Technical & legal background using copyrighted fonts in custom road signs in PowerPoint

On 2017-09-11 14:22, nospam wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
wrote:


I just installed one of the fonts you link to above (Roadgeek) and it
works fine in various programs on a Mac:

- Adobe Photoshop CS 5. (Thereby by extension any Adobe design s/w)

- Apple Pages
- Apple Numbers
- Apple Keynote
- Apple Preview (Annotate)

I'm pretty certain hundreds of other _properly designed_ Mac apps will
use it perfectly well.

even not so properly designed mac apps will use it perfectly well.

all that's needed is the ability to choose a font (versus the app being
hardcoded to a single font).

MS Office has a lot of fonts. I've found how to get new ones in there.
(by searching the web). See other post. But PowerPoint (and other
Office apps) should not need the required solution to add new fonts.

On Sep 11, 2017, Chaya Eve wrote
(in article ):

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 03:27:46 +0000 (UTC), Chaya Eve
wrote:

Rest assured I'm not beholden to any particular font - it just has to be a
font that contains all the symbols used in road signs and which contains
all the legibility issues and narrow widths needed for road signs.

If you know of a better free font that is both on Mac and Windows in
Microsoft Office, then I'm all ears since the project proposal is due
tomorrow.

Based on Mayayana's recent DIN 1451 font suggestion it looks like his
suggestion of Bahnschrift (literally "road font") is a far better free
road-sign font selection than Roadgeek was!

The best free road-sign font choices seem to be the following:
* Good: Roadgeek (USA-standard copy)
http://www.fontspace.com/michael-d-adams/roadgeek-2005
* Better: Gothic (USA standard)
http://www.dafont.com/highway-gothic.font
* Best: Bahnschrift DIN 1451 (German standard)
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexp...g-windows-10-i
nsider-preview-build-16273-pc/

All are free road-sign specific fonts which can be embedded into Windows
PowerPoint so that the document itself just works on all Windows machines
with MS Office on them (whether or not the user has the latest Windows
version).

So that instantly solves the Windows functionality/compatibility goal.
Now we only have to solve the functionality/compatibility problem for Mac.

Do any Mac experts know of a road-sign font that exists native on the Mac?

I am a Mac user, I am not going to label myself “expert�, but since you
are looking sor a sans serif font which is common to Mac, and Win platforms,
I have Microsoft Sans Serif Regular on this Mac, and I suspect it will be
found on Win machines. As a note, I have no MS software installed on this
Mac.
https://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/font.aspx?FMID=1599
https://catalog.monotype.com/font/mi...icrosoft-sans-
serif/regular

--

Regards,
Savageduck

On Sep 11, 2017, Savageduck wrote
(in iganews.com):

On Sep 11, 2017, Chaya Eve wrote
(in article ):

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 03:27:46 +0000 (UTC), Chaya Eve
wrote:

Rest assured I'm not beholden to any particular font - it just has to be a
font that contains all the symbols used in road signs and which contains
all the legibility issues and narrow widths needed for road signs.

If you know of a better free font that is both on Mac and Windows in
Microsoft Office, then I'm all ears since the project proposal is due
tomorrow.

Based on Mayayana's recent DIN 1451 font suggestion it looks like his
suggestion of Bahnschrift (literally "road font") is a far better free
road-sign font selection than Roadgeek was!

The best free road-sign font choices seem to be the following:
* Good: Roadgeek (USA-standard copy)
http://www.fontspace.com/michael-d-adams/roadgeek-2005
* Better: Gothic (USA standard)
http://www.dafont.com/highway-gothic.font
* Best: Bahnschrift DIN 1451 (German standard)
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexp...ing-windows-10
-i
nsider-preview-build-16273-pc/

All are free road-sign specific fonts which can be embedded into Windows
PowerPoint so that the document itself just works on all Windows machines
with MS Office on them (whether or not the user has the latest Windows
version).

So that instantly solves the Windows functionality/compatibility goal.
Now we only have to solve the functionality/compatibility problem for Mac.

Do any Mac experts know of a road-sign font that exists native on the Mac?

I am a Mac user, I am not going to label myself “expert�, but since you
are looking for a sans serif font which is common to Mac, and Win platforms,
I have Microsoft Sans Serif Regular on this Mac, and I suspect it will be
found on Win machines. As a note, I have no MS software installed on this
Mac.
https://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/font.aspx?FMID=1599
https://catalog.monotype.com/font/microsoft-corporation/microsoft-sans-serif/regular

BTW: This is what it looks like on my Mac:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozi9gqpmq945db9/screenshot_170.png

--

Regards,
Savageduck

In article ,
Chaya Eve wrote:

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:20:39 -0600, "Andre G. Isaak"
wrote:

I pointed out already that DIN *is* included with Macs.

Thanks for clarifying that a DIN font is included native with the Mac.
You're the only Mac expert here who knew that.

Even the Windows experts didn't know that a DIN 1451 compatible font exists
on Windows (named Barnshrift) until you mentioned the DIN compatible font
on the Mac.

