Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 12 Jul 2009 at 14:36, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Not that I mean to be a killjoy here, but part of what Mark D Lew wrote: More promising is Microsoft's new suite of ClearType fonts that have been included with Office for the past couple years. These are the ones that all start with C (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel). I'd note that there might be licensing issues here (though I don't know the details of either the ownership of the typefaces in question, nor the specifics of the license of Microsoft office. The last time I looked at the licensing details, fonts bundled with a particular application (like Microsoft Office), are licensed for use with the application with which they are bundled. If you use a font bundled with a word processor or DTP program with Finale, this may be a use outside the scope of your license. The fonts are bundled with Windows and with Internet Explorer. In short, these are part of the standard Microsoft font set and just about any Windows user who has run Windows Update in the last couple of years is going to have these fonts. They are meant for broad use in all applications. The idea that it could possibly violate the EULA to use them is patently absurd. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 12 Jul 2009 at 19:51, dhbailey wrote: But I doubt that they ever expect to enforce that at all -- it's more likely something they were forced to include in their licensing from whomever they licensed the fonts in the first place. Microsoft probably doesn't have the right to license you to use those fonts with anything other than the applications for which they licensed the fonts in the first place and that language is in the license to placate the originators of the fonts. This imaginary licensing restriction DOES NOT EXIST. Microsoft has in-house people who create these fonts. If they are installed on your machine (and you didn't copy them from another machine), you have the legal right to use them with whatever applications are installed on your computer. That's the purpose of Microsoft providing these fonts -- so that everyone has available the same set of standard fonts. This is the second such font set that Microsoft has developed (the first included Tahoma, Verdana, Georgia, Trebuchet MS, and the much-maligned Comic Sans MS), and they are intended for wide use. Nobody has provided a EULA that says their use is restricted in in any way, and they wouldn't serve the purpose they were intended for by Microsoft if they were restricted in that way. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 12 Jul 2009 at 15:04, John Howell wrote: This past school year I started getting text assignments (not music notation) turned in using Cambria, which is apparently the default font in the most recent MSWord for Windows, and I find it VERY difficult to read on screen. The default size is too small for comfortable reading The new family of C fonts from Microsoft have been highly optimized for ClearType displays. That is the font rendering technology that Microsoft introduced in Windows XP that is specifically designed to make fonts look better on LCD screens. One of the aspects of the design of these new fonts is that they are hinted so that they display better WYSIWYG onscreen so that you can tell what you're going to get on the printout better. I, too, have noticed that some of these fonts are awfully small at the same point size compared to the normal fonts, and don't know what's up with that. An article about the new fonts, ClearType and the next version of Windows: http://tinyurl.com/kjdnxf (http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/06/23/engineering-changes-to- cleartype-in-windows-7.aspx) -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 12 Jul 2009 at 20:33, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: If there is a restrictive clause in the license of fonts, the fact that no one is going to enforce the license does not make it right to violate the terms, even if everybody does it. Is there such a clause? I don't believe there is. Please demonstrate that there is or stop this ludicrous thread on imaginary legal restrictions on the use of these fonts. The idea that MS would design an distribute a set of standard fonts intended to provide a set of fonts that everyone will have available and then license them in a way that would restrict there use is simply absurd.w -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 13 Jul 2009 at 6:54, dhbailey wrote: Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Mark D Lew wrote: Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. The fonts are presumably included in the license for certain Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, and Microsoft 2007 and 2008. If you don't have Vista, you can purchase a license to use each font for $35.00 US each, or for the entire package, $299.00 US, from the Ascender Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender_Corporation). That agreement between Microsoft and Ascender may be why the license with Microsoft Office is so restrictive. What in the HELL are you talking about? There *is* no restrictive license -- it is imaginary. Noel raised the caveat that there *might* be a restriction in the license (without showing that there is), and you seem to take this as gospel, that the restriction exists. THERE IS NO SUCH RESTRICTION ON USE. You've really gone off the deep end here, David. You are railing against Microsoft for an entirely imaginary EULA for this font set. Microsoft wants it distributed far and wide, which is why I'll bet every single Finale list subscriber with a Windows PC already has these fonts installed, even if they don't have Office 2007. