ocr-a/README

   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/