DE19743690A1 - Computerized selection of print characters in printing process - Google Patents

Abstract

Print characters for a range of different types of printed products are defined by various characteristics stored in a computer memory. The characteristics are arranged in groups, e.g. font type, language, print form etc. Access is provided by a programmed search procedure that responds to entered search criteria. A comparison is carried out to identify the required characteristics for a printing requirement.

Description

The present invention relates to a method for selecting fonts from a plurality of different publications for the production of printed products.

It is today a variety of fonts, also called fonts, in the market, the sometimes very different. These writings are in font families summarized, each with specific names and of certain Designers come who designed these fonts. It for one Text designer, who should create a printed product, difficult, the correct font ever according to field of application and characteristics of the fonts d. H. for the particular job Opt for optimal. So far, the search for a font was after Font names, designer names and a simple classification performed. This type of selection of fonts or even the selection Fonts pattern books was not satisfactory and often not optimal, as many for the design of the printed product important criteria out of consideration remained.

Since on the one hand a multiplicity of similar writings exists, it is also common A matter of taste, which writing the text designer in the case of him selected task in a particular field of application. The Selection of the font depends very often on this application, the Areas of application such as book typography, Newspapers, magazines, magazines, cards, Correspondence typography, screen typography, multimedia or online applications. Always the result is a specially designed, on the respective Case tuned printed product. A printed product is not just about good readability of the text but u. a. to stylistic characteristics, historical Aspects such as the epoch of formation, dimensions of the script, such as widths or mid-lengths, Greases, inclination, ascender, descender and x-height or special serif forms. Because of the variety of fonts available on the market this is for the Text designers a difficult task, since he often only a few writings for Has available and would have to look at a lot of writings, but he does not have to Has available. Also, the number of criteria by which to choose can be limited. He can only compare visually, which makes him shortlisted is difficult and other factors than the visual impression often except Keep in mind. Overall, this selection is a very time consuming process Procedure that did not always end with the optimal result.  

The present invention is based on the object, the text designer Tools to hand, the right font for the job, d. H. to find the printed product easy, fast and safe and easy to record as many important criteria as possible.

The invention achieves this by the specified in claim 1. Characteristics. Advantageous developments are in the dependent claims 2 to. , , described. The invention will be described below with reference to some examples and a Manual of the font specially designed for the selection Program, preferably on a personal computer with a special developed user interface explains.

In the following are one or more of the invention search or Selection criteria are listed by which the fonts can be selected. In addition, the range of possible results is adjustable and the Results can be listed for the production of the printed product. The following general search criteria can be searched according to the invention become:

Search for "standard" features

alphabetically by font name, designer name, volume no. etc. languages and special characters
Fonts (Serif, Sansserif, Fraktur, Script, Decorative etc.)
Application type, such as book, newspaper, maps, multimedia etc.
"search function" after key input (contains string).

Search for "advanced" characteristics

weights
banking
"stretch" shapes, such as normal, condensed, extended, etc.
ascender
descender
X-Height
stylistic features
serif

Aesthetic characteristics

elegant - rustic, female - male,
cheap - expensive, warm - cold, etc.

As a result, the fonts are displayed in a list on the screen containing the set selection criteria and the set bandwidth next come. You can get the fonts on screen in a true to the original Display playback and additionally on a printer in one have limited character set output. This expression contains besides the Font names for the different platforms more font-related Information about designers and trademarks.  

In addition to these general search criteria, you can search for more specific criteria to optimize the printed product. For this purpose it is necessary to categorize the fonts according to characteristics and areas of application. Such a method for selecting fonts according to fields of application and properties requires according to the invention a classification of the fonts into different font-specific groups and an evaluation of the fonts according to measurable and aesthetic criteria. To explain such a categorization, the following are some font-specific features, which in the following example are divided into font-specific groups and subgroups:

Font-specific groups: Subgroup: Writing genres: Sans serif Serif Script scripts (Script) Decorative Broken Letters Special shapes: Handtooled ornamented Outlined Shaded monospaced Initials / Tiltings Fonts: Expert set Oldstyle Figures (OsF) Small Caps (SC) Broken Letters (DFR) Initials / Tiltings Special characters and symbols: Border Dingbats Game Mathematic Ornaments Phonetic Languages: Western film Central European Cyrillic Greek hebrew arabic Applications: book newspaper cards letters multimedia serif: square Round, etc. Historical classification: 3000 b. C. , , , 2000 a. C. or finer subdivision

The listed groups or subgroups allow a unique Assignment of the individual font to the respective characteristics. According to the invention can be derived from the fact that the search with predetermined lists for each Group or subgroup is performed.

In addition to these categories, the invention proposes others To introduce evaluation criteria that will help them to get even better results Distinction to other fonts is made possible. These evaluation criteria can be subdivided into further groups, according to the invention distinguishes between measurable and aesthetic groups.

Measurable groups Unit of measurement Width of a serif form: pixel units Height of a serif form: pixel units fats: pixel units Skew: Degree Tracking: pixel units Ascender (Ascender) @ Ratio of f - height to height H: f - height / H - height Descender (descender) @ Length of the lower slope of g: pixel units Ratio of x - height to height - height: x - height / H - height

Aesthetic groups
Exquisite ↔ Everyday: Value between 0 and 6
Warm ↔ cold: value between 0 and 6
Cheap ↔ Expensive: Value between 0 and 6
Feminine ↔ Masculine: Value between 0 and 6
Static ↔ Dynamic: Value between 0 and 6

As can be seen from this, there are properties that arise from the given Let fonts be calculated d. H. the group of measurable characteristics and such  which are subject to an artistic evaluation, as in the group of aesthetic characteristics are listed (Exquisite to Dynamic).