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 12 Jul 2009 at 20:40, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Mark D Lew wrote: Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. The fonts are presumably included in the license for certain Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, and Microsoft 2007 and 2008. If you don't have Vista, you can purchase a license to use each font for $35.00 US each, or for the entire package, $299.00 US, from the Ascender Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender_Corporation). They are part of more than just Windows Vista. They are included with Internet Explorer 7 and are likely to be found on any Windows XP computer. They are part of Microsoft's set of base fonts for Windows as well as applications, and I have seen no evidence anywhere that there are any restrictions on the use of the fonts by any applications. Part of the reason for MS wanting them distributed far and wide is so that Web designers can use them as the font for websites (Verdana and Georgia were designed for that very purpose). In regard to EULAs for fonts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_fonts_for_the_web I can't imagine why anyone would pay for these fonts unless they were running an OS for which MS does not distribute them (e.g., Linux, or Mac OS without Office 2008 installed). They really are very, very good fonts, BTW. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
One small correction to David F's recent posts on this topic: On Jul 13, 2009, at 12:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Microsoft has in-house people who create these fonts. While it is true that Microsoft does have an in-house font division, at least some (possibly all) of the six fonts in question were designed by outsiders, on commission from Microsoft. As for the supposed EULA restricting their use, I too am fairly certain it does not exist. I was just waiting to gather proper evidence so that I could rebut the notion properly rather than just shout about it. ;-) mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Mark D Lew wrote: One small correction to David F's recent posts on this topic: On Jul 13, 2009, at 12:45 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Microsoft has in-house people who create these fonts. While it is true that Microsoft does have an in-house font division, at least some (possibly all) of the six fonts in question were designed by outsiders, on commission from Microsoft. As for the supposed EULA restricting their use, I too am fairly certain it does not exist. I was just waiting to gather proper evidence so that I could rebut the notion properly rather than just shout about it. ;-) I just read the EULA for Microsoft Office and there is no section restricting the use of the fonts to just Office applications. What the license says is: C. Font Components. While the software is running, you may use its fonts to display and print content. You may only: [bulleted list] embed fonts in content as permitted by the embedding restrictions in the fonts; and temporarily download them to a printer or other output device to print content. It says nothing about what can be done with the fonts when the applications aren't running. Which could be interpreted as not giving permission to use the fonts when the software isn't running, since it stipulates what can be done while the software is running. Or it could interpreted as not having any restrictions on the use of the fonts when the software isn't running, sort of giving blanket license to do anything at all, which I doubt is what Microsoft intended. That's why the lawyers get the big bucks, arguing about this sort of junk in court. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
David Bailey wrote: I just read the EULA for Microsoft Office and there is no section restricting the use of the fonts to just Office applications. [...] It says nothing about what can be done with the fonts when the applications aren't running. [...] Thanks for providing the relevant portion of the EULA for us, David. This brings us back to the semantic issue I mentioned with regard to the word font. If you print out your resume in Word then hand it out to someone to read, you may think you're still using the font, in the layman's sense of the word equivalent to typeface. But in fact, the font is the bit of programming that draws those characters, not the print on the page. You were using the font when you were printing, but now that you're done printing you're not actually using the font anymore. In any way that ordinary users use fonts, I'm not sure it's even possible to use the fonts when the software isn't running. What the license does *not* allow is for a programmer to copy the font data and build it into some new software he's writing. That's pretty clearly what they're telling you not to do, and the bit about embedding provides a clearly delineated exception for files like PDFs that have to carry the font information with them. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 7/14/2009 3:30 PM, Mark D Lew wrote: In any way that ordinary users use fonts, I'm not sure it's even possible to use the fonts when the software isn't running. Since the EULA comes with MS Office, I think the question is what the user is allowed to to when *Office* isn't running, not when there's no software running at all. That is, does the EULA allow for the use of these fonts in other software programs, like Illustrator or Finale? The EULA appears to neither allow nor deny this use. Aaron. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Mark D Lew wrote: David Bailey wrote: I just read the EULA for Microsoft Office and there is no section restricting the use of the fonts to just Office applications. [...] It says nothing about what can be done with the fonts when the applications aren't running. [...] Thanks for providing the relevant portion of the EULA for us, David. This brings us back to the semantic issue I mentioned with regard to the word font. If you print out your resume in Word then hand it out to someone to read, you may think you're still using the font, in the layman's sense of the word equivalent to typeface. But in fact, the font is the bit of programming that draws those characters, not the print on the page. You were using the font when you were printing, but now that you're done printing you're not actually using the font anymore. In any way that ordinary users use fonts, I'm not sure it's even possible to use the fonts when the software isn't running. What the license does *not* allow is for a programmer to copy the font data and build it into some new software he's writing. That's pretty clearly what they're telling you not to do, and the bit about embedding provides a clearly delineated exception for files like PDFs that have to carry the font information with them. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale I agree with Mark about the fact that the font is the data file, and as such the license only applies when the software is running. One semantic tidbit is that Microsoft says when *the* [my emphasis] software is running . . . being fairly specific with the use of the word 'the' -- it could simply have said when software is running which would imply any software at all, not a specific set of software. At the very start of the EULA, there is the following text: These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read them. They apply to the software that accompanies these license terms, which includes the media on which you received it, if any. So from the start Microsoft is stating that all the EULA pertains only to this specific software (Office 2007 in this case) and so any references to the software in the clause about the fonts would apply only to their use with this specific software. Or not, as the lawyers would argue endlessly for hours on end at $200 and up per hour apiece. :-) -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Mark D Lew wrote: Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. The fonts are presumably included in the license for certain Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, and Microsoft 2007 and 2008. If you don't have Vista, you can purchase a license to use each font for $35.00 US each, or for the entire package, $299.00 US, from the Ascender Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender_Corporation). Is that a subsidiary of Microsoft? -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Mark D Lew wrote: Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. The fonts are presumably included in the license for certain Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, and Microsoft 2007 and 2008. If you don't have Vista, you can purchase a license to use each font for $35.00 US each, or for the entire package, $299.00 US, from the Ascender Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender_Corporation). That agreement between Microsoft and Ascender may be why the license with Microsoft Office is so restrictive. Regarding the honesty issue -- one is forced to agree to the terms without being able to negotiate those terms, and if one is forced by modern business practices to use Microsoft Office for compatibility reasons with clients, then one is forced to accept the licensing terms whether one wants to or not. I'm not so sure it's an honesty thing if one chooses to use the fonts one is forced to accept in whatever way one sees fit. Who could reasonably expect an end user, when looking at a long line of fonts in Finale or any other non-Office application, to know which fonts out of the potentially thousands, were licensed only to be used for Office applications? If that's what Microsoft expects of its users, then it had better come up with a means by which those fonts licensed to be used only in Office applications appear *only* in the font list of the applications they're licensed to be used with and to be omitted from the font lists in all other applications. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Jul 13, 2009, at 3:54 AM, dhbailey wrote: That agreement between Microsoft and Ascender may be why the license with Microsoft Office is so restrictive. Wait, wait. So far we have not established that the license *is* restrictive. Someone speculated that it might be, but no one has actually checked yet. (I can't, because I don't have the fonts.) I did shoot an email to my friend, who is (literally) in the business of knowing these things. He tells me: Short version: You can use the fonts with any apps on Windows. I'm still waiting on the long answer. Ascender is not a subsidiary of Microsoft, though one of the partners has close ties with Microsoft and has worked closely with them for many years. Ascender was licensed by Microsoft to develop and distribute a ClearType engine for non-Vista operating systems. ClearType is a specific method of type definition*, developed and owned by Microsoft, introduced with Vista. The purpose of ClearType was to enhance screen readability. (You can read all the details on Wikipedia.) By default, the fonts fall back on older definitions, so they still work on other systems, but they don't take advantage of the special screen-rendering technology without ClearType software. The six fonts I mentioned were commissioned by Microsoft to be introduced along with ClearType. Ascender is licensed to distribute those fonts, along with its rendering engines. Other type distributors also have licenses to distribute some or all of the fonts. mdl * A font is a collection of little programs, one for each character, which instructs the computer on how to draw that character. These programs must have a programming language, and there have been several standard ones over the years -- PostScript, TrueType, OpenType, etc. Many