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| Category | Monospaced |
|---|---|
| Classification | Slab serif |
| Designer(s) | Howard "Bud" Kettler |
| Commissioned by | IBM |
| Date created | c. 1956 |
| Date released | 1995 |
| License | Public domain |
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| Sample | |
Courier is a monospacedslab serif typeface commissioned byIBM and designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler (1919–1999) in the mid-1950s.[1][2] The Courier name and typeface concept are in thepublic domain. Courier has been adapted for use as a computer font, and versions of it are installed on most desktop computers.
IBM did not trademark the name Courier, so thetypeface design concept and its name are nowpublic domain.[3] According to some sources, a later version forIBM's Selectric typewriters was developed with input fromAdrian Frutiger, althoughPaul Shaw writes that this is a confusion with Frutiger's adaptation of hisUnivers typeface for the Selectric system.[4][5] Sources differ on whether the design was published in 1955 or 1956.[1][2][5]
As amonospaced font, in the 1990s Courier found renewed use in the electronic world in situations where columns of characters must be consistently aligned, for instance, incomputer programming. It has also become an industry standard for allscreenplays to be written in 12-point Courier or a close variant. Twelve-point Courier New was also theU.S. State Department's standard typeface until January 2004, when it was replaced with 14-pointTimes New Roman. Reasons for the change included the desire for a more "modern" and "legible" font.[6][7][8]
Kettler was once quoted about how the name was chosen. The font was nearly released with the name "Messenger". After giving it some thought, Kettler said, "A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability."[1]
With the rise of digital computing, variants of the Courier typeface were developed with features helpful in coding: larger punctuation marks, stronger distinctions between similar characters (such as the numeral0 vs. the upper-caseO and the numeral1 vs. the lower-caseL),sans-serif variants, and other features to provide increased legibility when viewed on screens. Today, many Courier typefaces include a code version within the type family. Courier New Baltic, Courier New CE, Courier New Cyr, Courier New Greek, Courier New Tur are aliases created in theFontSubstitutes section ofWIN.INI. These entries all point to the master font. When an alias font is specified, the font's character map contains a different character set from the master font and the other alias fonts.
IBM made Courier freely available in PostScript Type 1 format. Known asIBM Courier or simplyCourier, it is available under the IBM/MIT X Consortium Courier Typefont agreement.[9] Among other IBM-specific characters it contains optionally a dotted zero (which seems to have originated as an option onIBM 3270 display controllers) and aslashed zero.
The Courier 10 Pitch BT typeface was released as a font byBitstream. Courier 10 BT is heavier than Courier New and more closely approximates the look of the original Courier type on paper.[10] The freely available version, often seen as a system font on electronic devices, includes the 255 characters of theANSIcharacter set in Type 1 format. Courier 10 BT has been donated to theX Consortium by Bitstream (along withBitstream Charter) and is the default Courier font on mostLinux distributions. Expanded Pan-European (W1G) character sets are made available for license by Bitstream.
Courier Code[11] is a variant of Courier 10 Pitch BT for use in programming. The zero is dotted to better distinguish it from the capitalO and the lowercaseL has been altered to better distinguish it from the number one. The leading has been increased slightly as well.
Courier New appears as a system font on many electronic devices. This Courier variant was produced for electronic use byMonotype. Its thin appearance when printed on paper owes to its being "digitized directly from the golf ball of theIBM Selectric" without accounting for the visual weight normally added by thetypewriter's ink ribbon.[citation needed]ClearType rendering technology includes a hack to make the font appear more legible on screens, though printouts retain the thin look.[12] The font family includes Courier New, Courier New Bold, Courier New Italic, and Courier New Bold Italic.
Courier New was introduced as a system font withWindows 3.1, which also includedraster Courier fonts. The fonts were also sold commercially byAscender Corporation. The Ascender fonts have 'WGL' at the end of the font name, and cover only theWGL characters.[citation needed]
Courier New features higherline space than Courier. Punctuation marks were reworked to make the dots and commas heavier. Versions from 2.76 onward include Hebrew and Arabic glyphs, with most of the Arabic characters added on non-italic fonts. The styling of Arabic glyphs is similar to those found inTimes New Roman but adjusted for monospace. The Courier New version 5.00 includes over 3100 glyphs, covering over 2700 characters per font.
