The Palatino FAQ (1998)

The Palatino FAQ revision 1.0 (c) 1998 John Butler All trademarks herein are the property of their respective owners. =====> Acknowledgements Abundant thanks to David Lemon at Adobe for clearing me up on the details about Palatino's digital genesis and other critical points. Thanks to Thomas Phinney at Adobe, Thomas Caldwell and Kiki Janson at Linotype Library GmbH, Skip Collins, Mark Roberts, and Charles Hedrick. Finally, hats off to Hermann Zapf, who designed such a universally beloved typeface that it eventually inspired some geek to write an FAQ devoted to it. Hermann Zapf took time out to make corrections and additions to this FAQ, and has been the primary resource for most of the information here. =====> Fun German Stuff (impress your friends) "GmbH" = Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung corporation with limited liability "AG" = Aktiengesellschaft 'stock corporation' (in effect, publicly traded corporation) Hmm, that reminds me, anybody feel like translating this FAQ into German? Ich wuerde es selbst machen, aber mein Deutsch ist leider sehr schlecht! =====> What is Palatino? Palatino is one of the earliest and arguably most successful typefaces designed by Hermann Zapf. It is found in most every Postscript printer manufactured these days, and now comes standard with the Apple Macintosh Operating System. It's a text and display typeface with a distinct calligraphic character about it that showcases Zapf's unique style of calligraphy. It also has the distinction of having been created in at least five different media (Linotype composing machine, foundry metal, phototype film, transfer sheets, and digital) and just about every digital format ever conceived, including Truetype, Type 1, and countless proprietary outline and bitmap formats. Years of labour and love went into creating the design and porting it to newer and more modern printing technologies. Palatino was created following World War II, at a time when lots of the older type foundries were left destroyed by bombings. There was a great demand for new and innovative typefaces. The days of blackletter, Fraktur and Schwabacher were officially over. Zapf designed Palatino around Italian Renaissance letterforms. =====> Where can I get Palatino? * for free? So far, nowhere. You always have to buy something, if not Palatino itself. Palatino has been bundled in Truetype format with MacOS System 7 and later, when Truetype was introduced by Apple. You have to buy a Macintosh or a MacOS upgrade to own a bona fide license without specifically purchasing the font. URW's digitization of Palatino, Palladio, is included with Alladin Ghostview, the quasi-freeware (i.e. it's free but you can only distribute it according to license guidelines) Postscript file viewer that runs on several platforms including Windows, OS/2, Linux, and several Unix flavours. So far I haven't been able to get the Type 1 fonts to work anywhere outside Ghostview itself, e.g. open and inspect them in Fontographer. See below for more details on Palladio and Palatino lookalikes. The Opentype release of Palatino is in the works, overseen by Zapf himself, and will soon be released through Microsoft. It will be free. * for cheap? Cheap?!?!??!? You obviously have no appreciation of type design! You can get a knockoff of Palatino bundled with several major software packages. Microsoft Office and its components all ship with Book Antiqua, which is Monotype's knockoff of Palatino. Hermann Zapf was so infuriated when Monotype released this unauthorized knockoff that he resigned from ATypI in 1993 after 36 years as a founding member of the organization. If you do have Book Antiqua and use it, be a good person and buy the real thing. (read on...) CorelDRAW versions 4, 5, 6, and 7 all come with 750-1000 Bitstream fonts including Zapf Calligraphic, which is Bitstream's digitization of Palatino overseen by Zapf himself. This version has longer descenders compared with the metal type Palatino whose short descenders were based on the old German standard base line of 1905. By far these are the best deal, because you get a great drawing program thrown in. Older versions of CorelDRAW sell for as little as $120, including all the fully licensed Bitstream fonts, which for PC users is an even better deal than Bitstream's own font CD-ROM. I think it may also ship with Corel's Wordperfect office suite. It can also be found on Corel's MegaGallery. * in Type 1 for Mac or PC? You can get the genuine Palatino, complete with the official name, from Adobe either by itself in the Palatino 1 package or as part of the Adobe Type Basics package (a reincarnated version of their old Plus Pack). It's also available from Agfa, Monotype, and Linotype through cross-licensing agreements. Adobe's digitization is based on the updated version Linotype made for its phototypesetting equipment sometime in the 60's. It is noticeably different from the original Linotype machine and foundry versions. The original version that Zapf designed for Linotype's composing machines is distinguished by its lowercase v, w, p, q, and numerals. He designed a more delicate foundry version in display sizes a few years later. The version