Roboto: Google’s signature font is now open source(google-opensource.blogspot.com)
google-opensource.blogspot.com
Roboto: Google’s signature font is now open source
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2015/05/roboto-googles-signature-font-is-now.html
21 comments
Also worth take a look at the Roboto specimen booklet which presents the font in a better light than the Google Fonts website (PDF): http://material-design.storage.googleapis.com/publish/materi...
Neither the announcement or the git repo even have an example of what the font looks like. It is like announcing a new copy of the Mona Lisa not having a picture of it.
Nor did they have a link to simply download the font files. You can do that here: https://www.google.com/fonts#UsePlace:use/Collection:Roboto
They linked to the github repo linked in the first line of the announcement, you'll find the font files (ttf) in the 'hinted' directory.
https://github.com/google/roboto
https://github.com/google/roboto
As someone who doesn't know a whole lot about fonts, but who is interested in a decent font being made open source, I would never think to look in the "hinted" directory.
Out of interest, why is it called "hinted" and not "example" or something? I'm guessing it's font lingo?
Out of interest, why is it called "hinted" and not "example" or something? I'm guessing it's font lingo?
Yes it's font lingo for sure :)
Basically for fonts to look good when placed on a square grid (pixels) there is a method called hinting which as the name implies gives hints to the font renderer on how the fonts should be drawn across this grid in order to best preserve the intended look of the font and be readable, this has the greatest impact when you are using a very limited size grid such as in small font sizes.
Basically for fonts to look good when placed on a square grid (pixels) there is a method called hinting which as the name implies gives hints to the font renderer on how the fonts should be drawn across this grid in order to best preserve the intended look of the font and be readable, this has the greatest impact when you are using a very limited size grid such as in small font sizes.
As someone who has ADD: yes, font lingo. It has to do with render alignment and the fact that pixels aren't round. It is amazing the level of complexity underlying font rendering, look at the internals for lcd filter weights some time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_hinting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_hinting
Agreed, that was bothersome.
Here's the font: https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
Here's the font: https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
Wow, look at the stats on that font - https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto#stats - 9,979,683,779 is a lot of views in one week.
They say they keep updating it, which kind of makes me wonder what the best way is to keep up to date with the newest versions. Is there an automated way to do that? I don't like to manually check every other month if a font has a new version, and cloning the repo seems overkill if all I want is the output.
Oh wow, they got rid of the Helvetica-style R entirely. Good riddance, that's my least favorite thing about Helvetica.
I really appreciated they decided to blow away all the Helvetica characteristics and go straight for an inspired variation of Akzidenz-Grotesk. It looks great on print!
It's really come a long way since launch.
http://typographica.org/on-typography/roboto-typeface-is-a-f...
Kudos to Stephen Coles for keeping that article updated as the font has evolved and improved.
http://typographica.org/on-typography/roboto-typeface-is-a-f...
Kudos to Stephen Coles for keeping that article updated as the font has evolved and improved.
The K's with the flat middle were horrible. Interesting that they were the only characters poached from Ronnia and now replaced with something more familar.
You can use Monotype Skyfonts, which has a free service for downloading and syncing the Google Fonts collection:
http://www.fonts.com/web-fonts/google
http://www.fonts.com/web-fonts/google
Thanks for the tip! Too bad that I run Ubuntu, not Windows or OSX. I'll keep it bookmarked in case I ever switch again though :)
Install typecatcher from the archive, it's a graphical program that will let you fetch and install google fonts. It has previews and so on, nice app.
You say in another comment that you use Ubuntu. With Arch I'd make my own package to manage this, if one didn't exist. It's quite easy with Arch, but I'm not really sure whether that's the case with Ubuntu. I've definitely found packaging to be a skill worth having.
The second page spelling OCD... it is a freudian slip or it is an innocent confession?
If anyone here is from the google fonts website, theres a typo in this document:
"Bold 8.5/12pt Roboto supports 16 weights as well as advanced typographic features such as smallc aps"
"Bold 8.5/12pt Roboto supports 16 weights as well as advanced typographic features such as smallc aps"
Is the lighter or the darker blue outline the new one? I'm still at a loss to say which one looks better or why.
