Free Fonts?

[RyanBWeddle]

Does anyone have any links to some good period fonts?

Script / Cursive fonts in particular?

[paulcalloway]

Re: Free Fonts?

Ryan -

There are some free font sites online where you can find some reasonable fascimiles of period fonts. You have to put up with a lot of pop-up ads, but you can find em. Here's some standard fonts that are very documentable to the Civil War.

Times
Times New Roman
Modern
Clarendon

Waldon Fonts sells a real nice package that I'm wanting to get at http://www.waldenfont.com/products/cwp/cwp.asp - for $39 you'd get just about anything you could ever want.

You can also find some really neat fonts at www.oldfonts.com and www.texashero.com - I own the Houston Pen font but unfortunately I can't distribute it.

If you find fonts in the public doman, please feel free to upload them here and we'll archive them.

Incidentally, once you get fonts, you need to put them in your c:\windows\fonts\ directory and they should show up in your programs... although, you may have to close/open your programs to reload the new fonts.

[Possum Skinner]

Re: Free Fonts?

Another little warning which you may already know. If you send a document to someone, or use them on a web-page, the person receiving or looking at the document or page will not be able to read it unless they have the font installed as well.

[ThehosGendar]

Re: Free Fonts?

Texas Hero, Schooner Script, and Houston Pen are the three period script fonts that are widely available. Walden Font's Civil War pack is good as well, but, in my opinion, have been nearly overused by units, webpages, and sutler catalogues.

In addition to the fonts that Paul mentioned, 'Century Schoolbook' and 'Modern No. 20' are two other fonts which closely duplicates the body typefaces used in mid-19th century books. That particular typeface hasn't been duplicated as of yet, and the conrast between modern and original is still notable, as there are differences in how the numbers and several letters appear in italics.

If you're using the script fonts as a signature, I'd say rather than that, pick up a Spencerian penmanship primer and learn how to write it.

[Clark Badgett]

Re: Free Fonts?

Ryan, learning to write as they did isn't that difficult. The biggest difference is how they made their capital letters. Most of the lower case letters looked the same as how we write in modern script. And judging from old documents they couldn't always write legibly anyway.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Free Fonts?

Ryan, learning to write as they did isn't that difficult. The biggest difference is how they made their capital letters. Most of the lower case letters looked the same as how we write in modern script. And judging from old documents they couldn't always write legibly anyway.

One way to learn how to write in a 19th century is to learn as they did, using copybook and practice. If anyone is interested, check out our website for sets of "Spencerian Copy Books" which were originally copyrighted in 1864 but were in use much earlier. Sales for copybooks were noted in a number of store ledgers.

I've taken Copperplate classes for a number of years and it differes from Spencerian. There were not spencerian classes in my area so I learned from using the copybooks. In the mid-west there are spencerian classes. Learing from the copybooks is not that difficult, just repetitive (just like it was when I learned to write initially in grade school by using copybooks).

Not everyone handwriting in the 19th century was copybook perfect but when one studies the different styles there are similarites in how the letters were made.

[RyanBWeddle]

Re: Free Fonts?

One way to learn how to write in a 19th century is to learn as they did, using copybook and practice. If anyone is interested, check out our website for sets of "Spencerian Copy Books" which were originally copyrighted in 1864 but were in use much earlier. Sales for copybooks were noted in a number of store ledgers.

I've taken Copperplate classes for a number of years and it differes from Spencerian. There were not spencerian classes in my area so I learned from using the copybooks. In the mid-west there are spencerian classes. Learing from the copybooks is not that difficult, just repetitive (just like it was when I learned to write initially in grade school by using copybooks).

Not everyone handwriting in the 19th century was copybook perfect but when one studies the different styles there are similarites in how the letters were made.

Thanks for the tips. I really wanted some good 'freeware' for a website I'm throwing together . . . I'll keep searching . . .

Thanks, I know how to write and thought about doing that and scanning it in, but a good free font would be a time saver.

RW

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Free Fonts?

Does anyone have any links to some good period fonts?

Script / Cursive fonts in particular?

Ryan,

Try this, the UVA English Dept.
Some great downloads there.
This will give you their contact infomation.

http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/index.html#fonts

I doubt the fonts available on the page you open will be of any help to you, but again it provides a contact point.