Since the name may make all the difference in compatibility,
do you know the name of that DIN 1451 compatible font on the Mac?

Its name is DIN.

Andre

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail service.

In article ,
Your Name wrote:

On 2017-09-12 00:31:19 +0000, Chaya Eve said:
On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:20:39 -0600, "Andre G. Isaak"
wrote:

I pointed out already that DIN *is* included with Macs.

Thanks for clarifying that a DIN font is included native with the Mac.
You're the only Mac expert here who knew that. Even the Windows experts
didn't know that a DIN 1451 compatible font exists on Windows (named
Barnshrift) until you mentioned the DIN compatible font on the Mac.

Since the name may make all the difference in compatibility, do you
know the name of that DIN 1451 compatible font on the Mac?

There is no "DIN" font installed by default on the Mac. You can
download it and it may be installed by some third-party applications.

There are no doubt lots of fonts that are close enough to be lookalikes.

I just double checked. DIN is definitely installed in /Library/Fonts.

I verified this against the Sierra and Yosemite installers. It is
present in both.

Andre

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail service.

"Chaya Eve" wrote \

| Do any Mac experts know when the DIN 1451 Bahnschrift road-sign font will
| be available by Apple for the Mac?

To clarify, Andre said DIN is on the Mac. So if
it can be embedded on Windows you may have
a solution. I didn't know about it being in Win10.
I figured that doesn't matter if Mac has it. But
I found the Wikipedia page vague in terms of legality.
There seem to be numerous versions and while
the font itself is out of copyright, there seem to
be companies selling versions of it.

On 2017-09-11 18:33:01 +0000, Chaya Eve said:
On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 14:02:59 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:

Do you know any professional road sign makers that use MS PowerPoint to
design road signs?

Of course not.

The best solution is the one Microsoft came up with, which is to ship a
road-sign font with the operating system.
That way it just works no matter what software is chosen for either
platform.

Assuming they have that particular version of Windows. Schools are
usually a bit behind in updating their computer equipment due to the
cost, although Microsoft's change to free OS updates (again simply
copying Apple's lead) would somewhat help in that respect.



Do any Mac experts know whether Apple ships a road-sign font on the Mac?

It again depends on what version of Mac OS is being used. The default
installed fonts have changed with different versions.

This Wikipedia page give a list of default fonts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_with_macOS
although bing Wikipedia there's no gurarntee of its accuracy and likely
none of them are included in Windows, but many are "similar" looking
(usually because Microsoft ripped them off, as always).



The reality is that there is no standard / default app or font for the
required task that would cover both Mac and Windows (and Linux)
computers. A large part of the reason is because it's a bit of a highly
specific task that almost nobody would need to do.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

I found the Wikipedia page vague in terms of legality.

relying on wikipedia for a source of legal advice is an incredibly
stupid idea.

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 16:57:51 -0400, Mayayana
wrote:

To clarify, Andre said DIN is on the Mac.

When Andre first said DIN, I had no idea what he was talking about.
When you said DIN, I again had no idea until I looked it up.
If the DIN 1451 is on both the Mac & Windows, then that's the solution.

I don't know fonts well enough to know whether they need to be "exactly"
the same name and font on both platforms or if they can both be kind of
sort of alike, and still be compatible.

So if
it can be embedded on Windows you may have
a solution.

Certainly any font can be embedded into PowerPoint on Windows.

I didn't know about it being in Win10.'

Like you, I didn't realize the Microsoft implementation of the DIN 1451
font named Bahnschrift was on the latest Windows 10 either, until you
mentioned it.

Moving forward, if both Mac and Windows can use the same DIN 1451 font,
that will be the final solution.

Looking for what's on the Mac, the word "DIN" only shows up once.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ded_with_macOS

So the question is whether the Mac DIN 1451 font is the same font name as
the Windows DIN 1451 native font.

I figured that doesn't matter if Mac has it. But
I found the Wikipedia page vague in terms of legality.
There seem to be numerous versions and while
the font itself is out of copyright, there seem to
be companies selling versions of it.

That would be a complication.

The main complication at the moment is how a PowerPoint document will fare
on the Mac or Windows if it has embedded in it the Microsoft implementation
of the DIN 1451 font named Bahnshrift (and vice versa).

Looking for what's on the Mac, the word "DIN" only shows up once.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ded_with_macOS

So the question is whether the Mac DIN 1451 font is the same font name as
the Windows DIN 1451 native font.

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:20:39 -0600, "Andre G. Isaak"
wrote:

I pointed out already that DIN *is* included with Macs.

Thanks for clarifying that a DIN font is included native with the Mac.
You're the only Mac expert here who knew that.

Even the Windows experts didn't know that a DIN 1451 compatible font exists
on Windows (named Barnshrift) until you mentioned the DIN compatible font
on the Mac.

Since the name may make all the difference in compatibility,
do you know the name of that DIN 1451 compatible font on the Mac?