Technical & legal background using copyrighted fonts in custom road signs in PowerPoint

In article , Chaya Eve
wrote:

Given that a road-sign font is far more complex than most users here seem
to realize,

particularly you.

I think that Mac-only font would fail for so many reasons that
it wouldn't even be funny - but I'm willing to see a side-by-side
comparison of the Mac font against the Roadside Geek font any time.

macs use industry standard fonts, which means that no matter what font
you choose, it will work on either platform.

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 00:03:31 -0400, nospam wrote:

macs use industry standard fonts, which means that no matter what font
you choose, it will work on either platform.

A road-sign font is a specific type of font for a specific use.
https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/pixymbols/highway-gothic/

"If it sounds trivial, remember that picking a font for a road sign is
very different from picking a font for a brochure."
https://qz.com/605695/font-designers...highway-signs/

Basic road-sign font considerations are halation, night-time and speed
legibility (especially when tight interstices are involved),
cutout-integrity, removal of tiny notches in joints of the letterforms,
negative spacing compactness (affecting legibility of signs in
negative-contrast color orientations), common symbols, etc., all resulting
in an increase in accuracy, viewing distance, and reaction time.

One other font that I'm exploring is the official "Highway Gothic font",
which I'm trying to find the official location for since it should be a
free font commonly available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Gothic

Here are some sources for a Highway Gothic Font, although I'm not sure
which is the "official" Highway Gothic Font download.

https://www.fontyukle.net/en/Highway+Gothic.ttf
http://www.dafont.com/highway-gothic.font
http://www.fontgala.com/highway-goth...t-download2862
http://fonts.webtoolhub.com/?prefix=highway+gothic
http://josoholucogegagoce.ga/88e56c6...oad-1d3264e24e
http://www.fonts2k.com/font/Highway-Gothic
http://www.fontspace.com/category/highway%20gothic

As long as the font is a specific road-sign font, it doesn't matter to me
which one it is, as long as it can be embedded into PowerPoint on both the
Mac and Windows where that document is compatible across the platforms.

At the moment, nobody has proposed even close to a better solution that
meets the requirements than the following:

FONT: Any freely distributable road-sign font:
* For the Mac users, there is no choice but to provide the font
* For the Windows users, PowerPoint works fine with embedded fonts

SOFTWA Any slide editor that is commonly already on most systems:
* PowerPoint is the only one that meets this requirement

If you know of a better road-sign font (including arrows), let us know.
If you know of better common slide-editing software, let us know.

On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 23:03:06 -0400, Mayayana
wrote:

If the author is not experienced with HTML there
are plenty of free "wysiwyg" HTML editors. But it
does require some experience to get the page design
to behave.

There is no way HTML editors are going to be as universal and already well
known and as easy as simply typing the letters into Microsoft PowerPoint.

If they are, you'll have to name the HTML editor that is already on most
Macs and Windows machines that most people already know how to use.

On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 23:17:18 -0400, Mayayana
wrote:

I'm sorry if I've started a wild goose chase. I didn't
catch the part where you needed everyone to be able
to edit it. I thought you were writing and just needed
many people on different systems to be able to view it.

Yes. The signs are custom. Everyone needs to edit it.
Otherwise PDF with embedded fonts would have worked.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend Word. I was just
saying that more people have Word.

I'm not against any software but Word is much harder, IMHO, to create
slides than Powerpoint which is designed for slides.

I'm all ears if there is a common software product that is on most macs and
windows machines that everyone already has and knows how to use, but you
can't just shoot down PowerPoint without proposing something better just as
you can't propose a Mac font when it won't even come close to doing what a
roadsign font does.

I guess it's really you who knows best. If everyone
really does have, and is adept at, PPT then that does
seem to be your obvious choice. Then I guess you'd
have to tell the Mac people to install the font.

While I only deal with well educated people, I don't think I've met a
person in my life who didn't know how to use PowerPoint.

Do they exist? Sure.
But anyone who owns a computer generally can use PowerPoint.

Besides, even if they can't - they'd be in the minority since nobody has
proposed a better common solution for custom sign editing.

I'm not clear about the needs of the project. If I
needed to print a sign I'd do it as a BMP in Paint
Shop Pro or some similar graphic program.

Printing is the least of the problems.

The font is designed for stick-on letters (for example, the hole in the "A"
is small so that it doesn't tear easily) but other than the font being
designed for printing on signs, the printing itself is easy.

The goal has been stated numerous times, but summarized it is to create a
process so that anyone can take the single document alone, and edit it and
print it to get a street-legal standards-compliant custom road sign.

We have easily met this requirement on Windows.

It's impossible to meet this requirement on the Mac, so we had to figure
that out first, and then once we realized the limitations of the Mac, we
had to add another step to the process.

Because the Mac PowerPoint can't handle embedding in any way shape or form,
we are stuck with an incompatible document. Blame Microsoft, not me.


I have
a brother who does signs. He generally uses a vinyl
plotter.

That's what we'll be using. Vinyl letters that stick onto the signs as a
form. I don't know the exact process but the Graphics Arts teacher pointed
out the equipment to me so I think that's how it's done.

But I assume you have a low budget and
you're just going to print out letters on a piece
of printing paper.

Nope. The Graphics Arts class at the local school is going to print the
vinyl letters for all the residents. In addition, the students will make
their own custom keep-out signs, and the process will be repeated each
year.

I'm writing up the project plan. In the graphics arts class they use
Photoshop, and Illustrator and Design, but most residents won't have that,
so that's what dictates the use of PowerPoint instead.

If that's the case then just about
any graphic editor should do it. Paint.Net and GIMP
are both free... Then again, I might just be introducing
another wild goose chase. Graphic editors have other
limitations.

The constraint is that most residents need to be able to just pick up and
go without training. PowerPoint serves that need the best. Certainly better
than The Gimp and Paint.NET (which also requires .NET Framework
installation).

If we were going to use a graphics program, we'd use one of the Adobe
products that the school already uses. But the residents won't have them so
it doesn't fit the requirement of customization by the residents.

For instance, everyone would then need
to install the font and a layout would probably
be redone more easily than edited. I don't see
why they can't just all download and install the font,
but you're the only one who knows all the requirements
of this project.

The original goal of one document does all works fine on Windows.
It's the Mac limitations that screwed up the original simple plan.

On 2017-09-11 02:57:42 +0000, Chaya Eve said:
On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 13:57:09 +1200, Your Name wrote:

There are no guaranteed apps that are capable of what is required by
the person who posted the original questions.

You all bring up good points but you have to PICK SOMETHING so if it's not
MS Office, what is it that is editable that is also WYSIWYG on both Mac and
PC that everyone already has and knows how to use?

If not MS Office, then what?

One of the free, cross-platform office app suites might be a better
choice, then at if they don't have it, it is at least free for them to
install. Of course, most of them can open PowerPoint documents anyway,
so they could still do that if they want to. On new-ish Macs, Apple's
Keynote presentation app is free and can open PowerPoint documents
already. Although, any app claiming to be compatible with anything else
isn't always 100% so.

BUT, you are still left with the font problem. I don't think there are
any identical default fronts which are installed on both Windows and
MacOS either, so there's no way around that.

One potential way around all of it would be to use an online office
suite like Google Docs, but they do need to have their computers
connected to the internet (some schools may not do that with their lab
computers so that kids can't muck around in Twitbook or whatever
instead of doing their school work).

On 2017-09-11 03:03:06 +0000, Mayayana said:
"Your Name" wrote
|
| HTML. And fonts can be embedded, base 64 encoded.
| There may be a size limit. I'm not sure about that.
|
| But you still need an app to be able to edit the HTML ... easily, so
| that rules out manually tweaking the underlying code in a text editor.

All that's required is a text editor. HTML and CSS
are plain text. But it does require that the author
know HTML well enough to get the layout they want.
And all the reecipients are guaranteed to be able
to load and read an HTML file. Images can also be
embedded as base 64. HTML is by far the most
adaptable format for graphical pages that need
to display on any system.

If the author is not experienced with HTML there
are plenty of free "wysiwyg" HTML editors. But it
does require some experience to get the page design
to behave.

