What's This? This is an attempt to catalog the 1555 fonts (their count, not mine) on the second KeyFonts Pro CD-ROM, issued by SoftKey from material evidently supplied to it by a company called SSI (Southern Software, Inc., I believe). Allegedly, the bulk of these fonts were derived from Adobe originals. While nothing I've seen proves this to be so, and the names and copyright notices are all different, the exact correspondence of so much of the content to what Adobe had available on CD-ROM in about 1993 does lend color to that theory. No attempt has been made to compare the actual code or even to examine the outlines in a program like Fontographer that might give even stronger evidence for or against the presumed derivation. Do the node points in the outlines correspond? Is hinting handled the same way? I don't know. Much of this catalog is guesswork, in fact. If a font family displays the same "feel" as an Adobe "original," and if an examination of a set of key characters shows them all to correspond in detail, and if the available range of weights matches that in the Adobe catalog, this catalog assumes the family to be substantially the same. In many instances--particularly among what SSI identifies as "Display" fonts--details differ even though the overall feel and most of the character shapes match an Adobe font. In such cases, the assumption is that the "Adobe original" (which could just as easily have come from any one of a number of digital foundries to whom or from whom Adobe licences typeface designs) has been subjected to some creative diddling. There are a number of faces that don't really match anything in the Adobe catalog. Some are recognizable as shareware faces--often ultimately derived from designs that appeared first for the Mac. Others seem to be derived from familiar fonts by way of software that alters the font's weight. Still others could be original scannings from specimen alphabets, though my own suspicion is that they are more likely to be hybrids created by font-morphing software, possibly with some mix-and-match replacement of individual characters. In such cases, the capital K and Q seem to have been the objects of particular attention. Frankly... Often a font that at first glance appeared to be exactly like an Adobe offering turned out not to match it in certain particulars. Lurking in this catalog there doubtless are other examples whose non-identity I never did perceive. For one thing, I examined the full character sets only on rare occasions when nothing less could answer a nagging question. To have done this with over 1500 fonts would have been beyond the range of practical possibilities. As a result, I can't claim absolute accuracy for anything you read here. All I can claim is that I gave it my best shot; from there on, you're on your own. I will accept no responsibility for errors, or...well, you know how a disclaimer reads. Also, I must be up-front about my own bias. I do some work for WSI (Weatherly Systems, Inc.), which produced the outlines for an earlier KeyFonts Pro CD. There is no question in my mind that, where work can be shown to originate with the respective companies, WSI's is vastly superior to SSI's. This makes it all too easy for me to assume a snide tone when talking about SSI's product. I've tried to keep the tendency under control; doubtless I haven't always succeeded. Read what I say with that in mind. And I must acknowledge Kimble Rigney's role in this project. He supplied both the CD and the challenge that got it under way. Michael Charness came up with a list that gave me a big head-start, and KR added to that list before I'd even begun. Without those boosts--and the public visibility of the ILink DTP conference, in which all this was conducted--I might not have found the determination to see it through. 1555 fonts--sheesh! Method, or Madness? The following may help you understand the significance of what you find in the main body of this catalog. The fundamental tool used to view the SSI fonts was the shareware program Font Monster. The project was begun with version 3.5, which was upgraded to 3.54 part of the way through. The character strings used to check out each face varied somewhat (particularly after the cat walked across my keyboard in overwrite mode) but always included, in addition to the most revealing lower ASCII characters, true quotation marks (Alt-0147 and Alt-0148 on PC ANSI keyboards). The TrueType version of each font was addressed in this way. If there was a problem in loading or viewing the file, the equivalent PostScript font was checked out as well. If the font couldn't be identified from the on-screen sampling, it was installed in the system and a test printout (using a proprietary PageMaker 5 format) made for further study. The basic reference was the Monotype Typeface Library Synopsis Catalog. Since Monotype licenses the full Adobe line, the latter is included therein. The Synopsis Catalog includes full alphabets, along with a selection of points and ligatures, providing a broader basis of comparison than the partial alphabets or brief samples of most catalogs. All of the "original" typeface nomenclature came from this source. First identification of the company to whom the face is proprietary (shown in square brackets in my lists) was made from this catalog as well. Not all fonts have such attributions in the Synopsis Catalog, however. And of course the fonts that derive from shareware or other non-Monotype/Adobe sources are not there either. In such cases, I've picked out whatever references I could find. Bantam's "The Electronic Type Catalog" lists sources for its samples; in a few cases I've used these names as the presumed proprietor of the face. Where older metal faces are involved, I've often referred to "The Seventh Annual Advertising and Production Yearbook" (Colton Press, New York, 1941) and listed the foundry from which the face was then available. In the case of Adobe's Wood Type collections (the digital versions of which are proprietary to Adobe), the original font names come from Rob Roy Kelly's "Wood Type Alphabets" (Dover Publications, New York, l977). Another publication that frequently proved useful in pinning down the more arcane faces, including alternate names for the wood faces, was Dan X. Solo's "Solotype Catalog" (Dover, 1992). The Precision Type, Letraset Fontek, and Image Club typeface catalogs also were useful. And there were many other references that added bits of information in individual cases. The final step was to recheck the attributions of ownership with the "Adobe Type Library: Faces, Prices, and More" catalog, which arrived only after this project was well begun. Where Adobe differs from Monotype in this attribution, Adobe's was adopted. So? All comments should be interpreted as reflecting my opionions and equipment. A font that would not load on my equipment, for instance, may work right on yours. What I think is ugly or awkward you may find intriguing. Or vice versa. The main body of the present catalog lists the SSI fonts on the left, using the font names as reported by Font Monster and including the numbering system built into SSI's filename scheme. The rest of the filename occasionally isn't quite what you'd expect from the font name, but the confusion should be minimal in most cases. To what extent the peculiar redundancy in font names (Light Light, for instance) is due to nonstandard SSI font headers, and to what extent to Font Monster's way of reporting this information, I'm not sure. I decided to keep the reported names as literally as possible because simplifying them obscured some cases where SSI had evidently done something quite illogical. The results may look rather foolish at times, but I hope they help untangle SSI's sometimes Gordian nomenclature. Also to preserve clarity, I've capitalized each distinct term (like "Bold") and set as one word those phrases that likewise are distinct terms ("Extrabold" instead of "extra bold"). On the right in the main body of this catalog are the presumed sources of the SSI fonts. Where the correspondence seemed excellent, I simply listed the font as it is shown by Monotype or whatever other primary source, with the proprietor in square brackets. "[??]" means proprietor unknown. Where identification is not so straightforward, my comments appear in parentheses. When a phrase like "no true quotation marks" appears in a listing, the Alt-0147 and Alt-0148 characters were missing. Occasionally, the wrong character appeared at one of these "addresses," and the fact was noted. Undocumented are the many times in SSI's apparently home-grown display fonts that the quotation marks in the Alt-0147 address are merely a mirror image of the close-quotes in Alt-0148, but not inverted as well. Had I realized earlier that this was a chronic problem and not just a little eccentricity of the first fonts in which it showed up, I would have kept notes. Any note about these quotation marks suggests that before using the font you should look at the character set, and especially at the upper ANSI numbers, to ascertain that it will deliver what you need. Another implied caveat in the lists is "nothing at the lowercase addresses" or "no l.c." Adobe and other professional digital foundries in my experience almost invariably set up their all-caps fonts with the uppercase duplicated at what would normally be the lowercase locations. If you take an upper-and-lower heading and reset it in an all-caps face like Lithos, everything thus will come out fine because the lowercase will automatically be set in caps. Go back to an u&l face like Century, and the lowercase will reappear. Many shareware-font authors are too lazy or too uninformed to observe this nicety, and the absence of anything useable when you type lowercase in an all-caps font strongly suggests less than professional generation. So be warned. The index at the end lists font families only and includes the presumed source face on the left. To get them to alphabetize correctly, faces like Simoncini Garamond are listed inverted: Garamond, Simoncini. Where the identification was problematic or the face only available in an altered form, the SSI listing in the right-hand column is in parentheses. Therefore, if you want as near a match as possible to a given face, look for a listing without parentheses. Anyway, here it is--doubtless complete with omissions, misidentifications, and inevitably some easily identified fonts that I've failed to tag. Bob Long, August 4, 1994 The Catalog SSI font name Monotype (or other) font name =============================== ===================================== Abacus 1 European Pi 4 Abacus 2 European Pi 1 Abacus 3 European Pi 3 Abacus 4 European Pi 2 Abrazo Script 1 (looks like Kaufmann [ATF]) Abrazo Script 2 Italic (extra-slanted Kaufmann; preposterous!) Abrazo Script 3 Bold (looks like Kaufmann Bold [ATF]) Abrazo Script 4 Bold Italic (extra-slanted Kaufmann Bold; ditto!) Academia University Roman [Letraset] Acanthus 1 Galliard [ITC] Acanthus 2 Italic Galliard Italic [ITC] Acanthus 3 Bold Galliard Bold [ITC] Acanthus 4 Bold Italic Galliard Bold Italic [ITC] Acanthus 5 Black Galliard Black [ITC] Acanthus 6 Black Italic Galliard Black Italic [ITC] Acanthus 7 Ultra Galliard Ultra [ITC] Acanthus 8 Ultra Italic Galliard Ultra Italic [ITC] Acanthus 9 Light (no comparable Adobe font?; evidently flawed--examine the a, e, 1, T, P, several others) Acmo Display 1 (Helvetica Neue Condensed 96 [Linotype] ?; Black?; The A doesn't match the rest in size or weight) Acmo Display 2 Italic (Helvetica Neue Cond. 97 Black Oblique [Linotype]?) Adage Display Caps (art nouveau, but unidentified so far; sloppy scan/trace job, so do not use too large; much larger than bounding boxes, which could cause problems in some software and/or layouts; otherwise nice choice of its type; probably 1900-1910) Adera Display 1 (similar to VAG Rounded Black, but bolder and with some differences) Adera Display 2 Italic (no comparable Adobe font) Admisi Display 1 (appears to be either a hybrid or one of several fonts with deliberate changes) Admisi Display 2 Italic (ditto) Advisor 1 Leawood [ITC] Advisor 2 Bold Leawood Bold [ITC] Advisor 3 Italic Leawood Italic [ITC] Advisor 4 Medium Leawood Medium [ITC] Advisor 5 Medium Italic Leawood Medium Italic [ITC] Advisor 6 Black Leawood Black [ITC] Advisor 7 Black Italic Leawood Black Italic [ITC] Aero (similar to Modula Light [??] but rather awkward in some details) Aeterna Caps (decorated germanic dropcaps; not Adobe, probably not pro; caps not replicated at lowercase addresses; more competent scan/trace job than some in this collection; some useful ornaments and borders) Agonic Display (looks like Clarendon Bold [Linotype]) Airfoil Script Charme [Neufville] Alamo Cottonwood [Adobe] (original: Gothic Tuscan Italian [wood]) Alaric American Text [ATF] Ambiente (looks like Fine Hand [Letraset] but no true quotes) Amplio Display Caps (probably not a pro job, since the caps are not duplicated at the lc; almost certainly recent in origin; no true quotation marks) Anakeim Display 1 (looks like Kabel Ultra [ITC]) Anakeim Display 2 Italic (oblique of 1--poorly done) Anatole (looks like Aachen Bold or A*I Egyptian until you get to some details--the slanted top of the A or the taper on the tails of R, K, j, etc.