of you may remember the days of having different versions of the same font**; that was because you had the same typeface in two different languages, which may have behaved differently in different software. ClearType is a new such language. Like any language, standard, or protocol, a method of font definition is only going to survive if (1) operating systems and apps have the software to read it and (2) type designers choose to write it. With the muscle of Microsoft behind it, there is little doubt that ClearType is here to stay. ** Technically, they were not the same font. They were different fonts of the same typeface. People commonly use the word font as if it were synonymous with typeface. Technically, the typeface is the design itself, and the font is the program that renders it. Type geeks are careful to maintain the distinction. It derives from a similar pre-computer distinction in which the typeface was the design and the font was the collection of lead bits that would print it. In the old days, each font was a specific size as well. That changed with computers, when fonts became scalable. (That actually preceded digital fonts by a decade or two, during which fonts were filmstrip negatives which could be sized by lenses in the machine that were programmed to move to an fro.) ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 7/13/2009 2:10 PM, Mark D Lew wrote: ClearType is a specific method of type definition*, developed and owned by Microsoft, introduced with Vista. The purpose of ClearType was to enhance screen readability. ... typeface in two different languages, which may have behaved differently in different software. ClearType is a new such language. A minor correction (and I haven't been following this whole discussion): ClearType is not a font programming language or a method of type definition. It is a technology for displaying fonts on digital displays, regardless of whether those fonts are TrueType or OpenType (or PS I guess, though I haven't used those in a long time). There are no ClearType font files. The so-called ClearType fonts (Calibri et al.) are ordinary OpenType fonts which were designed to be optimized for ClearType display. In fact, if you're using them on any display device which does not support ClearType, or which does not have ClearType enabled (like any CRT monitor), they tend to look worse than other fonts. (They all print very nicely.) Aaron. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Jul 13, 2009, at 11:25 AM, Aaron Sherber wrote: A minor correction (and I haven't been following this whole discussion): ClearType is not a font programming language or a method of type definition. It is a technology for displaying fonts on digital displays, regardless of whether those fonts are TrueType or OpenType (or PS I guess, though I haven't used those in a long time). There are no ClearType font files. The so-called ClearType fonts (Calibri et al.) are ordinary OpenType fonts which were designed to be optimized for ClearType display. In fact, if you're using them on any display device which does not support ClearType, or which does not have ClearType enabled (like any CRT monitor), they tend to look worse than other fonts. (They all print very nicely.) Thanks for the correction. But is it not true that to be optimized for ClearType display they must have data in them that the ClearType renderer reads? Did OpenType fonts have this data all along, or is it new? Maybe this is partly semantics. I see that I was mistaken about contrasting ClearType with OpenType, but it still seems like there is a protocol added at some level, even if not at the level I thought it was. Also, how does this relate to Apple's Quartz? I assumed Quartz was a competing standard. Do they use the same definition, or different. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 7/13/2009 2:10 PM, Mark D Lew wrote: ClearType is a specific method of type definition*, developed and owned by Microsoft, introduced with Vista. Also, ClearType was introduced with XP, though I think it may have been off by default. It can be turned on in the Display control panel. Aaron. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On 7/13/2009 2:34 PM, Mark D Lew wrote: Thanks for the correction. But is it not true that to be optimized for ClearType display they must have data in them that the ClearType renderer reads? Did OpenType fonts have this data all along, or is it new? My understanding is that there is no extra data used by the ClearType rendering engine. ClearType is essentially a method of font smoothing which uses the existing curves and hints in the font file to make the screen display look better. The difference between ClearType and earlier smoothing technologies is that it makes explicit use of the fact that a pixel on an LCD monitor is actually 3 separate RGB pixels crammed in next to each other. So it is able to fool our eyes by smoothing at a subpixel level. There's a good discussion of this here: http://www.grc.com/ct/ctwhat.htm The proof of this is that ClearType makes all TrueType fonts look better, not just those optimized for the technology. The only kind of font ClearType can't work with is the really old bitmapped fonts; a bitmapped font contains specific recipes to place pixels at specific font sizes, whereas TrueType et al. define curves to be filled in by pixels. (I'm simplifying a little.) For example, the default Windows font for menus and so forth used to be a bitmapped font called MS Sans Serif. I think as early as Windows 2000 they started also shipping a font caleld Microsoft Sans Serif, which was just a TrueType version of the earlier font. Newer versions of Windows use Tahoma or Segoe, both TrueType fonts. Anyway, you may have had the experience of using an older application alongside newer ones, and the text in the dialog boxes of the older app looks *awful*. This is because the older app is probably hardcoded to use MS Sans Serif, which can't be improved by ClearType, and it looks particularly bad next to the smooth goodness in other apps. As to optimized for ClearType, my understanding is that those particular fonts were designed with an understanding of how the ClearType display algorithms would work on them, and so the curves were plotted in such a way that they would look particularly good after they were run through ClearType. Aaron. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
