Commit | Line | Data |
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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/ |