Yep, that's why I said "easily". Using HTML would likely make the whole
thing more difficult than using PowerPoint. :-)

On 2017-09-11 03:27:41 +0000, Mayayana said:

"Your Name" wrote

| It's just another of the ridiculous stupidities in the eduction system
| these days.
|
| In last week's newspaper they were complaining about kids becoming
| worse at the basics of reading, writing, mathematics ... it's these
| basic skills, taught properly and normally, that schools should be
| teaching, and teaching properly. Not playing around about on a laptop /
| tablet, not playing silly sports, and not sticking their noses into
| what kids have in their lunchboxes.
|

There was a fascinating and shocking article
last week in the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/t...hers-tech.html

(Requires cookies enabled.)

Tech companies seducing teachers into being salespeople
for their stuff. What really surprises me (in addition to the
sheer arrogance and sleaze of MS/Apple/Facebook/Google/etc)
is that no one is overseeing these things. Why is a company
like Google able to deal directly with teachers? Why don't
their salespeople have to go through state-level administrators
to get gadgets into classrooms? Maybe those people are
all so hypnotized by tech that they just don't think about
what they're doing.

My ladyfriend is a retired kindergarten teacher. She used
to be forced to get Macs in order to use Federal funding to
get things like tables and shelving. The Macs just sat in
the corner, unsuitable for 5-6 year olds but assigned to
her classroom and thus not eligible to be put to use
elsewhere. I'm guessing it was Steve Jobs's lobbyists who
are to thank for that.

What happens here in New Zealand is that kids are given speficic
stationery lists, and the schools get a kick-back from the stationery
stores. The same happens with school uniforms and the parents buying
laptops / tablets.

In many cases the schools also say they "prefer" the kids to have
iPads, rather than a cheaper Android tablet.

On 2017-09-11 03:17:18 +0000, Mayayana said:

"Chaya Eve" wrote

| If not PowerPoint, then what do you suggest that is already on everyone's
| computer and which they know well and which can edit the slides as needed?
|

I'm sorry if I've started a wild goose chase. I didn't
catch the part where you needed everyone to be able
to edit it. I thought you were writing and just needed
many people on different systems to be able to view it.
snip

Viewing (and printing) ... just use a PDF. Even if they don't have a
PDF reader, the Adobe Reader can be downloaded for free, as can many
other readers.

Of course, like everything else, nothing is guaranteed to be *100%*
compatible, even with PDFs. For example, the PDFs I create from Adobe
InDesign. They look fine in Adobe Acrobat and Reader, but can have
wierd glitches in MacOS's in-built Preview app (and even wierder
glitches when printing them) ... BUT with my el cheapo printer, Preview
will print a proper A4, while Acrobat and Reader insist on having a
strange margin at the bottom of the page (so documents have to be
either cropped or scaled to fit).

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:40:26 +1200, Your Name wrote:

BUT, you are still left with the font problem. I don't think there are
any identical default fronts which are installed on both Windows and
MacOS either, so there's no way around that.

You bring up a point that there may not even be any identical fonts common
to the Mac & Windows - surprising as that may be - but even so - there is
no road-sign specific font on either platform anyway.

The beauty of the Windows method is that the users don't have to know
anything about fonts. The document just works.

The problem with the Mac method is that the limitations imposed on
PowerPoint being less capable on the Mac means that the user has to deal
with the font specifically.

It's not a big deal at this point because it's a limitation of the Mac that
just has to be overcome.

One potential way around all of it would be to use an online office
suite like Google Docs, but they do need to have their computers
connected to the internet (some schools may not do that with their lab
computers so that kids can't muck around in Twitbook or whatever
instead of doing their school work).

As we all noted, there is no one slide-editing software that is guaranteed
to be on all Macs and Windows machines so whatever we choose will be a
compromise.

Google docs has its own set of compromises around font issues too. :=(

In article ,
Chaya Eve wrote:

On Sun, 10 Sep 2017 18:59:56 -0600, "Andre G. Isaak"
wrote:

I downloaded the font in question. If you want to teach the kids how to
'do the job right' this font is really not a good choice. The quality of
the outlines is horrible. Plus Mac OS already includes a well-designed
font specifically designed for signs (DIN), so why not just use that
instead?

If you can suggest a better font, I'm all ears.

However I'm not sure what you mean by "the quality of those outlines".
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/09/11/chaya0.jpg

What I mean would be most apparent if you open the font in a
font-editing program such as FontLab and look at the actual outlines.
The lowercase o and u would be good characters to look at. Also, a
number of characters (e.g. ae, oe, thorn, eth, the quotation marks)
appear to be taken from an entirely different typeface. Finally, the
font lacks many fairly important kerning pairs.

But, I suppose, you get what you pay for.

Andre

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail service.

On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 01:43:29 -0600, "Andre G. Isaak"
wrote:

What I mean would be most apparent if you open the font in a
font-editing program such as FontLab and look at the actual outlines.
The lowercase o and u would be good characters to look at. Also, a
number of characters (e.g. ae, oe, thorn, eth, the quotation marks)
appear to be taken from an entirely different typeface. Finally, the
font lacks many fairly important kerning pairs.

But, I suppose, you get what you pay for.

What matters is sign legibility under various conditions and how
"printable" it is (given how signs are made mostly using vinyl stickers
which need to be tear resistant).

Did you post yet a simple comparison of one of the signs given?

Chaya Eve wrote:

There is no way HTML editors are going to be as universal and already well
known and as easy as simply typing the letters into Microsoft PowerPoint.

I thought you wanted the end result to be printed/laser cut lettering
onto a physical sign of a known size? If so powerpoint doesn't seem
ideal, AFAIK it just works in 'fill the screen' mode.

"nospam" wrote

|
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/t...hers-tech.html
|
| (Requires cookies enabled.)
|
| no it doesn't.
|
Interesting. For years I've had to switch to a
cookie-eating browser at NYT because otherwise
it would send me to a login page. Maybe they've
finally given up on trying to make the public
believe their paper is so special that people will
pay to see the online version.

| technology in schools is a *very* good thing.
|

A good demonstration of assumptions with no thought,
no reasoning, and not even a context for your belief.
Merely a blind belief swallowed whole because you've
heard it said numerous times and weren't paying attention.
Your whole case is merely a reflex ejaculation of, "Is so!".

Too bad you weren't joking.

| those kids will be growing up in a world with all sorts of technology
| that people today can't even imagine, and they *need* to know how it
| all works.
|

They will need to know. In grade school they need
to learn to read, relate to their fellow students,
bounce a ball, run outside, draw a picture, and
generally train their bodies. They're at a stage
of relating to the world on a mainly physical level.
They don't need to learn how to navigate Twitter.
They'll learn that with their friends, anyway.

Worse, when they're taught to navigate Twitter
they're not also taught to block ads, do advanced
search, or otherwise use computers as tools.
They're taught to use them as consumption devices.
That's all that their tech-shill teacher knows.

Your claim is especially ironic in the context of
this thread. We're talking about older students who
may know how to use Powerpoint but can't handle
the most basic computer tasks, like installing software,
learning a new program, or even installing a font.
They probably can't handle the downloads, much
less the install. Most people can't. That includes
your imagined geniuses fondling their iPads.
They won't grow up any more tech-literate than
Chaya Eve's students. It's likely they'll be less
tech-literate. But they might have a Google implant
in their head and be able to make any song play
in their head by saying, "Hey, Google!".

Did you read the article? The teacher is a paid shill,
teaching the kids to use Twitter and Instagram.
Like you, she thinks an iPad is a package of goodness,
creativity and intelligence, as though kids learn
advanced ideas by merely holding advanced technology.
Like you, she listens to sleazeballs from tech companies,
hawking their shiny baubles, and she doesn't listen
with critical intelligence. She's talking to salepeople
and probably thinks they're scientists.
Do her kids learn computer science? No, they
learn how to buy fan miscellany from their favorite
pop stars, without having to get up from their beanbag
chairs, while being told those celebrities prefer Hershey's
chocolate. (Or is it Nestle? Learning minds need to know.

"Chaya Eve" wrote

| Just don't be naive when proposing a font (or an editing program).
|

I thought the DIN idea might be a good one to solve the
Mac font problem. It does seem to be used in traffic signs.
But on looking it up it wasn't clear that there was a free
version for Windows. The font itself is out of copyright,
but someone who creates a font file has rights to that.

"Andre G. Isaak" wrote

| What I mean would be most apparent if you open the font in a
| font-editing program such as FontLab and look at the actual outlines.
| The lowercase o and u would be good characters to look at.

His sample looks good to me. When I downloaded
the font it also looked reasonably good in editors.
I think the problem with his sample is that it has a
dark outline around the letters, which makes the
anti-aliasing visibly choppy. But presumably that has
a good effect when read from a distance.