Re: Approximation of old font needed

On 27 Apr, 18:43, Andy Mabbett <usenet200... (AT) pigsonthewing (DOT) org.uk>
wrote:

Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS (I'll
make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blackletter" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blackletter" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

No, I did not suggest anything of the kind. I simply classified the font
as being a relatively simple Fraktur font.

It's unlikely that a Fraktur font has the name "Fraktur" as such. That
would actually be rather stupid, since the idea of a proper name (of a
font or anything else) is to distinguish it from objects of the same
kind. To see some actual names of Fraktur fonts, check
http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/fraktur/

You _could_ write a long list of Fraktur font names (note that not all
fonts on those pages are really Fraktur), and _then_ you could perhaps
say that you will "trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that
has a hope of achieving it", for some value of "suitable". But it would
take time and effort to test that the fonts are at least tolerable. Even
then, the odds of getting a Fraktur font would be 0.0187278%. (Remember
that 83.6% of all percentages have been souped up from someone's head ,
and the rest 17.4% are based on miscalculations.)

And you wouldn't make _my_ browser display any Fraktur, since the only
Fraktur font on my current computer is "F Fraktur 1".

Moreover, you would have the "s" problem. The letter "s" has two shapes
in Fraktur fonts, to be used according to certain (though somewhat
varying) rules. Along with the Unicode principles, the code position for
"s" should stand for the short variant (looking like common "s") and the
long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S).
But the various Fraktur fonts may deal with this differently. For
example, in "F Fraktur 1", the position for "s" has the long variant
whereas the small variant is in code position A8(used for the diaeresis
¨ in Latin 1, so it's a fairly free position, but this is still trickery
that might not be compatible with anything).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

On 28 Apr, 13:10, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorp... (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blackletter" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

No, I did not suggest anything of the kind. I simply classified the font
as being a relatively simple Fraktur font.

True, but spoken from your hallowed lips, the mere whisper of its name
is as an RFC 2119 MUST, write large in letters of fire. 8-)

Your critique of the practicality of it was about CSS font control in
general. Within that particular arena of pointless endeavour, Fraktur
(as you did mention) is as good a name to sacrifice your cargo-cult
chickens to as any.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Moreover, you would have the "s" problem. The letter "s" has two shapes
in Fraktur fonts, to be used according to certain (though somewhat
varying) rules. Along with the Unicode principles, the code position for
"s" should stand for the short variant (looking like common "s") and the
long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S).

It is U+017F or ſ
The "long s" is even included in Microsoft's WGL4. So it is likely
that one gets at least a "Latin long s".

Scripsit Andreas Prilop:

the long variant should be &#x71f; (for U+071F LATIN
SMALL LETTER LONG S).

It is U+017F or ſ

Right, thanks for the correction.

The "long s" is even included in Microsoft's WGL4. So it is likely
that one gets at least a "Latin long s".

The effect isn't particularly esthetic, since in non-Fraktur fonts, it
doesn't look right (but rather as the upper half of the integral sign,
with or without a serif at the bottom and a drop at the other hand).

Apparently _most_ Fraktur fonts have a "short s" in place of "s", which
is OK, but then the problem is how to get the "long s". I don't think
there are many nontrivial texts with no need for "long s" when set in
Fraktur.

Although it seems clear that there is little hope of using Fraktur on
web pages, I studied the issue a bit, for eventual special usage and
also for non-www usage like printed publications.

I checked the fonts described at
http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/fraktur/
and quite a many of them produce garbage or nothing when asked to
display U+017F. So you would need to keep the font family list short,
listing only fonts that have a decent "long s". Besides, some of them
(like Monarchia) are fake Fraktur, with some Fraktur features but a
general impression of something else.

This would leave us Karolinus Fraktur, Fleischmann Gotisch PT (which I
wouldn't call Fraktur proper), EF Justus Fraktur, Alte Schwabacher, and
maybe EF Feder Fraktur. Not that many, among dozens of fonts called
"Fraktur".

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Andy Dingley wrote:

On 27 Apr, 18:43, Andy Mabbett <usenet200... (AT) pigsonthewing (DOT) org.uk
wrote:

Can anyone kindly suggest a similar font suitable for use in CSS
(I'll make sure something less fancy is specified as a fallback).

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blackletter" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

Except for Windows visitors ;-) I have basic instalation of Win-XP and I have
not these fonts.
--
Petr Vileta, Czech republic
(My server rejects all messages from Yahoo and Hotmail. Send me your
mail from another non-spammer site please.)

Please reply to <petr AT practisoft DOT cz>

On 29 Apr, 01:15, "Petr Vileta" <sto... (AT) practisoft (DOT) cz> wrote:

Using both "Fraktur" (as Jukka suggested) and also "Blackletter" will
probably trigger a suitable font choice for any desktop that has a
hope of achieving it.

Except for Windows visitors ;-) I have basic instalation of Win-XP and I have
not these fonts.

But do you have _any_ font that is at all suitable? CSS won't install
one for you.

On Mon, 28 Apr 2008, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

I checked the fonts described at
http://www.myfonts.com/browse/keyword/fraktur/

This would leave us Karolinus Fraktur, Fleischmann Gotisch PT (which I
wouldn't call Fraktur proper), EF Justus Fraktur, Alte Schwabacher, and maybe
EF Feder Fraktur. Not that many, among dozens of fonts called "Fraktur".

I found also Fette Fraktur from Adobe and Linotype.