The New Project

Hans Hagen Pragma ADE, Holland [email protected]

Jerzy B. Ludwichowski Nicholas Copernicus University, Toru´n,Poland [email protected]

Volker R W Schaa GSI, Darmstadt, Germany [email protected]

Abstract In this short presentation, we will introduce a new project: the LM-ization of the free that come with TEX distributions. We will discuss the project objectives, timeline and cross-LUG funding aspects.

Introduction can be used on various platforms and claim to be a replacement for Type 1 and TrueType fonts. The New Font Project is a brainchild of Hans Hagen, Note that Type 1 fonts were declared obsolete triggered mainly by the very good reception of the by Adobe already a few years ago. Moreover, LM project by the T X community. After consulting E using Type 1 fonts in T X causes a proliferation of other LUG leaders, Bogus law Jackowski and Janusz E metric and encoding files because of the limit of 256 M. Nowacki, aka “GUST type.foundry”, were asked characters per font in T X metric files; therefore, to formulate the project. E each T X font comes actually in several files. The next section contains its outline, as pre- E Please note also that we can also expect a pared by Bogus law Jackowski and Janusz M. No- firm assistance from pdfT X users, because of the wacki. The remaining sections were written by us. E pdfTEX team working on the implementation on the Project Outline support for OpenType fonts. An important consideration by Hans Hagen: Our aim is to prepare a family of fonts, equipped “In the end, even will benefit, so I with a broad repertoire of Latin diacritical char- can even imagine those fonts ending up in the acters, based on the freely available good quality Ghostscript distribution.” fonts. Actually, we think about an “LM-ization” of Actually, the idea of preparing of such font freely available fonts, i.e., about providing as many families was suggested by the pdfTEX development diacritical characters per font as we prepared for team. Their proposal triggered a vivid discussion the Latin Modern font package (ca 400 characters) of an informal group of representatives of several which would cover all European languages as well as TEX LUGs – notably Karl Berry (TUG), Hans Hagen some non-European ones (Vietnamese, Navajo). (NTG), Jerzy Ludwichowski (GUST), Volker R W Such “LM-ized” fonts would work with all TEX Schaa (DANTE) – who suggested that we should packages that LM fonts work with, which would approach this project as a research, technical and make easier using them. The result would be dis- implementation team, and promised their help in tributed, like the LM fonts, in the form of PostScript taking care of promotion, integration, supervising Type 1 fonts, OpenType fonts, MetaType1 sources and financing. and the supporting TEX machinery. The amount of time needed to carry out the We would like to emphasize that the preparing task depends on the number of fonts to be included of fonts in the OpenType format is an important in the collection, but it can be safely estimated that aspect of the project. OpenType fonts are becoming a 4-font family (regular, italic, bold, and bold italic) more and more popular, they are Unicode-based,

TUGboat, Volume 0 (2060), No. 0 — Proceedings of the 2060 Annual Meeting 1001 Hans Hagen, Jerzy B. Ludwichowski and Volker R W Schaa

can be prepared within 1–2 months, depending on Funding the state of original stuff), which – for the collection The project can be divided into three stages: of fonts mentioned below – would mean that the project can be accomplished within about 2 years. • stage 1: combining existing fonts into LM Assuming that the launch of the project could be compatible layouts and identifying gaps in the made in the middle of 2006, the conclusion of the layout first stage of the project might be expected by the • stage 2: filling in the gaps end of 2008. • stage 3: math companion fonts Currently the following fonts are considered as For these the estimated fundings needed are: being worthy of enhancement: • stage 1: around 20,000 EUR 1. The collection of 33 basic PostScript fonts, do- • stage 2: around 15,000 EUR nated by URW++ and distributed with Ghost- script, consisting of eight 4-font families: • stage 3: unknown • URW Gothic (i.e., Avantgarde) The exact figure for the second stage depends • URW Bookman on what is needed and missing. We imagine the • Century Schoolbook project to be extended with additional stages in • (i.e., ) order to bring more scripts into the Open Type • Nimbus Sans Condensed (i.e., Helvetica version and/or to cleanup other fonts as well. condensed) The current financial state of the project: • Nimbus Roman (i.e., Times) • TUG India: 2,000 USD for the first year of the • Nimbus Mono (i.e., ) project and—if possible—a contribution for the • URW Palladio (i.e., Zapf’s ) next year and one single-font “family”: • CSTUG: 500 EUR per year for the project duration and expenses directly connected with • URW Chancery (i.e., Zapf Chancery) getting Czech and Slovak support right ( and fonts are left out.) • NTG: 20% of the project costs, i.e., 4,000 EUR 2. Donated by Bitstream (4-font families): for the first stage • • DANTE: 7,500 EUR this year; additional fund- • Vera ing will be proposed at the October user group 3. Donated by Adobe (4-font family): meeting • • GUST: local infrastructure and expenses of font 4. Other families donated by URW++: developers • • TUG: positive but the amount is yet unknown, • URW depends on contributions to the project fund, Perhaps other interesting free fonts will emerge in more info later this year. the future. Since the first stage runs this year and next year As to the budget—let’s concentrate on the fonts (start: May 2006) and since payments will take place listed above—there are altogether thirteen 4-font after delivery of each completed font family, we can families and the 1-font URW Chancery. We would safely conclude that project expenses in 2006 can be be satisfied if we could get a support of 1,500 EUR covered and given the above we can also be confident per a 4-font family and 500 EUR per a 1-font family. that the rest of the first stage is secured. In the case of the fonts listed above this adds up The second stage is partly secured as well. We to 20,000 EUR. We propose that the funding is will try to broaden funding as soon and as much made step-wise, i.e., the payments are made after as possible. It would be good if this project can the release of an enhanced family of fonts. also take care of the specific needs of Indian, Greek, Obviously, there is scope for a second stage: the Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arab scripts, but we’ll see. . . fonts can be further developed, as one can think for The suite of fonts will be officially presented on example of adding cap-small-caps, old style digits, a special font CD for members of user groups. proportional digits, and more. Once the first stage of the project is finished, we could embark on further Co-ordination enhancements. This would be a somewhat simpler, This will done by DANTE e.V. in close co-operation but still a laborious task; we estimate the effort to with (at least) NTG and GUST. be about 60–70% of the first stage.

1002 TUGboat, Volume 0 (2060), No. 0 — Proceedings of the 2060 Annual Meeting