Ray Larabie

The term software can be confusing. Some people I've encountered have trouble understanding not only the concept but also the language embedding font software into application software. They don't seem to grasp the idea of software being added to software. They may not even know that an app is software. I'm sure there was a time when being a web or software developer required some knowledge of how computers work. But I've encountered people using kits that help them generate software applications with no technical knowledge required. They know that they've used the font in the app generation tool but they're not sure whether the font goes in to the app or if it's used to generate the app. E-book development tools don't explain to the author that font software is being embedded into a document. Is the book software? Replace font software with font or the font itself and I think it's going to be easier to grasp.

When I need to answer questions from customers who don't understand my EULA, I refer to: the font itself (OTF, TTF etc.) vs. what you make with the font.

The concept of embedding is a question I get often and I find these terms help people understand what the term means. Embedding is especially difficult to explain and the Wikipedia page is hard to understand. I can't send people there for an explanation. The first paragraph suggests that fonts are only embedded in documents and not hardware or software applications. And are they really controversial? Not around here. The page is only available in English so anyone conversing using Google Translate probably won't find it helpful. A web search for font embedding shows a lot of results for embedding fonts in documents but not software or hardware.

I often get questions about font modification vs. modifying something the font has been used to create. For example; adjusting vectors on a logo or applying effects to text. I;m often asked whether or not what the user makes with the font can be trademarked or copyrighted.

Some of you know how much I love far fetched analogies but I think this direct explanation gets the point across.

I feel like there was backlash against mechanical slanting in the 1990s up until recently as a reaction to application slanting and autoslanted typefaces that appeared in early DTP days. I think the association of mechanical slanting with cheapness is that's what fueled the shoehorning of sans serif italic affectations such as extra descenders, monocular a and g, looped e etc. Sometimes it worked but other times it was a style clash with the upright. Now I can look back at it and it seems like a silly fad. I think a similar kind of thing is happening now with optical slanting vs mechanical slanting. Not too long ago, I would make a technical grotesque like a DIN and optically slant it because mechanical slanting is consider lazy. But now optical slanting for some typefaces looks wrong to me. The are situations, DIN for example, where a mechanical slant looks better than an optical slant. Has anyone else noticed this?

I don't have any examples but on a cancelled Playstation 2 project, I wanted to to get some small text on the screen, black on white. It's no problem on a monitor but with consumer level televisions screens and composite signals, the white phosphors can wipe out the thin stems. A tiny O might look like a C. I compensated by darkening the counters a little bit and adding a little dark fuzz on areas where you'd normally have an ink trap. Like, the crotch of the V would have a little more dark pixel fuzz.

I haven't tried this myself but maybe Font Squirrel Webfont Generator's OpenType flattening feature could be used to convert to a flattened TTF for desktop use. fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator