Font equivalents

[Woody44]

Is there a tabulation of the fonts available in the Megafont collection showing what "big name" commercial fonts each most closely corresponds with? Such a list would make font selection much easier for those of us who read articles on font selection by professional graphic designers, who use the font names they know from the major type houses.

For example: Is Palazzo a version of Palatino?

How close is Uncial to American Uncial?

[miguel-c]

There's no such list, sorry

[Woody44]

How about creating one?

I own a copy of MegaFonts. I'm a hopeful, would-be author and that means I don't have an agent or a big publisher behind me. If I get a book finished and I want to publish it, it will have to be either self-published ("vanity press"), or print-on-demand. That means I am responsible for the book design, the typesetting ... everything. The problem is that when I read articles in the Internet regarding what fonts the professionals prefer or recommend for body test when typesetting a book, they use the names of professional fonts from the "big name" type houses. Since I'll be using fonts from the MegaFonts collection, it would be very helpful to know which of your fonts match (or most closely approximate) those big name fonts.

[miguel-c]

I'll report the issue to the product manager. Thank you for your feedback!

[lgsl]

For example: Is Palazzo a version of Palatino?

Not really. Palatino have different metrics to Palazzo. While the letters look almost identical, Palazzo is not truly an equivalent/replacement for Palatino.

It may work just fine for a new design (There are a few things to keep in mind: due a difference in metrics, the readability may vary. Maybe is a great font for paragraphs, maybe is not), but in an existing design that uses Palatino, replacing the font with Palazzo could cause issues due the differences in metrics (for instance: things may not align correctly).

[V_Sirin]

How about creating one?

I own a copy of MegaFonts. I'm a hopeful, would-be author and that means I don't have an agent or a big publisher behind me. If I get a book finished and I want to publish it, it will have to be either self-published ("vanity press"), or print-on-demand. That means I am responsible for the book design, the typesetting ... everything. The problem is that when I read articles in the Internet regarding what fonts the professionals prefer or recommend for body test when typesetting a book, they use the names of professional fonts from the "big name" type houses. Since I'll be using fonts from the MegaFonts collection, it would be very helpful to know which of your fonts match (or most closely approximate) those big name fonts.

Hi Woody. Much like you, I have books to be self-publishing and I wanted a good font. So I bought "Equity" by Matthew Butterick. I also highly recommend his site "Practical Typography". Also, the Fontbase program says it has a font analysis tool that would help compare fonts, but does cost a monthly subscription, which you could then cancel once you've identified which fonts you want to use.

Hope this helps.

[Woody44]

For example: Is Palazzo a version of Palatino?

Not really. Palatino have different metrics to Palazzo. While the letters look almost identical, Palazzo is not truly an equivalent/replacement for Palatino.

It may work just fine for a new design (There are a few things to keep in mind: due a difference in metrics, the readability may vary. Maybe is a great font for paragraphs, maybe is not), but in an existing design that uses Palatino, replacing the font with Palazzo could cause issues due the differences in metrics (for instance: things may not align correctly).

When you come right down to it, even fonts carrying the same name don't share the same metrics. I have compared, for example, several versions of Baskerville (from various sources) and they are VERY different. I just went through the same thing with two versions of Caslon (again, same name but from different sources). With the Caslons, I had to increase one of them to 13.5 point in order to match the spacing and size of the other in 12 point. It's an issue -- the proliferation of Truetype and Opentype fonts has made point size into a joke.

[Jossi]

Anybody creating a new font can name it as he likes (as long as he doesn't violate copyright for an existing font). Especially "classical" fonts like Baskerville, Caslon or Garamond have been recut, digitized or re-interpreted so many times by different type designers and companies that there is absolutely no guarantee that any font bearing such a name has any similarity in metrics or font size with another one bearing the same or a similar name.