DejaVu fonts
Encyclopedia
The DejaVu fonts are modifications of the Bitstream Vera
fonts
designed for greater coverage of Unicode
, as well as providing more styles. The Bitstream Vera family was limited mainly to the characters in the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement portions of Unicode (roughly equivalent to ISO-8859-15) but was released with a license that permitted changes. The DejaVu fonts project was started with the aim to "provide a wider range of characters... while maintaining the original look and feel through the process of collaborative development". The development of the fonts is done by many contributors, and is organized through a wiki
and a mailing list
.
The DejaVu fonts project was started by Štěpán Roh. Over time, it has absorbed several other projects that also existed to extend the Bitstream Vera typefaces; these projects include the Olwen Font Family, Bepa, Arev Fonts (only partially), and the SuSE standard fonts. The fonts are free software
, and may thus freely be embedded. DejaVu fonts can be obtained from the DejaVu project on SourceForge
. Some GNU/Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu
, OpenSUSE
and Mandriva Linux
) include DejaVu fonts in their default installation. The open source software OpenOffice.org
includes DejaVu fonts in its installation packages. These fonts are also included in proprietary BlackBerry OS
(under the name BBAlphaSans and BBAlphaSerif).
, Greek
, and Cyrillic
(LGC). Most notably, Arabic
has been added, but it has caused some software compatibility issues. Further, Latin and Arabic scripts have fundamentally different approaches to typefaces: while Latin fonts have serif
and sans-serif versions, Arabic fonts have different distinctions (see Islamic calligraphy
). It is still uncertain how the project should handle the mixture between different Latin faces and the different Arabic faces.
The uncertain status of Arabic and other alphabets has led to the creation of DejaVu LGC, a subset of the DejaVu fonts which contains only Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic characters. This version also tends not to experience as many software issues.
As of version 2.32, it included characters from the following Unicode blocks. (The fraction given is the number of characters in each block that are included in the DejaVu fonts.)
fonts have been augmented to 21 styles:
Original styles are marked in bold.
Bitstream Vera
Vera is a group typeface with a liberal license.It was designed by Jim Lyles from Bitstream, and it is closely based on Bitstream's Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It is a TrueType font with full hinting instructions, which improve its rendering quality on low-resolution devices such...
fonts
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
designed for greater coverage of Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, as well as providing more styles. The Bitstream Vera family was limited mainly to the characters in the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement portions of Unicode (roughly equivalent to ISO-8859-15) but was released with a license that permitted changes. The DejaVu fonts project was started with the aim to "provide a wider range of characters... while maintaining the original look and feel through the process of collaborative development". The development of the fonts is done by many contributors, and is organized through a wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
and a mailing list
Mailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the...
.
The DejaVu fonts project was started by Štěpán Roh. Over time, it has absorbed several other projects that also existed to extend the Bitstream Vera typefaces; these projects include the Olwen Font Family, Bepa, Arev Fonts (only partially), and the SuSE standard fonts. The fonts are free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, and may thus freely be embedded. DejaVu fonts can be obtained from the DejaVu project on SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
. Some GNU/Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
, OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE
openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
and Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux is a Linux distribution distributed by Mandriva. It uses the RPM Package Manager...
) include DejaVu fonts in their default installation. The open source software OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
includes DejaVu fonts in its installation packages. These fonts are also included in proprietary BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS
BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...
(under the name BBAlphaSans and BBAlphaSerif).
Role of typographically-incompatible scripts
Recently there has been some question within the DejaVu community about the role of scripts typographically incompatible with the typographically-similar scripts LatinLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
, and Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
(LGC). Most notably, Arabic
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
has been added, but it has caused some software compatibility issues. Further, Latin and Arabic scripts have fundamentally different approaches to typefaces: while Latin fonts have serif
Serif
In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface . A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”...
and sans-serif versions, Arabic fonts have different distinctions (see Islamic calligraphy
Islamic calligraphy
Islamic calligraphy, colloquially known as Perso-Arabic calligraphy, is the artistic practice of handwriting, or calligraphy, and by extension, of bookmaking, in the lands sharing a common Islamic cultural heritage. This art form is based on the Arabic script, which for a long time was used by all...
). It is still uncertain how the project should handle the mixture between different Latin faces and the different Arabic faces.
The uncertain status of Arabic and other alphabets has led to the creation of DejaVu LGC, a subset of the DejaVu fonts which contains only Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic characters. This version also tends not to experience as many software issues.
