small caps - Page 2

DaleDe · 06-03-2011, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adjust

Yeah, even still, I'm not comfortable encrypting licensed fonts for inclusion for commercial products.

I actually know someone in my industry who got a visit by the font police...

You are correct at being concerned. It takes careful reading of the license to ensure you are not in violation of the rules. The fonts wiki page list some free ones to download but copyright violation is serious. At MobileRead we do not ever condone copyright violation.

Dale

bobcdy · 06-03-2011, 11:25 PM

JSWolf,
Thanks for the info about the Charis fonts. I downloaded the 'tuned' Sil fonts, and found that the Type Tuner was a great resource for selecting the small cap fonts. However, the problem with the Sil SC fonts are they don't conform well to what typographers seem to define as a well-formed small cap font.

http://ilovetypography.com/2008/02/20/small-caps/

"Generally speaking, small caps are about as tall as the font’s x-height. Look, for instance, at Minion Pro’s lower case m compared to a small cap Minion Pro m; it’s marginally taller than the lowercase m and the font’s x-height. Other typefaces have small caps that are the same height as the x-height, while others still stand a little shorter."

Correctly-formed small caps have the "capital" letters about the same size as a normal font capitals, and the "small case" letters are about a tall as the normal font lower case but in capitals.

My experience with old books from the late 18th and early19th century, is that these small caps fonts conform to the above, and in order to emulate as far as possible those typefaces in my epubs, I don't believe that the SIL small caps fonts are suitable because the lower case letters are too tall.

The ITC minion pro SC fonts would be ideal but are commercial fonts. The Garava sc font I mentioned is not much better that the SIL sc font but I modified it, with permission, to provide a 'petite' caps font with larger upper case letters. I probably went too far with this font though because the upper case letters are a bit too tall, but I like it better that way. I agree though that it is not ideal for epubs because it's a little hard to read (although no one should make a large section of text as small case).

ldolse · 06-04-2011, 07:46 PM

Roger64 provided a great example previously using LinLibertine, but I didn't see anyone mention the Fell fonts he uses in his linked blog post. These fonts are also free under the Sil license and gorgeous for this use, particularly for period books.

A link directly to the fonts page:
http://iginomarini.com/fell/the-revival-fonts/

One interesting bit, I was just playing around with the Fell fonts in an ePub. The OpenType fonts don't have a dedicated small-caps typeface, but the small-caps glyphs are included in several of the fonts. I wasn't able to get small-caps to display with the OpenType font faces, is there something special that can be done in the CSS to accommodate this, or do I have to just use the dedicated ttf typeface?

bobcdy · 06-04-2011, 09:45 PM

Idolse,
As far as I know, one needs a dedicated small cap font to be able to type the letters with a computer keyboard. Otherwise one needs to use a special program such as 'Popchar' to insert the small caps where needed. This is a pretty slow process for using small caps in an epub.

If the owner of the font, such as the Fell fonts allows alteration of the font with a font program such as 'fontforge' or 'FontCreator', then one can fairly easily change the font so that the small caps are located where the lower case letters normally would be. This would work as a normal small caps font, although there might be problems with kerning if one didn't work on it.

(After posting the above material, I downloaded the Fell fonts and studied them with FontCreator. The Fell fonts may look ok on the web, and probably are usable for epubs but they are pretty crude when shown in FontCreator. I remembered then that I had done the same thing some time ago and decided they were not sufficiently well-formed for my use - perhaps this conclusion was a bit harsh, and perhaps I might try them if the small caps were accessible with the computer keyboard. I'll try emailing the author and see if he's willing for them to be altered or if he has a small cap font already done.)

ldolse · 06-04-2011, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobcdy

(The Fell fonts may look ok on the web, and probably are usable for epubs but they are pretty crude when shown in FontCreator. I remembered then that I had done the same thing some time ago and decided they were not sufficiently well-formed for my use - perhaps this conclusion was a bit harsh, and perhaps I might try them if the small caps were accessible with the computer keyboard. I'll try emailing the author and see if he's willing for them to be altered or if he has a small cap font already done.)

Not sure if you mean the way the fonts are built or the appearance - I suspect you're referring to how they're built, but I think the appearance is a bit crude on purpose. For period books I don't have a problem with the appearance.

The ttf download did have dedicated smallcaps options accessible from a keyboard, so I suppose it would be straightforward to convert those to otf if that was preferred.

bobcdy · 06-05-2011, 12:04 AM

You're correct - the true type files have 'sc' fonts that look pretty good unless greatly magnified. With FontCreator, with glyphs-magnify options, the individual glyphs are very crude compared to commercial (or even the better class of non-commercial ones), but they should be adequate for epubs. And perhaps the font author intentionally incorporated the crudeness to emulate the old type.

I didn't realize that the otf and the ttf fonts differed - previously, and this time before you pointed out the difference, I had downloaded the otf fonts and found they did not have keyboard useable sc fonts. The true type sc fonts have the proper sizes of 'capitals' and 'lower case' and I think they should look much better than my usual small cap fonts or the Sil tuned small cap fonts.