we see everywhere today is a more rigid and crisp interpretation tailored to the newer technologies. It still shows the original charm. When Palatino was first made available in Postscript Type 1 outline format by Adobe, Adobe converted outlines from either Linotype's proprietary digital outline format or Ikarus 3 outline format into Type 1. At that time, the outlines were the version used in Linotype's photosetting equipment. Zapf complained that Adobe/Linotype should have used more updated versions, and Adobe adjusted their Type 1 version accordingly a few years later. You can also get the Type 1 version of Zapf Calligraphic from Bitstream (see above) directly. Curiously, Monotype has yet another Palatino clone called Z-Antiqua, apparently later redigitized as Book Antiqua. Like Book Antiqua, of course, Zapf never authorized it. The only difference between Z-Antiqua and Book Antiqua is that the former is available with Eastern European characters in addition to the standard character set. Z-Antiqua actually used to be the working name of Hunt Roman, another Zapf design commissioned by the Hunt Botanical Library. (Z obviously stands for Zapf. It is very common practice in German to abbreviate proper names, or long words in general, hence the Z.) Monotype may or may not have known about previous uses of the Z-Antiqua name, but the design was nonetheless still never licensed by Monotype. URW made Palladio, at the time sanctioned by Zapf, in three weights (regular, medium and bold) with corresponding italics. I think they also include optical sizes as well (book, display, and poster). Unfortunately, URW did not get a license to use the original name from Linotype, therefore it was named Palladio instead. The same applies to Bitstream's Zapf Calligraphic. In intellectual property law, trademarks and designs are sometimes licensed under separate terms. The four main weights of Palatino are Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. There are also some rarer intermediate weights (see below). As stated above, Palatino usually comes with most Postscript printers, but only in the printer itself. You don't necessarily have access to the outline version on your screen. * in Truetype for Mac? With MacOS release 7.0 or later. Look in your "fonts" folder. * in GX for the Mac? from Linotype Library GmbH on their GX core Set CD in the four standard weights. You can get just the regular and italic bundled with Lari Software's LightningDraw GX. It may also be bundled with SoftPress' UniQorn. * in Truetype for the PC? From Linotype Library GmbH as Palatino. Bitstream also sells the TT version of Zapf Calligraphic (see CorelDRAW notes above), and Monotype makes the heathen Book Antiqua in Truetype, which has been bundled with all versions of Microsoft Office since 1993 or so. * in Opentype for the PC? Microsoft, Linotype, and Hermann Zapf himself just finished developing this version. I mailed the type group at Microsoft a while back about how many weights and extra features this would include and whether it would eclipse the GX version, but they just said they didn't know offhand and would put together an FAQish data sheet sometime. Haven't seen it yet. According to Hermann Zapf, the font has over 1200 signs and characters including math and foreign languages. Since Linotype was involved, I suspect the main character set will look exactly like the current Palatino incarnation, or possibly just be a reencoding of the GX version with no modification to the Truetype outlines. =====> Where can I get other members of the Palatino family? * non-standard weights (light, medium, heavy)? Palatino 2, which includes light, medium, and heavy weights, is available from Adobe, Monotype, Agfa, and Linotype in Type 1 format. It includes italic versions, for a total of six fonts. The light is lighter than regular, the medium is between regular and bold, and the heavy is heavier than bold. These weights were interpolated and extrapolated from the four main weights of Palatino 1, and do not descend directly from a phototype counterpart. * small caps & old style figures? Small caps and old style figures to complement Adobe's Palatino are available in a package from Adobe and its cross-licensees. They also come in Truetype versions on Linotype's GX core set CD, which includes them as a standard SC+OsF font for those of you too squeamish to run GX or too Quark-bound to use it. Aldus comes with small caps and old style figures (see derivatives below). * swash capitals? The original swash italic capitals designed for the foundry Palatino are not available digitally. Linotype's GX version comes with a set of swash capitals, but they're actually Ariadne Initials, a design by Gudrun Zapf von Hesse (Hermann's wife). Ariadne actually does harmonize well with the lowercase Palatino italics, although you might want to try it with the light weight or with Aldus italic. I got in touch with Thomas Caldwell at Linotype about the decision to use Ariadne instead of original Palatino swash itailc caps. He gives this perspective: "Ariadne is an interesting set of Swash Initials. It can be and is used in combination with Palatino, Guardi, Versailles, Sabon, Diotima, Wilke, just