At 2:13 PM +0200 7/12/09, Daniel Wolf wrote: Mark D. Lew wrote: More promising is Microsoft's new suite of ClearType fonts that have been included with Office for the past couple years. These are the ones that all start with C (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel). I'm on Mac at home, and our computers at work aren't that modern, so I haven't had a chance to experiment with any of them and I'm not even sure how well they work in print. But they're very fine fonts with excellent readability, so maybe worth a try. If anyone has tried any of these for lyrics, I'd be curious to know what you think. Not for lyrics, since I'm also on Mac. But please allow me to cast a dissenting vote. This past school year I started getting text assignments (not music notation) turned in using Cambria, which is apparently the default font in the most recent MSWord for Windows, and I find it VERY difficult to read on screen. The default size is too small for comfortable reading (and for some reason I have to increase the zoom to 150% to read ANY text, probably due to some setting on my computer that I don't understand as well as to aging eyes). And in some cases it is in a bold version that is really ugly and even more difficult to read. When I have to read and grade student papers, I MUCH prefer good old Times, both on screen and printed out, whatever its faults may be! And for readability on Title pages and pinup posters, I always change Times to Palatino, which is much more graceful and has a gorgeous italic version. I don't have Cambria, and I really don't want it and wouldn't use it! John P.S. I lied! I just checked, and I DO have several forms of Cambria, but I still wouldn't use it. -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html We never play anything the same way once. Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Friends, Not that I mean to be a killjoy here, but part of what Mark D Lew wrote: More promising is Microsoft's new suite of ClearType fonts that have been included with Office for the past couple years. These are the ones that all start with C (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel). I'd note that there might be licensing issues here (though I don't know the details of either the ownership of the typefaces in question, nor the specifics of the license of Microsoft office. The last time I looked at the licensing details, fonts bundled with a particular application (like Microsoft Office), are licensed for use with the application with which they are bundled. If you use a font bundled with a word processor or DTP program with Finale, this may be a use outside the scope of your license. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
How is that *remotely* enforceable? Cheers, - Darcy - djar...@earthlink.net Brooklyn, NY On 12 Jul 2009, at 3:36 PM, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Friends, Not that I mean to be a killjoy here, but part of what Mark D Lew wrote: More promising is Microsoft's new suite of ClearType fonts that have been included with Office for the past couple years. These are the ones that all start with C (Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel). I'd note that there might be licensing issues here (though I don't know the details of either the ownership of the typefaces in question, nor the specifics of the license of Microsoft office. The last time I looked at the licensing details, fonts bundled with a particular application (like Microsoft Office), are licensed for use with the application with which they are bundled. If you use a font bundled with a word processor or DTP program with Finale, this may be a use outside the scope of your license. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Darcy James Argue wrote: How is that *remotely* enforceable? It's not, but like anything these days, the lawsuits are won by those with the deepest pockets not those with justice nor the law on their side necessarily. And there ain't nobody with deeper pockets than Micro$oft. But I doubt that they ever expect to enforce that at all -- it's more likely something they were forced to include in their licensing from whomever they licensed the fonts in the first place. Microsoft probably doesn't have the right to license you to use those fonts with anything other than the applications for which they licensed the fonts in the first place and that language is in the license to placate the originators of the fonts. -- David H. Bailey dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Friends, When Darcy James Argue writes, asking: How is that *remotely* enforceable? I would be right at the head of the line of those who would concede that it's not. But enforceability is not the same thing as honesty. If there is a restrictive clause in the license of fonts, the fact that no one is going to enforce the license does not make it right to violate the terms, even if everybody does it. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Jul 12, 2009, at 4:51 PM, dhbailey wrote: But I doubt that they ever expect to enforce that at all -- it's more likely something they were forced to include in their licensing from whomever they licensed the fonts in the first place. Microsoft probably doesn't have the right to license you to use those fonts with anything other than the applications for which they licensed the fonts in the first place and that language is in the license to placate the originators of the fonts. I don't know about the other copyright questions, but I do know that these fonts belong to Microsoft. They are not licensed from anyone else, and there are no other originators of the fonts. There are individual designers, yes -- and top names in the field, too -- but they were commissioned directly by Microsoft. Where the fonts are sold by other foundries (eg, Monotype) it's because Microsoft chose to use them for further distribution. Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Mark D Lew wrote: Whether Microsoft allows use of the fonts outside of their software packages that include them, I don't know, but I do know that MS has the right to license them however they choose. The fonts are presumably included in the license for certain Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, and Microsoft 2007 and 2008. If you don't have Vista, you can purchase a license to use each font for $35.00 US each, or for the entire package, $299.00 US, from the Ascender Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascender_Corporation). ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
At 10:56 AM +0200 7/9/09, Jonathan Smith wrote: Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. It's been a long time since I've posted here, but this is a pet topic of mine. I would point out first that which typeface singers say they prefer is not the same as which they find more readable. Even if you asked them which they find more readable, it still wouldn't tell you what really is most readable for them as well as a proper study that tests for comprehension. It is true, as John H noted, that serif faces have been found to be more readable than sans-serif faces on the whole, even when controlling for other factors, but there are way too many exceptions to generalize from that. Other factors influence readability more strongly, notably x-height and just size generally. I have a brother and a good friend who are both top-level type professionals, and I'm a bit of a type-geek myself, so I've had a lot of discussions with them about readability. The one thing that both of them have impressed upon me is that you can't evaluate readability in a vacuum. It doesn't take you very far to just say one typeface is more readable than another. You have to ask all the relevant questions of context: Is it short phrases or long blocks of text? How dense is the text? Will the readers eyes stay on the text or are they reading peripherally or intermittently? Is the reader's attention focused on the text, or are they reading while doing something else? Is the type to be read up close or at a distance? How good is the lighting? A lot of these questions are directly relevant to lyrics, and the answers will vary depending on the music. Will the singers be reading from the page in performance, or are they reading it in rehearsal for memorized performance? If reading in performance, will they have rehearsed enough to be be familiar, or will they be performing with little or no practice? Will the singers be expected to shift their eyes back and forth between the music and the conductor, or will they be able to stick with the music? Do other constrictions of the music require giving the singers music with tiny print, or will they get music with lots of room to print the lyrics large? How good will the light be in performance? Type readability in music is a special context of its own and it hasn't really been studied in depth. This is essentially what my brother told me when I posed the question to him directly, many years ago. A lot can be deduced from analogous studies, but if it's just a question of what typeface is best for chorus music? you can't give a simple answer. Most typefaces were designed with certain contexts in mind, whether it's book, newspaper, or magazine texts; signage; advertising display; etc. There are also typefaces that work better small vs large, in print vs on-screen, etc. If you take a typeface that serves well in one context and move it to another, you may lose value. Both Times and Helvetica suffer regularly from this, and not just in music. Partly by historical accident, they have become everyone's default font and people routinely use them in non-optimal context just because they don't give it much thought. Helvetica (as anyone who saw the documentary knows) works very well for signage, logos, and short or medium-short burst of texts, but it's very poor for large blocks of text and it loses a lot of readability when reduced to small sizes. Times, as the name suggests, was intended for newspapers and also works well for books. Times is most effective when there's room to spread it out properly, but it's not very efficient in a situation where you have a fixed amount of text that needs to fit in a fixed amount of space. That will require either crowding it or making the type smaller, neither of which Times takes well to. Both Times and Helvetica further suffer from the fact that the universally used fonts are simply low quality. In the early days of desktop publishing a few fonts were given away freely, including Times and Helvetica clones, but the good cuts of these fonts were kept for sale while the free one is a junky version with inferior quality on details including spacing. A big part of the reason both have a reputation as crappy typefaces is not because the typeface itself is flawed but simply because the universally used versions really are crappy. Any halfway decent publisher is going to spring for the couple hundred bucks to get a proper Times and Helvetica font in their collection, but your ordinary business person (including pretty much any engraver on this list) is just going to use the one that comes for free with their operating system.
