Ghostscript

Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format page description languages.- Features :...

fonts, a free alternatives to 35 basic PostScript fonts (which include Helvetica).

It is a standard typeface in many GNU/Linux distributions. It was used as default font in OpenOffice.org Calc and Impress in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu - up to version 8.10; since Ubuntu 9.04 the default font was changed to Liberation Sans).

Nimbus Sans Novus

It is a version Linotype's Stempel Studio source, based on Neue Helvetica, but without the extended fonts.

The fonts ended with (D) names have tighter letter spacing.

Weight	condensed	medium
Ultra	roman, italic
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic
Heavy	roman, italic	roman, italic
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic, outline
Semi Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic
Medium	roman, italic	roman, italic
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
Ultra Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
(D) fonts
Weight	condensed	medium
Ultra	roman
Black	roman	roman, outline
Heavy	roman	roman
Bold	roman	roman
Semi Bold	roman	roman
Medium	roman	roman
Regular	roman	roman
Light	roman	roman
Ultra Light	roman	roman

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