The darker blue outline (with the straight leg on the "R") is the newer one.
Dark blue is the new one.
Not that many people respect font licensing, but the Roboto font has been Apache licensed since it was released (like the rest of AOSP and fonts previous to Roboto in Android). Moving to a full open production and tool chain is interesting though.
Truly and the toolchain used in creating it is the bigger headline
It was always Apache, but having these source files makes a huge difference on the "open source" part of "free and open source".
"Free and Open Source Software" (often abbreviated F/OSS) doesn't refer to two different features "free" and "open source", it attempts to bridge two different communities preferred terms for licensing with essentially identical features, OSI's "Open Source" [0] and FSF's "Free Software" [1].
Being Apache licensed already handled both the "open source" [2] and "free software" [3] parts.
[0] http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
[2] http://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0
[3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#apache2
Being Apache licensed already handled both the "open source" [2] and "free software" [3] parts.
[0] http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
[2] http://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0
[3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#apache2
Hmm... gnu.org is down for me and I can't actually check these articles to make sure I'm not imagining things, but I will link them anyway:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.h...
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.e...
Probably you can understand simply by looking at the urls anyway ;-). To say that F/OSS doesn't refer to 2 different features, "free" and "open source", is to advance only one of the viewpoints from the 2 movements.
As much as it would be convenient if it were not the case, "free software" and "open source" software do, in fact, refer to different (although similar) things in many people's minds.
I am not the right person to explain the differences and if gnu.org were not down I would simply point you to the arguments that the FSF have against referring to free software as "open source". However, I will do my best to explain. Please verify what I'm about to say when you get the opportunity.
The intent of free software is to ensure that all users and programmers can deal with the software on a level playing field. By this I mean that one programmer can not use legal or technical mechanisms to have more capability than another. Everybody has the same access and ability to run the software for whatever purpose they want. They can inspect the source code in an un-obfuscated way. They can modify it in any way. They can distribute it, along with their modifications, to others. Most importantly, they can not do anything that will take away these abilities (either through legal or technical means) from others.
The licenses in the free software movement are a means to that end. The free software movement defines licenses that are free (in other words licenses which do not impose restrictions that would remove the level playing field). Some licenses, though, are free in and of themselves, but do not actually stop people from working in a non-freedom-oriented way (I'm sure I am not the only person frustrated that there is no antonym for "free software" -- all commonly used ones being deprecated by the FSF).
For example, there are many licenses which are free licenses but which allow people to leverage the code in software that is not free. This creates an un-level playing field because those people can build on top of the software, extending it in a way that only they can use and then compete against the original project without being free. In other words, if project A is free software licensed with a permissive license, someone can make A+ which is essentially A but with more features. They can release this under a non-free license, competing against A and taking mind share without giving people the freedom to modify or distribute A+.
For this reason, people in the free software movement prefer some free licenses over others. Their entire reason for having the licenses in the first place is to avoid the situation described above.
The open source movement is not as concerned about the issue described above. While they advocate nearly identical methods, their goal is to encourage licenses that allow people to interoperate smoothly if they choose to do so.
In the open source movement, it is unreasonable to prefer licences that enforce software freedom over other OSI software licenses. In fact, many people in the open source movement consider these kinds of licenses to be undesirable because it stops them from using F/OSS to build products that are not free software -- in other words, they are diametrically opposed to software freedom and only cooperate in a similar fashion when it is advantageous for them.
In my opinion, the term "Free and Open Source Software" is useful for discussing the very large amount of area where the free software movement and the open source movement overlap. It is important not to conflate the two movements, though, because whether or not you value software freedom there are many people who do.
In my own usage, I prefer to use the term free software when I think that the freedom aspect of it is important. I use F/OSS when I am just talking about interoperating with people using free software/OSI licenses. I use OSS when I am talking about leveraging F/OSS into software that is not free.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.h...
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.e...
Probably you can understand simply by looking at the urls anyway ;-). To say that F/OSS doesn't refer to 2 different features, "free" and "open source", is to advance only one of the viewpoints from the 2 movements.
As much as it would be convenient if it were not the case, "free software" and "open source" software do, in fact, refer to different (although similar) things in many people's minds.
