GIT.Harvie.CZ / mirrors / ArchLinux-Packages.git / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| 209feeb0 H |
1 | Really free OCR A |
| 2 | ||
| 3 | This font is the one that's supposed to be used for the human-readable | |
| 4 | numbers in the bar code labels on consumer products, including book ISBN | |
| 5 | labels. It's also quite similar, but not identical, to the font used for | |
| 6 | the embossed numerals on credit cards. | |
| 7 | ||
| 8 | A freely distributable version seems to be sorely needed. Until now, it's | |
| 9 | been very difficult to find the font in computer-usable format except by | |
| 10 | paying a high fee to a commercial font vendor. Even many serious commercial | |
| 11 | publishers have so much trouble getting it right that they just go ahead and | |
| 12 | use Helvetica instead, or even (shudder) Arial. Since the OCR A font is | |
| 13 | required by an international standard, it seems like it ought to be free. | |
| 14 | So here it is. The font in this package is not a "ripped", pirated, or | |
| 15 | shadily reverse engineered version; every effort has been made to ensure | |
| 16 | that it genuinely derives from free sources and all the creators involved | |
| 17 | have actually intended it for free public use. | |
| 18 | ||
| 19 | Converted by Matthew Skala from Metafont format to Postscript and TrueType | |
| 20 | formats, July 27, 2006, using mftrace 1.2.4 by Paul Vojta, which is | |
| 21 | available from | |
| 22 | http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen/mftrace/ | |
| 23 | and Autotrace 0.31.1 available from | |
| 24 | http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/ | |
| 25 | ||
| 26 | The mftrace output was edited slightly to add a "space" character, which | |
| 27 | seemed to be missing. | |
| 28 | ||
| 29 | The Metafont files (included) were coded by Richard B. Wales in 1988 and | |
| 30 | 1989, based on an earlier version by Tor Lillqvist, in turn based on ANSI | |
| 31 | Standard X3.17-1977, approved January 20, 1977 by the American National | |
| 32 | Standards Institute, Inc. | |
| 33 | ||
| 34 | PLEASE NOTE: The copyright notice by Richard Wales in ocra.mf forbids | |
| 35 | charging more than "a reasonable copying or communications charge" for this | |
| 36 | font. As far as I (Matthew Skala) am concerned, in this day and age | |
| 37 | Internet communication is so cheap that any fee at all is more than the | |
| 38 | reasonable cost of providing a download. If you post this font on a | |
| 39 | so-called "free fonts" Web site that charges any fee whatsoever, or one that | |
| 40 | purportedly provides the font for free but makes the visitor jump through | |
| 41 | hoops to actually get the free font, and also offers a more convenient | |
| 42 | download for a fee, then I will consider you to be in violation of the | |
| 43 | copyright and may take action against you. Free fonts are rare treasures, | |
| 44 | and OCR A in particular is extremely difficult to find in the non-commercial | |
| 45 | world despite being an international standard that ought to be free if | |
| 46 | anything is. It took a lot of effort - hours of work valued at far more | |
| 47 | than the cost of just paying one of those commercial vendors for the font - | |
| 48 | and my unique expertise in obsolete computer systems, which didn't come | |
| 49 | cheap either - to get a really free version that I could share with everyone | |
| 50 | at no charge. So let's keep it really free, eh? | |
| 51 | ||
| 52 | Matthew Skala | |
| 53 | mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca | |
| 54 | http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/ |