Thanks for pointing out my incorrect assumption about ttf and otf!

06-03-2011, 11:25 PM	#17
bobcdy Fanatic Posts: 527 Karma: 1048576 Join Date: May 2009 Device: bebook; prs-950; nook simple touch; HTC Jetstream tablet	Charis SIL small caps fonts JSWolf, Thanks for the info about the Charis fonts. I downloaded the 'tuned' Sil fonts, and found that the Type Tuner was a great resource for selecting the small cap fonts. However, the problem with the Sil SC fonts are they don't conform well to what typographers seem to define as a well-formed small cap font. http://ilovetypography.com/2008/02/20/small-caps/ "Generally speaking, small caps are about as tall as the font’s x-height. Look, for instance, at Minion Pro’s lower case m compared to a small cap Minion Pro m; it’s marginally taller than the lowercase m and the font’s x-height. Other typefaces have small caps that are the same height as the x-height, while others still stand a little shorter." Correctly-formed small caps have the "capital" letters about the same size as a normal font capitals, and the "small case" letters are about a tall as the normal font lower case but in capitals. My experience with old books from the late 18th and early19th century, is that these small caps fonts conform to the above, and in order to emulate as far as possible those typefaces in my epubs, I don't believe that the SIL small caps fonts are suitable because the lower case letters are too tall. The ITC minion pro SC fonts would be ideal but are commercial fonts. The Garava sc font I mentioned is not much better that the SIL sc font but I modified it, with permission, to provide a 'petite' caps font with larger upper case letters. I probably went too far with this font though because the upper case letters are a bit too tall, but I like it better that way. I agree though that it is not ideal for epubs because it's a little hard to read (although no one should make a large section of text as small case). Last edited by bobcdy; 06-03-2011 at 11:30 PM. Reason: corrected spelling

06-04-2011, 09:45 PM	#19
bobcdy Fanatic Posts: 527 Karma: 1048576 Join Date: May 2009 Device: bebook; prs-950; nook simple touch; HTC Jetstream tablet	Idolse, As far as I know, one needs a dedicated small cap font to be able to type the letters with a computer keyboard. Otherwise one needs to use a special program such as 'Popchar' to insert the small caps where needed. This is a pretty slow process for using small caps in an epub. If the owner of the font, such as the Fell fonts allows alteration of the font with a font program such as 'fontforge' or 'FontCreator', then one can fairly easily change the font so that the small caps are located where the lower case letters normally would be. This would work as a normal small caps font, although there might be problems with kerning if one didn't work on it. (After posting the above material, I downloaded the Fell fonts and studied them with FontCreator. The Fell fonts may look ok on the web, and probably are usable for epubs but they are pretty crude when shown in FontCreator. I remembered then that I had done the same thing some time ago and decided they were not sufficiently well-formed for my use - perhaps this conclusion was a bit harsh, and perhaps I might try them if the small caps were accessible with the computer keyboard. I'll try emailing the author and see if he's willing for them to be altered or if he has a small cap font already done.) Last edited by bobcdy; 06-04-2011 at 10:27 PM. Reason: added new text

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06-04-2011, 07:46 PM	#18
ldolse Wizard Posts: 1,337 Karma: 123455 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Malaysia Device: PRS-650, iPhone	Roger64 provided a great example previously using LinLibertine, but I didn't see anyone mention the Fell fonts he uses in his linked blog post. These fonts are also free under the Sil license and gorgeous for this use, particularly for period books. A link directly to the fonts page: http://iginomarini.com/fell/the-revival-fonts/ One interesting bit, I was just playing around with the Fell fonts in an ePub. The OpenType fonts don't have a dedicated small-caps typeface, but the small-caps glyphs are included in several of the fonts. I wasn't able to get small-caps to display with the OpenType font faces, is there something special that can be done in the CSS to accommodate this, or do I have to just use the dedicated ttf typeface?

06-05-2011, 12:04 AM	#21
bobcdy Fanatic Posts: 527 Karma: 1048576 Join Date: May 2009 Device: bebook; prs-950; nook simple touch; HTC Jetstream tablet	You're correct - the true type files have 'sc' fonts that look pretty good unless greatly magnified. With FontCreator, with glyphs-magnify options, the individual glyphs are very crude compared to commercial (or even the better class of non-commercial ones), but they should be adequate for epubs. And perhaps the font author intentionally incorporated the crudeness to emulate the old type. I didn't realize that the otf and the ttf fonts differed - previously, and this time before you pointed out the difference, I had downloaded the otf fonts and found they did not have keyboard useable sc fonts. The true type sc fonts have the proper sizes of 'capitals' and 'lower case' and I think they should look much better than my usual small cap fonts or the Sil tuned small cap fonts. Thanks for pointing out my incorrect assumption about ttf and otf!