Alternative Fonts

From NeoWiki

Unlike OpenOffice.org/X11, which needs converted Mac fonts, NeoOffice/J will immediately allow you to use the fonts that are present on your Mac. This means the fonts that are generally located in the /System/Library/Fonts folder, as well as:

• /Library/Fonts (available to all users)
• ~/Library/Fonts (fonts available to the current user)
• /System Folder/Fonts (fonts from Mac OS 9, as long as they are either Roman-only or Unicode)
• /Network/Library/Fonts (fonts available to all users on the network)

For some (mostly non-Roman or -German) languages, there are very few fonts that look acceptable and include all of the required glyphs.

Most notably, the versions of Microsoft's standard fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, etc.) installed with Mac OS X include very few, if any, glyphs beyond the Western European ("Basic Latin" in Unicode terms) block. If you have previously installed Office 2004, you will have access to Microsoft's updated fonts, provided you have no other versions of those fonts present.

Installing new fonts on your Mac is as simple as moving them to the (~)/Library/Fonts folder, or installing them with the Font Book application. Most Unicode .ttf and .otf fonts available on the internet will work without problem on your Mac and in NeoOffice/J, although scripts which need complex layout analysis (e.g. Arabic, Indic) require fonts to have special AAT instructions not usually found in "generic" fonts.

Some sources for alternative fonts

• Free UCS Outline Fonts
• TITUS CyberBit
• SIL Gentium
• Doulos SIL
• Nunavik Inuktitut Syllabics Support
• Fonts for Native North American languages including Cherokee
• Legendum & Garogier (Roman and Greek)
• Cardo (Roman, Greek, and other glyphs useful for classicists, Biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists)
• Alan Wood's list of Unicode fonts for Mac OS X

Lists glyph counts and Unicode ranges for fonts shipped with Mac OS X as well as sources for downloading other fonts available for Mac OS X (N.B. glyph counts of Microsoft fonts are for the Office 2004 versions rather than the older versions shipped with Mac OS X)