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Jul 11, 2009, at 1:40 AM, Mark D Lew wrote: At 10:56 AM +0200 7/9/09, Jonathan Smith wrote: Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. It's been a long time since I've posted here, but this is a pet topic of mine. I really appreciate your taking the time, Mark. That email is one for my Finale Archive. Dick H ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:31:37 -0500 Noel Stoutenburg mjol...@ticnet.com wrote: bassm...@katamail.com wrote: By larger appearance I mean that there's more room and looser spacing in sans serifs compared to serifs - just compare the relative size of Times 10 and Helvetica 10. The fact that theres more room and looser spacing in Helvetica than in Times is part of the characteristic of those particular fonts, and it does not automatically follow that the amount of size and density of all sans serif fonts have more room and looser spacing than all serif fonts. That's right. I was thinking standard fonts without even noticing. The minor role of serifs in shorter stretches of text still stands, though. Antonio -- Antonio Di Martino, bassm...@katamail.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 13:34:00 -0400 John Howell john.how...@vt.edu wrote: At 10:56 AM +0200 7/9/09, Jonathan Smith wrote: Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. Even more interesting, especially in the face of (presumably) much earlier research that found a serif font more readable. That's why Times and almost all other newspaper fonts are serif fonts. Serif fonts are deemed to be more readable in the case of text blocks with long lines, where the serifs are supposed to guide the eyes along. For shorter stretches, such as in-score lyrics (syllable by syllable) or end-of-page lyrics (short lines), this is inconsequential, and the larger appearance of sans serif fonts might even be a help. By larger appearance I mean that there's more room and looser spacing in sans serifs compared to serifs - just compare the relative size of Times 10 and Helvetica 10. But hand written? I wrote vocal charts for many years in 2B pencil or ink by hand, and as a singer *I* would certainly prefer to see a printer's font! I'm curious: what age group and experience type did your singers fit into? A preference for hand written lettering sounds suspicious indeed. -- bassm...@katamail.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Rule of thumb for the piece title or main title is to make the largest letters the same size as the staff height. Interesting. I generally like the title quite a bit larger. Where does this suggestion come from? (Your other suggestions make very good sense, by the way.) This is suggested by Ted Ross in his book on music engraving. Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. Even more interesting, especially in the face of (presumably) much earlier research that found a serif font more readable. That's why Times and almost all other newspaper fonts are serif fonts. But hand written? I wrote vocal charts for many years in 2B pencil or ink by hand, and as a singer *I* would certainly prefer to see a printer's font! I'm curious: what age group and experience type did your singers fit into? These were pro singers from light classical and music theatre backgrounds aged around 20 to mid 30s. They had become used to reading from hand copied parts especially for shows and last minute prep. sessions. They preferred fonts that had a natural look rather than a clinical and too aligned look - more of the human element rather than how the computer software thought they should look. A lot of musicians think the same, hence the many hand written fonts that have appeared in Finale and Sibelius and other notation software. I must admit, a good hand copied part still takes some beating! Jonathan ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
At 8:58 PM +0200 7/10/09, Jonathan Smith wrote: These were pro singers from light classical and music theatre backgrounds aged around 20 to mid 30s. They had become used to reading from hand copied parts especially for shows and last minute prep. sessions. They preferred fonts that had a natural look rather than a clinical and too aligned look - more of the human element rather than how the computer software thought they should look. A lot of musicians think the same, hence the many hand written fonts that have appeared in Finale and Sibelius and other notation software. That does explain it. I've seen a LOT of those (very BADLY) hand-copied Broadway scripts and vocal books, as well as the barely-readable orchestra books, and I certainly wouldn't want to put them in front of classically-trained singers--or anyone else for that matter! You're right that many (most?) jazz instrumentalists seem to prefer the phony hand-written jazz fonts, although I fail to see why. But it's what they're used to, which is reason enough. I do wonder, though, whether that's going to fade away with younger generations raised on publication-quality notation from computer note-setting. The top calls for expensive recording sessions, including almost all movie sessions, can read anything put in front of them, of course (which is one reason they're hired again and again), and correct any copyist's mistakes on the first readthrough. I've sung on some of those sessions, and the musicians are awesome! I must admit, a good hand copied part still takes some beating! But the key word is good! I used to get compliments on my manuscript; of course I would have appreciated compliments on my arrangements even more!! John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html We never play anything the same way once. Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
bassm...@katamail.com wrote: By larger appearance I mean that there's more room and looser spacing in sans serifs compared to serifs - just compare the relative size of Times 10 and Helvetica 10. The fact that theres more room and looser spacing in Helvetica than in Times is part of the characteristic of those particular fonts, and it does not automatically follow that the amount of size and density of all sans serif fonts have more room and looser spacing than all serif fonts. How closely the individucal characters and words are spaced, and how closely the lines of type are spaced are characteristics which could be routinely varied by typosetters in the days of hand set type, and I suspect can be routinely varied in high-end typesetting programs. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