Coverage
DejaVu is an active project, which aims for complete coverage of the alphabetic scripts, abjads, and symbols with all characters that are part of the MES-1, MES-2, and hopefully MES-3 subsets of Unicode. The coverage is already considerable, although some more work is needed to include more hinting rules for clear results at small sizes. Some kerning rules are still being developed for the Sans and Serif styles, for fine typography. Some work is still also needed to create ligatures in these styles.As of version 2.32, it included characters from the following Unicode blocks. (The fraction given is the number of characters in each block that are included in the DejaVu fonts.)
Plane 0: Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) Range: 0000-FFFF (0-65,535) |
||
| C0 Controls and Basic Latin (95/95) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement (96/96) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Latin Extended-A (128/128) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Latin Extended-B (208/208) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| IPA Extensions International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... (96/96) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Spacing Modifier Letters (63/80) | ||
| Combining Diacritical Marks (93/112) | ||
| Greek and Coptic (134/134) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Cyrillic Cyrillic characters in Unicode The Cyrillic script is encoded in four blocks in Unicode, all in BMP:* Cyrillic: , 256 characters* Cyrillic Supplement: , 48 characters* Cyrillic Extended-A: , 32 characters* Cyrillic Extended-B: , 96 characters... (256/256) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Cyrillic Supplement Cyrillic characters in Unicode The Cyrillic script is encoded in four blocks in Unicode, all in BMP:* Cyrillic: , 256 characters* Cyrillic Supplement: , 48 characters* Cyrillic Extended-A: , 32 characters* Cyrillic Extended-B: , 96 characters... (36/38) |
||
| Armenian Armenian alphabet The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Armenian language since the year 405 or 406. It was devised by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and contained originally 36 letters. Two more letters, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages... (86/86) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Hebrew (54/87) | ||
| Arabic Arabic Unicode As of Unicode 6.0, the following blocks encode Arabic characters:*Arabic *Arabic Supplement *Arabic Presentation Forms-A... (161/250) |
||
| N'Ko N'Ko N'Ko is both a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa, and the name of the literary language itself written in the script. The term N'Ko means 'I say' in all Manding languages.... (54/59) |
||
| Thai Thai alphabet Thai script , is used to write the Thai language and other, minority, languages in Thailand. It has forty-four consonants , fifteen vowel symbols that combine into at least twenty-eight vowel forms, and four tone marks .... (1/87) |
||
| Lao Lao alphabet The Lao alphabet, Aksone Lao , is the main script used to write the Lao language and other minority languages in Laos. It is ultimately of Indic origin, the alphabet includes 27 consonants , 7 consonantal ligatures , 33 vowels , and 4 tone marks... (65/65) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Georgian Georgian alphabet The Georgian alphabet is the writing system used to write the Georgian language and other Kartvelian languages , and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus such as Ossetic and Abkhaz during the 1940s... (83/83) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (404/640) | ||
| Ogham (29/29) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Phonetic Extensions (106/128) | ||
| Phonetic Extensions Supplement (38/64) | ||
| Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement (6/42) | ||
| Latin Extended Additional (252/256) | ||
| Greek Extended (233/233) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| General Punctuation (107/107) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Superscripts and Subscripts Unicode subscripts and superscripts Unicode has subscripted and superscripted versions of a number of characters including a full set of arabic numerals. These characters allow any polynomial, chemical and certain other equations to be represented in plain text without using any form of markup like HTML or TeX.The World Wide Web... (34/34) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Currency Symbols (23/25) | ||
| Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols (7/33) | ||
| Letterlike Symbols Letterlike Symbols Letterlike Symbols are graphemes which are constructed mainly from the glyphs of one or more letters.In Unicode, Letterlike Symbols are placed in the block U+2100–214F, as in the following table.-See also:*Mapping of Unicode characters... (75/80) |
||
| Number Forms Number Forms Number Forms are Unicode characters which have specific meaning as numbers, but are constructed from other characters. They consist primarily of vulgar fractions and roman numerals. They are placed in the Unicode codepoint range 0x2150 through 0x218F , except for three fractions in ISO-8859-1... (55/58) |
||
| Arrows Arrow (symbol) An arrow is a graphical symbol such as → or ←, used to point or indicate direction, being in its simplest form a line segment with a triangle affixed to one end, and in more complex forms a representation of an actual arrow... (112/112) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Mathematical Operators (256/256) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Miscellaneous Technical (117/232) | ||
| Control Pictures (2/39) | ||
| Enclosed Alphanumerics (10/160) | ||
