Bitstream/Gnome Release Vera Font Family

bluephone writes "Gnome and Bitstream have released the final version of the Vera font family. Go get it, install them, and enjoy! They work for Windows and Mac users too!" Our earlier story.

Comments

I'm obviously retarded

[AssFace]

I followed the links in the article and glanced over it and even searched on Bitstream's own site using their font finder...

I just want to see what the fonts look like without having to install/download the actual files.

I'm sure that it would be far too silly for them to have all of this talk and not have a link that shows what they look like - so I'm obviously retarded for not finding said link.

Anyone want to help a special needs kid and give me a link to what the font looks like?

This is good news...

[gillbates]

Considering that one of Linux/Gnome/KDE's weakest points has been its poor support for fonts.

Quite frankly, I'm glad to see this. The early fonts that came with X were simply horrible when compared to what MS was offering at the time. With better looking fonts, we are one step closer to widespread adoption of Linux on the desktop.

Re:This is good news...

[zmotula]

Still the sad thing about fonts in X is the poor rendering (even with antialiasing turned on) compared to Windows or MacOS X. Without antialias, cursive fonts are nearly unusable (at least on all the machines I work with). With antialias, the characters have got uneven brightness and fuzzy edges; horizontal lines are too thick (antialiased Mozilla being a perfect example)... Paint to look at.

Beautiful font

[Ender Ryan]

This font is probably the most beautiful font I have ever seen, especially the serif font. It is by far the most easily readable serif font ever. I normally despise serif fonts because I find them pretty unreadable, but Bitstream Vera Serif rocks.

It's really good to finally have a high-quality free font set.

FWIW. YMMV.

Re:Sorry for being dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Because someone has to actually draw each character from A-Z, a-z, numbers, funky characters, set the correct kerning for each character, and it all has to look just right at different sizes.

Italics? (was slashdot in Vera Serif)

[1u3hr]

Very disappointing to see that the serif form has only a regular and bold form, no true italics, so your screenshot shows the loathsome synthetic oblique version -- ie, just distorted the roman, no changes in letterform. Most true italic fonts have distinctive forms for "a", "g", "f". So I'll be sticking to Times or Georgia for my screen fonts. I really HATE it when the OS messes with my fonts -- if there's no real italics, don't give me ersatz

Re:Italics? (was slashdot in Vera Serif)

[jg]

There are words about gift horses here that
might apply...

In any case, Bitstream had never built
serif italic faces for Prima, Vera's progenitor.
- Jim

Re:word

[spongman]

I don't know. I'm not too impressed.

Here's a comparison of Vera Serif/Sans with Times/Verdana on Windows XP with ClearType at 8 & 12 points (96 dpi): vera.gif.

A few things stand out:

• vera serif is much bigger than times. it's a bit taller, but it's a whole lot wider.
• the kerning (spacing between letters) is bad on the vera fonts. for example, check serif's 'az', 'he', 'um', and sans' 'ox', 'og', 'RO'.
• the kerning is inconsistent between font sizes, too. check sans' 'WN'. in the small size they're crammed up against each other and in the larger size they're miles apart.
• in the large serif, what happened to the space between 'FOX' and 'JUMPS'?