What's wrong with the Roadgeek fonts

[sammi]

(Originally: Those "weird bar-like characters appearing in text objects")

Since you're using the Mac version of PowerPoint, do you notice any problems with my templates? Another user (or users) have reported weird bar-like characters appearing in text objects.

It happens with all the Roadgeek 2005 series fonts and I'm still wondering what the hell is the purpose of that.

There are two kinds of newline character, i.e. the kind of invisible character that gets inserted when you press Enter/Return. On Unix and Unix-like systems, including Mac OS X, the newline is called a line feed (LF), Unicode U+000A. On Windows, it's actually a combination of two characters: a carriage return (CR), Unicode U+000D and a line feed (LF). (These terms were taken from typewriter days.)

Because PowerPoint was originally a Windows application, it uses CR+LF for newlines. I'm guessing (and this is the only part in this post that I cannot confirm) that for compatibility reasons, i.e. to be able to read files created by either version, they decided to keep using CR+LF on the Mac version.

When Mac looks at CR+LF, it doesn't see just a newline; it sees a CR character, followed by a newline. Naturally, it would try to display the CR character instead of interpreting it as part of the newline.

CR characters, part of the set of Unicode characters called Control characters, should generally not be displayed. CR doesn't generally even have a physical representation. But the Roadgeek 2005 fonts might have it, so I suspected the problem might lie there.

I installed FontForge, a font editor, today, and opened up Roadgeek 2005 Series EM, only to find that a CR character does in fact exist in the font. It's that character in blue. (And it happens to be in the same spot as the "dotless I", i.e. Georgia DOT's version of "i". )



I have no idea how to solve this, because I am not that experienced with Macs, but at least I've found the root of the problem. This might also be the best time to improve the Roadgeek fonts. (Some of the characters, fortunately the ones that we never use on signs, appear to be based on the ones from Interstate. )

[sammi]

Another thing I noticed with the Roadgeek 2005 fonts (hence the change of title):

Looking at the character table above again, you can actually see the correct fraction slash right under the GDOT dotless I. But, it's not mapped to a slash, but instead to this character: ⁄ U+2044 FRACTION SLASH. So if you were to make a fraction, you would need to type, paste, or somehow obtain a copy of that fraction slash character instead of using the slash on your keyboard. I guess the regular slash was meant to be a text slash, and the fraction slash was moved.

[hotdogPi]

The fraction slash is not that hard to type on a Mac. Try shift-option-1.

[sammi]

The fraction slash is not that hard to type on a Mac. Try shift-option-1.

I don't use Macs, along with most of this forum, which is why I can't do this.

[Scott5114]

The Series D 5 on the newest (OTF) version of the Roadgeek fonts is wonky.

[kurumi]

Thank you. That was driving me nuts. (Problem's still there, but at least I know why...)

[Zeffy]

So, now that we've pinpointed the problem (well, who knows why it's showing up still...), can we legally remove the character from the fontset? I believe MikeTheActuary (who I believe has an account on this forum) would tell us if we could or could not. Maybe fix the fraction slash too.

[sammi]

So, now that we've pinpointed the problem (well, who knows why it's showing up still...), can we legally remove the character from the fontset? I believe MikeTheActuary (who I believe has an account on this forum) would tell us if we could or could not. Maybe fix the fraction slash too.

These fonts are free for recreational, hobby, and educational
purposes.  You may redistribute these fonts provided the copyright
information remains intact and this license accompanies them.

License is also granted for use of these fonts on commercial websites
or for redistribution from commercial websites, provided no fee is
charged for the use of or access to these fonts, that the copyright
information remains intact, and this license accompanies the fonts.

You are NOT permitted to seek payment for access to these fonts.

You are NOT permitted to use these fonts for commercial purposes other
than for the use in displaying graphics or text on the web.   If you
need official fonts for offline, commercial purposes (including, but
not limited to, the actual creation of highway signage), please
contact professional vendors for official fonts.

Honestly, this doesn't say much. I'm thinking we can, but I'm not a lawyer and just to be safe, I'm just starting over and making my own. It will take a while though.

One thing I like about the FHWA Series fonts is the lack of kerning. It will take much less work than when designing most other fonts.

[vtk]

I believe FHWA actually encourages using whatever kerning pairs are built into commercial distributions of the Standard Alphabets when fabricating actual road signs.  My idea of an ideal successor to Roadgeek would therefore indeed make moderate use of kerning pairs, possibly based loosely on the old interletter spacing codes (which are handily listed in some AGA button copy specs recently shared on this forum).

[sammi]

This is more of a hotfix, but I've partly fixed the Roadgeek fonts:

    http://g3sf.x10.mx/sammdot/fonts/Roadgeek2005FHWA-fixed.zip [112 KB]

The following changes have been made to all six series:

• Removed the arrow characters which have no use whatsoever (I bet you didn't even know about them! )
• Reassigned the dotless I character
• Reassigned the slash character
• Rebuilt the fraction characters ¼, ½, ¾ to the right scale. Now it should be the same height as the other characters, instead of being 1.5x like the slash, so you could make something like:
  
  (Not that this would ever happen in real life )
  

Someone please try these on a Mac. I'd like to know if the CR+LF thing worked. If it did, I'm doing the Clearviews next.

Or should I just go ahead and make the new ones?

[kurumi]

Tested on a Mac: much better, this is usable now