| Box Drawing Box drawing characters Box drawing characters, also known as line drawing characters, or pseudographics, are widely used in text user interfaces to draw various frames and boxes... (128/128) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Block Elements (32/32) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Geometric Shapes Unicode Geometric Shapes Geometric Shapes is a Unicode block of 96 symbols at codepoint range U+25A0-25FF.-U+25A0-U+25CF:-U+25D0-U+25FF:-Font coverage:Only two font sets—Code2000 and the DejaVu family—include coverage for each of the glyphs in the Geometric Shapes range, Unifont also contains all the glyphs... (96/96) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Miscellaneous Symbols Miscellaneous Symbols The Miscellaneous Symbols Unicode block contains various glyphs representing things from a variety of categories: Astrological, Astronomical, Chess, Dice, Ideological symbols, Musical notation, Political symbols, Recycling, Religious symbols, Trigrams, Warning signs and Weather.-Tables:Note: These... (186/250) |
||
| Dingbat Dingbat A dingbat is an ornament, character or spacer used in typesetting, sometimes more formally known as a "printer's ornament" or "printer's character".... s (174/175) |
||
| Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A (9/44) | ||
| Supplemental Arrows-A (16/16) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Braille Patterns (256/256) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Supplemental Arrows-B (128/128) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B (13/128) | ||
| Supplemental Mathematical Operators (72/256) | ||
| Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows (35/87) | ||
| Latin Extended-C (31/32) | ||
| Tifinagh Tifinagh Tifinagh is a series of abjad and alphabetic scripts used by some Berber peoples, notably the Tuareg, to write their language.A modern derivate of the traditional script, known as Neo-Tifinagh, was introduced in the 20th century... (55/55) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Supplemental Punctuation (6/50) | ||
| Yijing Hexagram Symbols I Ching The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts... (64/64) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Cyrillic Extended-B Cyrillic characters in Unicode The Cyrillic script is encoded in four blocks in Unicode, all in BMP:* Cyrillic: , 256 characters* Cyrillic Supplement: , 48 characters* Cyrillic Extended-A: , 32 characters* Cyrillic Extended-B: , 96 characters... (31/78) |
||
| Modifier Tone Letters (20/32) | ||
| Latin Extended-D (57/114) | ||
| Alphabetic Presentation Forms (58/58) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Arabic Presentation Forms-A Arabic Unicode As of Unicode 6.0, the following blocks encode Arabic characters:*Arabic *Arabic Supplement *Arabic Presentation Forms-A... (98/595) |
||
| Variation Selectors (16/16) | style='text-align:right' | | |
| Combining Half Marks (4/7) | ||
| Arabic Presentation Forms-B Arabic Unicode As of Unicode 6.0, the following blocks encode Arabic characters:*Arabic *Arabic Supplement *Arabic Presentation Forms-A... (141/141) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Specials Unicode Specials Specials is the name of a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, 5 are assigned as of Unicode 6.0:, marks start of annotated text, marks start of annotating text, marks end of annotating text, placeholder in the... (5/5) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
Plane 1: Supplementary Multilingual Plane (SMP) Range: 10000-1FFFF (65,536-131,071) |
||
| Tai Xuan Jing Symbols Tai Xuan Jing The text Tài Xuán Jīng was composed by the Confucian writer Yáng Xióng . The first draft of this work was completed in 2BCE... (87/87) |
style='text-align:right' | | |
| Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols Mathematical alphanumeric symbols Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is a Unicode block of Latin and Greek letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles .Unicode now includes many such symbols Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is a Unicode block of Latin and Greek... (117/996) |
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| Domino Tiles (100/100) | style='text-align:right' | | |
Styles
The 10 styles provided by the original Bitstream VeraBitstream Vera
Vera is a group typeface with a liberal license.It was designed by Jim Lyles from Bitstream, and it is closely based on Bitstream's Prima, for which Lyles was also responsible. It is a TrueType font with full hinting instructions, which improve its rendering quality on low-resolution devices such...
fonts have been augmented to 21 styles:
| DejaVu Sans | DejaVu Serif | DejaVu Sans Mono |
|---|---|---|
| Book / Oblique | Book / Italic | Book / Oblique |
| Bold / Oblique | Bold / Italic | Bold / Oblique |
| Extralight | ||
| Condensed / Oblique | Condensed / Italic | |
| Condensed Bold / Oblique | Condensed Bold / Italic | |
Original styles are marked in bold.
See also
- List of typefaces
- Unicode typefacesUnicode typefacesA Unicode font is a computer font that contains a wide range of characters, letters, digits, glyphs, symbols, ideograms, logograms, etc., which are collectively mapped into the standard Universal Character Set, derived from many different languages and scripts from around the world...
- Free software Unicode typefacesFree software Unicode typefacesA few projects exist to provide free and open-source Unicode typefaces, i.e. Unicode typefaces which are open-source and designed to contain glyphs of all Unicode characters. However there are also numerous projects aimed at providing only a certain script, such as the Arabeyes Arabic font...
External links
- DejaVuWiki (official website)
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/dejavu/ (Sourceforge project website)
- CNet article on DejaVu fonts, July 11, 2006