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| Sample |
This Courier typeface, developed by Alan Dague-Greene with funding fromJohn August and Quote-Unquote Apps, includes a true Italic style. Courier Prime matches the metrics of Courier Final Draft,[13] with some design changes and improvements aimed at greater legibility and beauty. The typeface was released in January 2013 under the SILOpen Font License.[14] In 2016 the family was extended with Sans Serif and Code versions. By mid-2018 the family included Semi-Bold and Medium versions (designed byM. Babek Aliassa) and aCyrillic alphabet version (designed by Ivan Gladkikh[15]). All fonts in the family are downloadable for free and can be used in any application.[16][10]
A typeface developed forFade In Professional Screenwriting Software, Courier Screenplay is designed to offer the legibility of Courier 10 BT with the line counts favoured by screenwriters. The font is downloadable for free independent of the software and can be used in any application. The typeface provides the ANSI 255 character map used in Western European languages.[10]
Courier Final Draft is a version of Courier 10 BT developed for theFinal Draft screenwriting program. The installed font can be used in any application. Default settings in the program yield 55 lines per page.[17]
Dark Courier[18] is a normal-weight typeface rather than a semi-bold or bold as its name may imply. Dark Courier, developed as aTrueType font byHP, was one of the first fonts developed as a Courier New alternative for those who found that typeface too thin.[10]
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(August 2014) |
Courier Standard, Courier Standard Bold, Courier Standard Bold Italic, Courier Standard Italic are fonts distributed withAdobe Reader 6, as a replacement for the PostScript Courier fonts. The stroke terminators are flat instead of round. The typeface contains code pages 1252, Windows OEM Character Set. The font is Hinted and Smoothed for all point sizes. It contains OpenType layout tables aalt, dlig, frac, ordn, sups for Default Language in Latin script; dlig for TUR language in Latin script. Each font contains 374 glyphs.
URW++[19] produced a version of Courier calledNimbus Mono L in 1984, and eventually released under theGPL andAFPL (asType 1 font for Ghostscript) in 1996.[20][21][22] It is one of theGhostscript fonts, free alternatives to 35core PostScript fonts, which include Courier. It is available in majorfree andopen source operating systems.
Thai Linux Working Group publish several typefaces asfree and open-source software monospace. 4 of those typefaces contain Courier glyphs: TlwgMono, Tlwg Typewriter, Tlwg Typist and Tlwg Typo.[26][27]
Manymonospaced typefaces used as alternatives to Courier in coding are sans-serif fonts for on-screen legibility.
Courier is commonly used inASCII art because it is a monospaced font and is available almost universally. "Solid-style" ASCII art uses the darkness/lightness of each character to portray an object, which can be quantified in pixels (here in 12-point size):
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
| 21 | 25 | 18 | 25 | 24 | 19 | 28 | 24 | 14 | 15 | 25 | 16 | 30 | 21 | 20 | 27 | 27 | 18 | 21 | 17 | 19 | 17 | 25 | 20 | 21 | 21 |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| 25 | 29 | 21 | 26 | 29 | 25 | 27 | 31 | 18 | 19 | 28 | 20 | 36 | 24 | 20 | 25 | 28 | 30 | 28 | 24 | 27 | 22 | 30 | 26 | 23 | 24 |
| ` | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | - | = | ~ | ! | @ | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | _ | + |
| 2 | 16 | 19 | 20 | 23 | 23 | 23 | 16 | 26 | 23 | 24 | 6 | 12 | 9 | 9 | 36 | 30 | 26 | 20 | 7 | 24 | 21 | 13 | 13 | 9 | 13 |
| [ | ] | \ | ; | ' | , | . | / | { | } | | | : | " | < | > | ? |
| 17 | 17 | 8 | 11 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 16 | 16 | 13 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 13 |
Courier, as a commonmonospaced font, is often used to signifysource code.[30]
IBM neglected to trademark the typeface names like Courier and Prestige, so once the patents had lapsed, the names gradually fell into the public domain without IBM doing anything about it (at the time, and for a dozen years or so, IBM was distracted by a major U.S. anti-trust suit). Most students of the type protection field believe that those names are probably unprotectable by now, though IBM could still presumably make a try for it if sufficiently motivated.
Adrian Frutiger had nothing to do with the design, though IBM hired him in the late 1960s to design a version of his Univers typeface for the Selectric.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)integrated into Mandriva Linux 2008
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