Lucida Sans Unicode
Encyclopedia
In digital typography
, Lucida Sans Unicode OpenType
font
from the design studio of Bigelow & Holmes is designed to support the most commonly used characters defined in version 2.0 of the Unicode
standard. It is a sans-serif
variant of the Lucida
font family and supports Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew scripts, as well as all the letters used in the International Phonetic Alphabet
.
It is the first Unicode encoded font. It was developed by Charles Bigelow
and Kris Holmes
in 1993, and was first shipped with the Microsoft Windows NT 3.1
operating system.
The font comes pre-installed with all Microsoft Windows versions since Windows 98
. A nearly identical font, called Lucida Grande
, ships as the default system font with Apple's Mac OS X
operating system, and in addition to the above, also supports Arabic and Thai scripts.
Letters in the International Phonetic Alphabet
, particularly upside down letters, are aligned for easy reading upside down. Thus, the font is among the most ideal for upside-down text
, compared to other Unicode typefaces, which have the turned "t" and "h" characters aligned with their tops at the base line and thus appear out of line.
A flaw in Lucida Sans Unicode is in the combining
low line
character, which is rendered as a blank.
Other well-known Unicode fonts include Code2000
, Arial Unicode MS
, and the various free software Unicode typeface projects
.
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
, Lucida Sans Unicode OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
font
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....
from the design studio of Bigelow & Holmes is designed to support the most commonly used characters defined in version 2.0 of the 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...
standard. It is a sans-serif
Sans-serif
In typography, a sans-serif, sans serif or san serif typeface is one that does not have the small projecting features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....
variant of the Lucida
Lucida
Lucida is an extended family of related typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes in 1985.There are many variants called Lucida, including scripts , serif , and sans-serif .Bigelow & Holmes, together with the TeX vendor Y&Y, extended the Lucida family with a full...
font family and supports Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew scripts, as well as all the letters used in the International Phonetic Alphabet
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...
.
It is the first Unicode encoded font. It was developed by Charles Bigelow
Charles Bigelow (type designer)
Charles A. Bigelow is a type historian, professor, and designer. Bigelow grew up in the Detroit suburbs and attended the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982. Along with Kris Holmes, he is the co-creator of Lucida and Wingdings font families...
and Kris Holmes
Kris Holmes
Kris Holmes is a type designer. She is with Charles Bigelow the co-creator of the Lucida font family.She received her B.A. from Harvard University and her MFA from UCLA Film School in Animation...
in 1993, and was first shipped with the Microsoft Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
operating system.
The font comes pre-installed with all Microsoft Windows versions since Windows 98
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
. A nearly identical font, called Lucida Grande
Lucida Grande
Lucida Grande is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It is a member of the Lucida family of typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. It has been used throughout Mac OS X user interface since 1999, as well as in Safari for Windows up to the browser's version 3.2.3 released on May 12,...
, ships as the default system font with Apple's Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
operating system, and in addition to the above, also supports Arabic and Thai scripts.
Letters in the International Phonetic Alphabet
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...
, particularly upside down letters, are aligned for easy reading upside down. Thus, the font is among the most ideal for upside-down text
Transformation of text
Transformation of text is strategies to perform geometric transformations on text , particularly in systems that do not natively support transformation, such as HTML, seven-segment displays and plain text.-Implementation:...
, compared to other Unicode typefaces, which have the turned "t" and "h" characters aligned with their tops at the base line and thus appear out of line.
A flaw in Lucida Sans Unicode is in the combining
Combining character
In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks ....
low line
Underline
An underline, also called an underscore, is one or more horizontal lines immediately below a portion of writing. Single, and occasionally double , underlining was originally used in hand-written or typewritten documents to emphasise text...
character, which is rendered as a blank.
Other well-known Unicode fonts include Code2000
Code2000
Code2000 is a pan-Unicode digital font, which includes characters and symbols from a very large range of writing systems. As of the current final version 1.171 released in 2008, Code2000 is designed and implemented by James Kass to include as much of the Unicode 5.2 standard as practical , and to...
, Arial Unicode MS
Arial Unicode MS
In digital typography, the TrueType font Arial Unicode MS is an extended version of the font Arial. Compared to Arial, it includes higher line height, omits kerning pairs and adds enough glyphs to cover a large subset of Unicode 2.1—thus supporting most Microsoft code pages, but also requiring much...
, and the various free software Unicode typeface projects
Free software Unicode typefaces
A 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...
.