Nimbus Sans
CategorySans-serif
ClassificationNeo-grotesque
Designer(s)URW Studio
FoundryURW++
Date released1999
Design based onHelvetica
VariationsURW Heisei Gothic

Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica.

Nimbus Sans

It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages.

The font names ending with (D) have slightly lighter font weights and tighter spacing.

Weight condensed medium extended
Black roman roman, italic roman
Bold roman roman, italic roman
Regular roman roman, italic roman
Light - roman, italic roman
(D) fonts
Weight condensed medium extended
Black roman, italic roman, italic roman, outline
Bold roman, italic roman, italic, outline roman
Regular roman, italic roman, italic roman
Light roman, italic roman, italic roman
Ultra Light - roman -

Nimbus Sans Poster

It is a version of Nimbus Sans with even tighter spacing than the Nimbus Sans (D) fonts. Other changes include alternate designs for currency symbols.

Weight condensed medium
Black roman, italic roman, italic
Bold roman, italic roman, italic
Regular roman, italic roman, italic
Light roman, italic roman, italic
Ultra Light - roman

Nimbus Sans Diagonal

It is a version with more right lean than Nimbus Sans italic fonts. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Black weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Mono

It is a monospaced variant of Nimbus Sans. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Regular weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Global

It is a family supporting Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, CJK ideographic, Japanese kana, Korean Hangul syllables, Thai characters. The family includes 5 fonts in 1 (medium) width, with 4 proportional and 1 monospaced fonts. The proportional fonts are in 4 weights (bold, medium, regular, light), while the monospace font is in medium weight.

Nimbus Sans L

Nimbus Sans L is a version of Nimbus Sans using Adobe font sources. It was designed in 1987. The family includes 17 fonts in 5 weights and 2 widths, with Nimbus Sans L Extra Black only available in condensed roman format.

A subset of Nimbus Sans L, which includes regular and bold weight fonts in all widths and styles, were released under the GPL and AFPL in Type 1 format in 1996[1][2][3][4][5][6] and LPPL in 2009,[7] and is one of several freely licensed fonts offered by URW++.

Although the characters are not exactly the same, Nimbus Sans L has metrics almost identical to Helvetica and Arial. Nimbus Sans L is one of the Ghostscript fonts, a set of free alternatives to the 35 basic PostScript fonts (which include Helvetica).[8][9][10][11]

It is a standard typeface in many Linux distributions.[12] It was used as default font in OpenOffice.org Calc and Impress in some Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu - up to version 8.10; since Ubuntu 9.04 the default font was changed to Liberation Sans).

Ghostscript version

It was extended to include Cyrillic support by Valek Filippov.

Nimbus Sans Novus

It is a version using Linotype's Stempel Studio source, based on Neue Helvetica, but without the extended width.

Comparisons between Neue Helvetica and Nimbus Sans Novus at the same font size.

While the design of the characters is based on Neue Helvetica, the two typefaces differ metrically: Nimbus Sans Novus has smaller x-height and is narrower at the same font size (but not at the same x-height).

The weight systems of the two typefaces also drastically differ. For instance, the Regular weight of Nimbus Sans Novus resembles the Light weight of Neue Helvetica, while the Medium weight of Nimbus Sans Novus resembles the Regular Neue Helvetica design. Nimbus Sans Novus has a Semibold weight, but Neue Helvetica does not.

The font names ending with (D) have tighter letter spacing.

Weight condensed medium
Ultra roman, italic -
Black roman, italic roman, italic
Heavy roman, italic roman, italic
Bold roman, italic roman, italic, outline
Semi Bold roman, italic roman, italic
Medium roman, italic roman, italic
Regular roman, italic roman, italic
Light roman, italic roman, italic
Ultra Light roman, italic roman, italic
(D) fonts
Weight condensed medium
Ultra roman -
Black roman roman, outline
Heavy roman roman
Bold roman roman
Semi Bold roman roman
Medium roman roman
Regular roman roman
Light roman roman
Ultra Light roman roman

See also

References

  1. ^ Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts., archived from the original on 2002-10-23, retrieved 2010-05-06
  2. ^ Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts. (TXT), retrieved 2010-05-06
  3. ^ "Fonts and TeX". 2009-12-19. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
  4. ^ Five years after: Report on international TEX font projects (PDF), 2007, retrieved 2010-05-06
  5. ^ ghostscript-fonts-std-4.0.tar.gz - GhostScript 4.0 standard fonts - AFPL license, 1996-06-28, archived from the original (TAR.GZ) on 2011-04-24, retrieved 2010-05-06
  6. ^ ghostscript-fonts-std-6.0.tar.gz - GhostScript 6.0 standard fonts - GPL license, 1999-12-22, archived from the original (TAR.GZ) on 2011-04-24, retrieved 2010-05-06
  7. ^ URW++ making original 35 fonts available under LPPL, retrieved 2010-05-06
  8. ^ "Fonts and font facilities supplied with Ghostscript". Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  9. ^ "Linux fonts (mostly X11)". 2009-08-15. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  10. ^ "Ghostscript SVN - URW fonts". Retrieved 2010-04-21.
  11. ^ "URW font ttf conversions". Ghostscript. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
  12. ^ "Debian package - gsfonts". Retrieved 2010-04-21.

External links

Nimbus Sans

Nimbus Sans Family,
Nimbus Sans Global

Nimbus Sans L

Nimbus Sans Novus

Free and open-source typography
Categories