I am not the right person to explain the differences and if gnu.org were not down I would simply point you to the arguments that the FSF have against referring to free software as "open source". However, I will do my best to explain. Please verify what I'm about to say when you get the opportunity.
The intent of free software is to ensure that all users and programmers can deal with the software on a level playing field. By this I mean that one programmer can not use legal or technical mechanisms to have more capability than another. Everybody has the same access and ability to run the software for whatever purpose they want. They can inspect the source code in an un-obfuscated way. They can modify it in any way. They can distribute it, along with their modifications, to others. Most importantly, they can not do anything that will take away these abilities (either through legal or technical means) from others.
The licenses in the free software movement are a means to that end. The free software movement defines licenses that are free (in other words licenses which do not impose restrictions that would remove the level playing field). Some licenses, though, are free in and of themselves, but do not actually stop people from working in a non-freedom-oriented way (I'm sure I am not the only person frustrated that there is no antonym for "free software" -- all commonly used ones being deprecated by the FSF).
For example, there are many licenses which are free licenses but which allow people to leverage the code in software that is not free. This creates an un-level playing field because those people can build on top of the software, extending it in a way that only they can use and then compete against the original project without being free. In other words, if project A is free software licensed with a permissive license, someone can make A+ which is essentially A but with more features. They can release this under a non-free license, competing against A and taking mind share without giving people the freedom to modify or distribute A+.
For this reason, people in the free software movement prefer some free licenses over others. Their entire reason for having the licenses in the first place is to avoid the situation described above.
The open source movement is not as concerned about the issue described above. While they advocate nearly identical methods, their goal is to encourage licenses that allow people to interoperate smoothly if they choose to do so.
In the open source movement, it is unreasonable to prefer licences that enforce software freedom over other OSI software licenses. In fact, many people in the open source movement consider these kinds of licenses to be undesirable because it stops them from using F/OSS to build products that are not free software -- in other words, they are diametrically opposed to software freedom and only cooperate in a similar fashion when it is advantageous for them.
In my opinion, the term "Free and Open Source Software" is useful for discussing the very large amount of area where the free software movement and the open source movement overlap. It is important not to conflate the two movements, though, because whether or not you value software freedom there are many people who do.
In my own usage, I prefer to use the term free software when I think that the freedom aspect of it is important. I use F/OSS when I am just talking about interoperating with people using free software/OSI licenses. I use OSS when I am talking about leveraging F/OSS into software that is not free.
Screenshot:
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
thank you! was just looking for a quick example and was surprised to not see it immediately/obviously linked.
That's the old Roboto, right?
So they'll just update it at some point and everyone who uses the old will automatically be using the new one?
So they'll just update it at some point and everyone who uses the old will automatically be using the new one?
Roboto is very nice and I use it a lot. Roboto Slab [0] is also good if you want a serif font instead.
[0] https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto+Slab
[0] https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto+Slab
I hope this is not a dumb question, but as I have no experience/knowledge in creating fonts, I will ask nevertheless.
I quickly scanned through the repo and assumed that the font is created programmatically through a Python script. Is that correct and a common way to build a new font?
I quickly scanned through the repo and assumed that the font is created programmatically through a Python script. Is that correct and a common way to build a new font?
The actual "Font" data lives in the `src/v2` directory. For example, open up "Roboto_Thin.ufo/glyphs" from here, and you'll see a lot of ".glyph" files. These are essentially SVG's it appears. The python script pulls this content together and generates appropriate font files (WOFF, TTF, etc).
