Cambria (typeface)
 | |
| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Transitional[1] |
| Designer(s) | Jelle Bosma,Steve Mattesonand Robin Nicholas Cambria Math: Jelle Bosma, Ross Mills, John Hudson,Geraldine Wade,Mike Duggan, Greg Hitchcock, Andrei Burago, Vivek Garg |
| Foundry | Microsoft,Tiro Typeworks(Cambria Math) |
| Date released | 2005 |
| License | Proprietary |
Cambriais a transitionalseriftypeface commissioned by Microsoft and distributed withWindowsandOffice.It was designed byDutchtypeface designerJelle Bosma in 2004, with input fromSteve Mattesonand Robin Nicholas. It is intended as a serif font that is suitable for body text, that is very readable printed small or displayed on a low-resolution screen and has even spacing and proportions.[2]
It is part of theClearType Font Collection,a suite of fonts from various designers released withWindows Vista.All start with the letterCto reflect that they were designed to work well with Microsoft'sClearTypetext rendering system, a text rendering engine designed to make text clearer to read onLCDmonitors. The other fonts in the same group areCalibri,Candara,Consolas,ConstantiaandCorbel.
Design
[edit]Diagonal and vertical hairlines and serifs are relatively strong, while horizontal serifs are small and intend to emphasize stroke endings rather than stand out themselves. This principle is most noticeable in theitalicswhere the lowercase characters are subdued in style. It is somewhat more condensed than average for a font of its kind.[3]A profile of Bosma for the Monotype website commented: "One of the defining features of the typeface is its contrast between heavy vertical serifs and hairlines—which keep the font sturdy, and ensures the design is preserved at small sizes—and its relatively thin horizontals, which ensure the typeface remains crisp when used at larger sizes." Bosma describes it as a "transitionalslab-serifhybrid. "[1]
Many aspects of the design are somewhat blocky to render well on screen, andfull stopsare square rather than round. Designers have recommended avoiding using it in printed text because of this: designerMatthew Butterickdescribed it as too monotonous to be attractive on paper.[4]Bosma compared it tooptical sizes of fontsdesigned to be printed small: "The design is a bit like an old metal type font. In those days sizes had their own drawing, so that small sizes are wider and have a lower contrast compared to large fonts in the same design: optical correction. In this sense, Cambria is like a small size font, except that it may also be used at large sizes."
As with the other ClearType fonts, bothliningfigures andtext figuresare offered. Lining figures are the default, and are shown on the sample image.
Cambria Math
[edit]This is a variant designed for mathematical and scientific texts, as a replacement forTimes New Roman.Cambria Math was the first font to implement theOpenType mathextension, itself inspired byTeX.Led byJelle Bosmaof Agfa Monotype andRoss Millsof Tiro Typeworks, the project was planned when development of Cambria had started, but Cambria Math was developed in three stages.[5]
Availability
[edit]
Cambria is distributed with allWindowsversions sinceWindows Vista,allMicrosoft Officeversions sinceMicrosoft Office 2007for Windows and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, and Microsoft Office 2007 viewers and converters. Cambria (Regular) and Cambria Math are packaged together as aTrueTypeCollection (TTC) file. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac does not include Cambria Math, asOMMLis not supported. Therefore, the Macintosh version of Cambria is packaged as individual TrueType Font (TTF) files, rather than a single TTC file.
This font, along withCalibri,Candara,Consolas,CorbelandConstantia,is also distributed with MicrosoftExcel Viewer,Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer,[6][7]theMicrosoft OfficeCompatibility Pack[8]for Microsoft Windows and the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac.[9]For use in other operating systems, such asLinux,cross-platform use and web use it is not available as a freeware.
The typeface is licensed byAscender Corporationfor use by end users and consumer electronics device manufacturers. The typeface is also licensed byMonotype Imagingto printer manufacturers as part of the Vista 8 Font Set package.
Caladea
[edit]In 2013, as part ofChrome,Googlereleased afreely-licensedfont calledCaladea,which ismetric-compatibleto Cambria (i.e. can replace it in a document without changing the layout).[10]It is based on Cambo, a font developed by the Argentine type foundry Huerta Tipográfica. Despite being metric-compatible, Caladea covers much smaller language range, e.g. it doesn't supportCyrillic,Greekand advanced typographic features likeligatures,old style numeralsorfractions.
Usages
[edit]Cambria Math is used for presentation ofOffice MathMLequations in Microsoft Office 2007 and later.
The free typesetting systemsXeTeXandLuaTeXcan make direct use of Cambria Math as an alternative to traditionalTeXmathematical fonts.[11][12]
Cambria is available for use in Google's Google Drive suite of web applications.
- Used as the default font for most document typing applications.
Technical standards published byCENuse Cambria 11pt for body text.[13]One example of such a standard isEN 301 549,European Standard for Digital Accessibility.
See also
[edit]- Asana-Math– the first free font that could be used instead of Cambria Math with Microsoft Office 2007.
- Latin Modern– a version of Computer Modern with support for OpenType math
- Neo Euler– a version of AMS Euler with support for OpenType math
- XITS– a fork of the STIX fonts with support for OpenType math
References
[edit]- ^abBosma, Jelle (22 March 2018)."Classifying Cambria (comments on discussion thread)".Type Drawers.Retrieved10 October2018.
- ^"Profile of Jelle Bosma".Monotype. Archived fromthe originalon 2014-10-31.Retrieved2014-11-25.
- ^Levien, Raph."Microsoft's ClearType Font Collection: A Fair and Balanced Review".Typographica.Retrieved24 November2014.
- ^Butterick, Matthew."Cambria alternatives".Butterick's Practical Typography.Retrieved24 November2014.
- ^Rhatigan, Daniel (September 2007)."Three Typefaces for Mathematics - The development of Times 4-line Mathematics Series 569, AMS Euler, and Cambria Math"(PDF).University of Reading. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on December 29, 2009.Retrieved2009-01-03.
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)See alsovideo recording of presentation at TUG 2008Archived2014-08-27 at theWayback Machine - ^"Download Excel Viewer from Official Microsoft Download Center".Microsoft.
- ^"Download PowerPoint Viewer from Official Microsoft Download Center".Microsoft.
- ^"Download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats from Official Microsoft Download Center".Microsoft.
- ^"Download Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.2.1 from Official Microsoft Download Center".Microsoft. Archived fromthe originalon 2013-05-05.Retrieved2013-02-19.
- ^"A thank you to Google from Desktop Linux".GNOME Blog.10 October 2013.
- ^M. Goossens (Ed.) (2008)The XeTeX Companion: TeX meets OpenType and Unicode,p. 90
- ^LuaTeX reference manualArchived2010-07-17 at theWayback Machine
- ^"CEN Simple Template — Quick Start Guide"(PDF).RetrievedJuly 1,2024.
External links
[edit]
- Microsoft Typography:Cambria,Cambria Math
- Microsoft Cleartype Font Collectionat Microsoft Typography
- Van Wagener, Anne (2005-03-04)."The Next Big Thing in Online Type".Poynter Online. Archived fromthe originalon 2006-06-04.Retrieved2006-06-05.
- Tiro Typeworks projectscontains Cambria
- High-Quality Editing and Display of Mathematical Text in Office 2007
- Cambria Math specimen
- Garamond Math– a version ofEB Garamondwith support for OpenType math
- Libertinus Math– a version ofLibertinuswith support for OpenType math
