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From: tgm@ecl.psu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Top ten fonts?
Message-ID: <1991Jun27.144754.1432@ecl.psu.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 91 18:47:54 GMT
References: <1991Jun25.203228.1425@ecl.psu.edu> <1991Jun26.024622.26786@world.std.com>
Organization: Engineering Computer Lab, Pennsylvania State University
Lines: 35

In article <1991Jun26.024622.26786@world.std.com>,
 kibo@world.std.com (James 'Kibo' Parry) writes:
> In article <1991Jun25.203228.1425@ecl.psu.edu> tgm@ecl.psu.edu writes:
>>I'm trying to select a few good PD/Shareware Macintosh (TrueType or Type 1)
>>fonts.  The problem is there's so many of them!  Does anybody know of any
>>reviews/comparisons of such fonts?  Maybe a list of the 10 best?
>
> The problem is, judging fonts is just as subjective as revieing movies
> or shows--the only way to decide if you like a font is to see it and try
> it out.

You have a point, but I still think some sort of PD/Shareware font guide
would be great.  I hate ftping, un-hqx-ing, uploading, un-sit-ing a font
just to find out it's:

        1. poorly made (e.g., has little "holes" in it),
        2. missing characters (e.g., lowercase, en- & em-dash, true
           quotation marks, ...)
        3. lacking kerning information

Perhaps a font guide that dealt these types of things would save lots
of wasted bandwidth and CPU time.  How about:

Font            Format          Glitches?       Character set   # Pairs
=======================================================================
Example Font    TrueType        None            Full            200
Lame Font       Type 1          spots in `e'    Just caps       0

Maybe fields for style (display, serif (old style, transitional...),
sans...), and comments could be added.

That would be great.  But in the absence of such a guide, I'll be
happy to look at anybody's Top 10 list.

--Tom