According to the invention, there are several solutions to the tables to create an optimal and selection for the user.

The first proposed solution makes use of the static lists of Categorization groups. The lists become an intersection with each other educated. For this solution, Example 1 is given below.

example 1 For selection of fonts according to application areas and properties List of selection # 1: (eg mustard)

Font Nr .: Affiliation: 0 - is not Serif / 1 is Serif 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8th 0 9 0

List of selection No. 2: (eg Western)

Font Nr .: Affiliation: 0 - is not Western / 1 is Western 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 1 6 1 7 1 8th 1 9 1

The fonts of the result with the value two are the intersection of the required selection.

If another selection is "added" the result value increases to three and only the fields with this value yield the intersection.

Another solution is to additionally operate them Selections. This makes it possible by "subtracting the respective list to get to the previous intersection, which is based on the Example 2. is shown.

Example 2 For selection of fonts according to application areas and properties

Another font selection solution uses a rating of Characteristics of the fonts. Here, a default is given as the input value for the respective selection and for and a legal deviation percent made. In this example, we give a default of the 10 ° skew percentage deviation made a maximum of 5%. The range of skew of -24 ° to 36 °, d. H. Max. Deviation (MaxDelta) in units is | (-24 ° to + 36 °) | = 60 °.  

From the list of degrees for the skew of all fonts will be for each Font determines the deviation in degrees to the default (10 °). The deviation is divided by the square root of the square of the individual deviation by the square root of the square of the maximum deviation (60 °).

For only one selection - namely degree - the quotient results Individual deviation divided by maximum deviation.

For several selections, the following results:

• 1. For each individual selection, the squares of the individual deviations are formed.
  The squares of the individual deviations are summed individually for each font.
• 2. The maximum deviations are squared for each selection and summed.

The deviation is now divided by the square root of step 1 through step 2.  

Starting from the input value, a table with the Fonts are created dynamically, whose deviation is less than the predetermined deviation is.

Thus, a selection can be achieved with a determinable blur. The selection becomes more specific depending on the size of the deviation Property, with other properties being only partially true have to.

One can optimally use this, by the two described types of Selection combined.

For a better explanation of the invention and the examples will be in the following Embodiment described a program with which the inventive method on a personal computer (PC) under Use of a user interface specially developed for this purpose can be executed. Other embodiments of such a program and other adapted user interfaces are also within the framework of Invention lie. The name of the program is "Linotype Library just in Time Browser 7.0 ". The description starts on the following page.

The "Linotype Library" to which the program refers is one Fonts library in which a large number of fonts is stored on a CD. For carrying out the invention are for each scripture the above stored features, so that the program on the CD in Connection with the assignment of these features to the relevant font the individual selection criteria can access to, by the operator input given the optimal font for a job to create a Select print product.  

Claims (9)

Method for selecting fonts from a plurality of different fonts for producing a printed product using a computer and a selection program stored in the computer, characterized
that the fonts are stored in digitized form on a data carrier which can be read by means of the computer
that each font is assigned at least one table in which a plurality of features are entered as search criteria and that the table or tables is stored together with the writing on the data carrier,
that by means of the input keyboard of the computer for the font to be selected for a print job the features characteristic of the print job are entered,
that the tables of all the fonts stored on the medium are examined in accordance with the entered characteristics,
in that the selection program in the computer creates, with the help of the features stored in the tables and the characteristics entered, a list of fonts in which the fonts are entered, in which a match of the entered characteristics with features stored in the tables is found,
that the fonts in the list are sorted by number of matches of features,
that one of the fonts selected from the list and that the desired print product is created with this font. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the writings on stored on the disk, in terms of their typographic Characteristics are measured and that the measured data of the typographic Features in the respective on the disk for the font in question stored table are stored 3. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that each on the Disk stored font aesthetic characteristics are assigned and that these aesthetic features in the respective, on the disk for the relevant font stored table or in a separate table, which is associated with the relevant font, are stored, 4. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the on the Data carrier stored typefaces are assigned to operational areas and the Fields of application in the respective, on the data carrier for the concerned writing stored table or in a separate table, the one concerned Font is assigned to be stored 5. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the on the Media stored fonts can be assigned historical epochs and the respective historical epoch in the respective, on the disk for the relevant font stored table or in a separate table, which is assigned to the relevant font is stored,   6. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the names of the font stored on the disk on the disk in the for the table stored in a particular font or in a separate table, the associated with the relevant font are stored. 7. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the on the Disk stored fonts the names of the designers assigned who created this font and the names of the designers on the disk in the table stored for the font in question or in a separate table associated with the particular font, be stored. 8. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the on the Disk stored fonts can be divided into font groups and that belonging to a font group as a feature in the respective, on the spreadsheet for the font in question or in a separate table associated with the particular font is stored. 9. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the on the Disk stored fonts after a typographical Classifications are classified and that belonging to one typographic class as a feature in the respective, on the disk for the relevant font stored table or in a separate table, which is associated with the relevant font, is stored.