--that don't seem to go with the overall design) Ankura 1 (looks like Novarese Ultra [ITC]) Ankura 2 Italic (slanted Novarese Ultra!! The whole point of Novarese's italic design was the retention of the roman's upright caps; this is an awkward kluge, to my eye) Anticlaire Display 1 (looks like Friz Quadrata Bold [ITC]) Anticlaire Display 2 Italic (derived from 1; poorly done) Antiqua 1 Post Antiqua [Berthold] Antiqua 2 Bold Post Antiqua Bold [Berthold] Antiqua 3 Light (derived from Post Antiqua) Aprille Display Caps Plaza [ITC] Arabesco Script (similar to Linoscript [Linotype] but with many alterations; overall it gives the same feel, and many of the characters are identical or nearly so) Arche Black Condensed 1 (appears to have been "fattened up" from one of the lighter Helvetica Neue Condensed fonts [Linotype], judging by some of the letterforms) Arche Black Condensed 2 Italic (ditto, italic) Arena Caps Delphian Open [Agfa?; originally Ludlow?] Argot Display Caps (modernized art deco, certainly dating from the last 50 years and likely from the last 20; well done; a familiar face, but unidentified) Aria Script (derived from El Greco [??] probably via El Garrett, though there are many simplifications of detail) Art Deco Arnold Boecklin [Linotype] (evidently SSI doesn't know the difference between art deco and art nouveau!) Articula Display Domino [??] Assembly 1 Industria Solid [Linotype] Assembly 2 Alternate (identical to no. 4??; not solid; surely a mistake) Assembly 3 Outline Industria Inline [Linotype] Assembly 4 Outline Alternate (derived from Industria Inline) Astute 1 Rockwell [Monotype] Astute 2 Italic Rockwell Italic [Monotype] Astute 3 Bold Rockwell Bold [Monotype] Astute 4 Bold Italic Rockwell Bold Italic [Monotype] Astute 5 Condensed Rockwell Condensed [Monotype] Astute 6 Condensed Bold Rockwell Bold Condensed [Monotype] Astute 7 Light Rockwell Light [Monotype] Astute 8 Light Italic Rockwell Light Italic [Monotype] Astute 9 Black Rockwell Extra Bold [Monotype] Atlantix 1 Minion [Adobe] Atlantix 2 Italic Minion Italic [Adobe] Atlantix 3 Semibold Minion Semibold [Adobe] Atlantix 4 Semibold Italic Minion Semibold Italic [Adobe] Atlantix 5 Bold Minion Bold [Adobe] Atlantix 6 Bold Italic Minion Bold Italic [Adobe] Atlantix 7 Black Minion Black [Adobe] Atlantix 8 Display Minion Display [Adobe] Atlantix 9 Display Italic Minion Display Italic [Adobe] Atlantix 10 Ornaments Minion Ornaments [Adobe] Atlantix 11 Swash Italic Minion Swash Italic [Adobe] Atl. 12 Swash Semibold Italic Minion Swash Semibold Italic [Adobe] Atl. 13 Swash Display Italic Minion Swash Display Italic [Adobe] Atl. 14 Pro Display Minion Expert Display [Adobe] Atl. 15 Pro Display Italic Minion Expert Display Italic [Adobe] Atl. 16 Pro Minion Expert [Adobe] Atl. 17 Pro Italic Minion Expert Italic [Adobe] Atl. 18 Pro Semibold Minion Expert Semibold [Adobe] Atl. 19 Pro Semibold Italic Minion Expert Semibold Italic [Adobe] Atl. 20 Pro Black Bold [sic!] Minion Expert Bold [Adobe] Atl. 21 Pro Black Bold Italic Minion Expert Bold Italic [Adobe] Atl. 22 Pro Black Black Minion Expert Black [Adobe] Austere 1 Lithos [Adobe] Austere 2 Bold Lithos Bold [Adobe] Austere 3 Light Extra Light [!] Lithos Extra Light [Adobe] Austere 4 Light Light Lithos Light [Adobe] Austere 4 Black Black Lithos Black [Adobe] Automaton 1 Machine Bold [ITC] Automaton 2 Light Machine [ITC] Aver Display (appears to be Antique Olive [Olive] manipulated; no quotation marks) Axiomatic 1 Garth Graphic [Agfa] Axiomatic 2 Italic Garth Graphic Italic [Agfa] Axiomatic 3 Bold Garth Graphic Bold [Agfa] Axiomatic 4 Bold Italic Garth Graphic Bold Italic [Agfa] Axiomatic 5 Black Extra Bold Garth Graphic Extra Bold [Agfa] Axiomatic 6 Black Black Garth Graphic Black [Agfa] Axiomatic 7 Condensed Garth Graphic Condensed [Agfa] Axiomatic 8 Condensed Bold Garth Graphic Bold Condensed [Agfa] Azote (Benguiat Book [ITC]?) Baguet Display Caps (an original font?; awkward in conception but clean in execution; no "lower case" characters and no quotation marks) Ballista Display Script (modernized "old english") Banga Dom Casual [Linotype] Banta Display (KR identified this as Mr. Big, a font unknown to me, I'm not at all sorry to say) Barbe Display 1 (modernized version of a deco font like Broadway; interesting idea inconsistently applied) Barbe Display 2 Italic (ditto, in italics) Barbe Display 3 Condensed (ditto, compounded) Barrister 1 Belwe Medium [Letraset] Barrister 2 Bold Belwe Bold [Letraset] Barrister 3 Condensed Belwe Condensed [Letraset] Barrister 4 Light Belwe Light [Letraset] Barracon Eightball [??] Baryon Display 1 (very much like Novarese Bold or Ultra [ITC], with minor changes) Baryon Display 2 Italic (very like Novarese Bold Italic [ITC] but bolder and with caps that are slanted but less than the l.c.) Baskerville 1 ITC New Baskerville [ITC] Baskerville 2 Italic ITC New Baskerville Italic [ITC] Baskerville 3 Semibold ITC New Baskerville Bold [ITC] Baskerville 4 Semibold Italic ITC New Baskerville Bold Italic [ITC] Baskerville 5 Light (no Adobe equivalent?) Baskerville 6 Light Italic (no Adobe equivalent?) B'ville 7 Black Bold (no Adobe equivalent?) B'ville 8 Black Bold Italic (no Adobe equivalent?) B'ville 9 Small Caps ITC New Baskerville SC & OSF [ITC] B'ville 10 Bold Small Caps