At 10:56 AM +0200 7/9/09, Jonathan Smith wrote: Rule of thumb for the piece title or main title is to make the largest letters the same size as the staff height. Interesting. I generally like the title quite a bit larger. Where does this suggestion come from? (Your other suggestions make very good sense, by the way.) Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. Even more interesting, especially in the face of (presumably) much earlier research that found a serif font more readable. That's why Times and almost all other newspaper fonts are serif fonts. But hand written? I wrote vocal charts for many years in 2B pencil or ink by hand, and as a singer *I* would certainly prefer to see a printer's font! I'm curious: what age group and experience type did your singers fit into? John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html We never play anything the same way once. Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Jonathan Smith wrote: Just out of interest, I did a survey a long time ago with singers - to see which font they preferred to read for lyrics. The vast majority elected a sans serif font, one with a more 'hand written' look to it than a classic 'printers' font. When I was in college, for part of my obligatory Social Sciences requirements, the professor had done graduate level work in the psychological area of perception and related that the results of preference for fonts (between serif style and sans serif) were confusing to the researchers until the typeface used in the early educational materials of the test subjects was controlled for. When this was done, the conclusion was that people tend to prefer the dominant style of typeface to which they were first exposed. Those whose early educational materials were more comprised of serif style tended to prefer serif; those whose early educational materials were in non-serif styles tended to prefer those. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Paul Hayden wrote: 1. For technical instructions (see above), do you use italic? Bold? Roman? Some of both? Although I haven't thoroughly studied this, my impression (and my custom) is, that if a directive applies to the entire ensemble, I tend to use italic; if it applies to a single part, I tend to use a font of a Roman look, or sometimes a non-serif type, depending upon my mood. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
Hi Paul, For technique-type of things (telling the performers what to do or how to play their instrument), I use Roman. For expressivo marking (dolce etc) and indeed sim., sempre etc. I use italic. Asyla is published by my publisher (Faber Music) and while they've never conveyed any hard-and-fast rules to me (in spite of my asking!), that seems to be the standard that they use. In terms of fonts, the general rule is that you should stick to the one family of fonts throughout the document. The general page-design rule I was taught years ago is that you can use one serif font and one sans-serif font per page. Cheers Matthew Paul Hayden wrote: I know that many of you are very particular about the fonts you use for for tempos and tempo modifications, instrument names, technical instructions (arco, pizz., a2, con sord., div., G.P., etc.), titles and subtitles, composer's name, copyright info, etc. I've worked out (not very methodically, I'll admit) a set of fonts, styles and sizes that seem to work okay. But I have two questions: 1. For technical instructions (see above), do you use italic? Bold? Roman? Some of both? 2. Is there a webpage somewhere that details a set of fonts (including sizes and styles) that work well for text-related items in a score? I refer to a lot of scores, of course, but I've seen many variations -- sometimes within a single score. Right now I'm looking at page 10 of Thomas Ades's Asyla and I see pizz. and sul tasto in roman, while legato and sim. sempre are in italic. Thanks. Paul Hayden Magnolia Music Press www.paulhayden.com Voice Pre-arranged fax: 225-769-9604 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Fonts for text-related items in scores
My own preference is: 1) Anything that affects tempo (including Accel. and Rit.) above the staff in 14 pt. bold type. 2) All other techniques above the staff in in 12 pt. regular type, except... 3) Expressions that affect dynamics: sub. p, sempre f, cresc. dim. etc. -- these go below the staff in 12 pt. italic type. Cheers, - Darcy - djar...@earthlink.net Brooklyn, NY On 7 Jul 2009, at 7:44 PM, Matthew Hindson (gmail) wrote: Hi Paul, For technique-type of things (telling the performers what to do or how to play their instrument), I use Roman. For expressivo marking (dolce etc) and indeed sim., sempre etc. I use italic. Asyla is published by my publisher (Faber Music) and while they've never conveyed any hard-and-fast rules to me (in spite of my asking!), that seems to be the standard that they use. In terms of fonts, the general rule is that you should stick to the one family of fonts throughout the document. The general page- design rule I was taught years ago is that you can use one serif font and one sans-serif font per page. Cheers Matthew Paul Hayden wrote: I know that many of you are very particular about the fonts you use for for tempos and tempo modifications, instrument names, technical instructions (arco, pizz., a2, con sord., div., G.P., etc.), titles and subtitles, composer's name, copyright info, etc. I've worked out (not very methodically, I'll admit) a set of fonts, styles and sizes that seem to work okay. But I have two questions: 1. For technical instructions (see above), do you use italic? Bold? Roman? Some of both? 2. Is there a webpage somewhere that details a set of fonts (including sizes and styles) that work well for text-related items in a score? I refer to a lot of scores, of course, but I've seen many variations -- sometimes within a single score. Right now I'm looking at page 10 of Thomas Ades's Asyla and I see pizz. and sul tasto in roman, while legato and sim. sempre are in italic. Thanks. Paul Hayden Magnolia Music Press www.paulhayden.com Voice Pre-arranged fax: 225-769-9604 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
