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The type foundries below collectively publish the majority of fonts in use, several produce equivalent fonts by the same name. This selection highlights the suppliers of the fonts featured in the Code Style font sampler.
Adobe create and distribute many fonts, particularly for the Mac platform, working from the Linotype and ITC catalogues.
The Ascender Corporation provide licenced multilingual versions of standard Microsoft fonts and width-compatible equivalents for non-Windows platforms. They also licence developer versions of these fonts to distribute in application software.
The AGFA Monotype foundry is the home of many of the world's most ubiquitous fonts, often signified by the initials MT in the font name.
Apple Computers Inc. have created several original fonts for distribution with versions of Mac OS, and adapted others from the Linotype catalogue. At the time of writing, none of these fonts are available for purchase in their own right.
Bitstream fonts are often signified by the initials BT in the font name and include these classic serif faces:
The Font Bureau is a small American foundry most notable for the decorative Desdemona font, distributed with Windows 95 systems, and more recently Big Caslon for Mac OS X, adapted by Matthew Carter from William Caslon's original.
The ITC has recently attracted attention for the American Typewriter and Papyrus fonts it supplies for Mac OSX:
The Linotype foundry has been the source for many classic Mac OS fonts, including:
Like Apple, Microsoft have adapted a range of font faces from established font foundries, in this case from AGFA Monotype, to distribute with their operating systems, including a set of Web fonts tweaked for optimal readability on screen. The Lucida font families are adapted from originals by Bigelow & Holmes Inc.
See also, the Ascender Corporation for multi-language versions of Microsoft fonts in TrueType and Postscript.
The German URW++ foundry is most notable for Postscript fonts for Unix systems. Its faces also include Algerian and Copperplate Gothic Bold distributed with Microsoft Windows:
The Code Style font sampler a guide to the most common fonts on Windows, Mac and Unix family operating systems, partly derived from the following Microsoft Typography references and other sources:
See also Alan Wood's Unicode fonts reference, and An easy way to install Microsoft's TrueType core fonts on Linux.
The CSS3 module: Fonts introduces a new font-size-adjust property based on the x-height ratio of the first named font. This working draft has a helpful illustration of that shows how this ratio affects the apparent size and legibility of a font.
See Anchor Points: Code Style for a digest of links from the site log.
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