Technically, they are GLIF files and not SVG. The GLIF format is specced here: http://unifiedfontobject.org/versions/ufo3/glif.html
Would love to find build/hacking instructions somewhere. I'm interested in modifying a font and adding ligatures for use my in my programming editor (as is done in https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig/). The best I could find is https://github.com/mozilla/Fira/issues/62.
there's a LaTeX package (last version dating 2015-04-16) available [0] (with samples [1]):
This package provides LaTeX, pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX support for the Roboto, RobotoCondensed and RobotoSlab families of fonts, designed by Christian Robertson for Google
[0] https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/roboto
[1] http://ctan.uib.no/fonts/roboto/doc/samples.pdf
This package provides LaTeX, pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX and LuaLaTeX support for the Roboto, RobotoCondensed and RobotoSlab families of fonts, designed by Christian Robertson for Google
[0] https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/roboto
[1] http://ctan.uib.no/fonts/roboto/doc/samples.pdf
I may be reading this wrong, but the only annoyance I would find with their toolchain is that it seems like their true source is the FontLab files which is not open source. The readme says that you should be able to edit the UFO files and generate the FontLab files from that, but it doesn't seem to be the process they are using. It would be nice for the UFO files to be the true source rather than a derived one.
Unfortunately, doing TrueType hinting more-or-less requires FontLab. There are other alternatives that are being developed, but by and large FontLab remains the industry tool for building TT-hints. Part of this talk by Tal Leming (https://vimeo.com/album/3329572/video/123781570#t=457s) explains some of the interchange issues with TT-hint formats. Long story short, everyone has a slightly different hinting compiler, and they're all proprietary.
Is there a font nerd here who can describe what makes Roboto unique?
I don't know specifics about this particular typeface (and I haven't been "into fonts" for a while), but Roboto is pretty much another typeface with some Grotesk (e.g. Helvetica) lineage. What can typically said about these sorts of new-fangled typefaces is that they're well-optimized for reading on screens and scale well to smaller sizes (that is to say, good for mobile). A simple example is that the x-height (i.e. the height the lowercase 'x', and thus roughly the height of most of the lowercase letters) is higher than a typeface made, say, sixty years ago. The x-height in this case looks to be about 70% - 75% the height of the capitals, which is pretty darned high.
Looks like the quick fox is no longer.
"Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack."
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
"Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack."
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto
I can't tell what type of lower case 'g' i'm getting without looking deeper :(
Wish the Literata font from Play books would become available.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046511/how-google-made-an-e-boo...
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046511/how-google-made-an-e-boo...
Has anyone tried to release an app into the iOS Appstore which uses this font? It looks great in my app and I'd like to know if there are going to be problems with Apple if I use this for an iOS/Android multi-platform app .. anyone know?
Unfortunately, since a week or so it's all over YouTube. Arial was much easier to read.
The thing most enjoyable about Roboto is how it's changes are a near perfect reflection of Google's design capability.
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Hmm... What's up with this page?
"Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has blocked a page! Malware detected! Access to this page has been blocked."
Any idea what's in there tripping out Bitdefender?
"Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition has blocked a page! Malware detected! Access to this page has been blocked."
Any idea what's in there tripping out Bitdefender?
The term "open source" only means that the source code is published; it says nothing about the license. Perhaps I'm nitpicking but the title of this post isn't very clear in my opinion.
The font is still very ugly though.
Shameless plug: Here's a poster I made recently using Roboto Slab:
http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2015/05/when-doubt-move/
Edit: Is it bad etiquette here at HN to do shameless plugs for the purpose of finding work?
http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2015/05/when-doubt-move/
Edit: Is it bad etiquette here at HN to do shameless plugs for the purpose of finding work?
I didn't downvote you, but this struck me as quite a bit more shameless than most of the shameless plugs here. :)
But the downvotes might have been worth it. I'm sure some people clicked through.
But the downvotes might have been worth it. I'm sure some people clicked through.
Thanks, I'll try and behave myself more :)
I think it'd go down better if there was more there. This is a more tech focused site than an arty site. If you'd drilled down the ins and outs of the tech behind the font (How to compile it from the source maybe?) it would probably have been better received
Also I read your poster as "When in doubt m,ove"
Also I read your poster as "When in doubt m,ove"
Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on an article on using the font and will try compiling it from source and include the information.
Regarding the poster, the placement of the comma is intentional to suggest both an 'l' and the 'm' jumping over it, although maybe you're right and it is too much.
Regarding the poster, the placement of the comma is intentional to suggest both an 'l' and the 'm' jumping over it, although maybe you're right and it is too much.
Not necessarily, but see also the second last paragraph on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Got it — thanks!
[Be kind, damnit](http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2015/05/be-kind-damnit/)! :)
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