to name a few (ref: LinoTypeCollection 1992 Edition Page 330). There was no real decision-- it was a natural choice." Ariadne is packaged with Diotima, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse's elegant and calligraphic text face, and Smaragd, a set of incised initials. Ariadne's swash caps were originally designed to complement Diotima Italic, but like a few well-designed swash caps, can adapt well to many lowercase italic typefaces, if spacing and stroke weight are properly accounted for. You can get the GX version from Linotype in their GX core set CD-ROM, and Ariadne is available from Adobe, Linotype, and their cross-licensees. The GX version is Truetype only; the others are Type 1. There are also other typefaces with swash italic caps which, when scaled to the right size and kerned the proper amount, can complement Palatino italics rather nicely. Poetica Chancery immediately comes to mind, though you'd do better to harmonize Poetica with Minion, another Robert Slimbach design. Since swash caps are normally (i.e. sanely) used sparingly, clever typesetters can get away with this. * outline/shadowed versions? URW may make a version of Palladio in outline or shadowed. You're probably better off synthesizing that in software or building your own in Fontographer (expand stroke!) * condensed/extended versions? Aldus is the closest thing to a condensed Palatino that you can buy. Use it. Southern Voice, a free newspaper distributed here in Atlanta, engages in the irritating practice of artificially condensing regular Palatino. Please do not do this. Buy Aldus instead. I've never seen an extended version of Palatino. Moreover, Charles Hedrick points out that Aldus isn't truly condensed, but rather achieves a condensed effect by virtue of it having a lower x-height and thus smaller lowercase characters. Aldus is designed as a book face and runs 7% smaller in the original versions. * derivatives and alternate digitizations? Around 1950, right after Zapf finished Palatino for the Linotype composing machines, he designed a slightly condensed and crisper sibling called Aldus Buchschrift, and there is a Narrow Aldus Buchscrift also available, but only in 9 and 10 point sizes. It's very popular in Germany for printing paperbacks (I have some Kafka short stories set in it) and other long runs of text. Unlike Palatino, it's not available in bold weights. If you need a bold as well, take Palatino Bold. You can buy the digital version, Aldus, from Adobe and its cross-licensees. The digital Aldus is more true to the original Aldus Buchschrift than the digital Palatino is to the original Palatino. Zapf also designed the all-caps Palatino cousins Michelangelo and Sistina. I adore Michelangelo. You can get both of them in Type 1 format for the Mac from Fonthaus. Like Aldus, these digitizations remain true to their original forms. I think Michelangelo may come with some small caps as well. Mannesmann Scangraphic has two digitized versions of Palatino called Parlament and Praxis. Both are available in regular and italic. Parlament and Praxis are both digitizations of different optical sizes of either the old foundry or Linotype composing machine versions of Palatino. I probably wouldn't buy either of them, because neither seems to come with swash caps, which is one of the main selling points of the foundry version. Still, if Aldus isn't close enough to the original version for you, you can buy these for $59/weight from Fonthaus. Mannesmann Scangraphic also distributes Zapf Renaissance, which went in the direction of a Palatino variation commissioned from Zapf in 1984 that has much finer features and a more delicate feel overall. It highlights the crispness of Mannesmann Scangraphic's high-resolution imagesetters, and is available from Fonthaus for about $300, which includes three roman weights, two italic weights, small caps, ITALIC small caps (a first for Zapf, I believe), alternate lowercase characters, swash italic caps, and a smattering of ornaments. I'd recommend it to any high-end book or magazine publisher. It's good for display uses as well, and has a noticeable distinctness about it. Most of the letters have completely different forms from the original Palatino. =====> Which digitization is the best? Hard to say. Adobe and Bitstream Type 1 versions of Palatino are both very well done, and you can't generalize about either one. Just when I think that the Adobe version has more open counters, I then find a more open counter in the Bitstream version, and vice versa. While there are differences in the point-by-point execution of the outlines, I've seen no noticeable difference in overall color or feel of the text en masse. I haven't been able to compare the quality of Bitstream, Linotype, and Monotype Truetype outlines, because RoyalT crashes on my Power Mac, and I don't have Fontlab 3.0. Fontographer would just Bezier-ify the outlines and slightly bastardize them in the process, making it impossible to judge. Not to trash Fontographer, mind you, there's just no exact translation possible between cubic and quadratic splines. =====> Which version does Zapf approve of most? Contrary to what many comp.fonts denizens claim, it's not only Bistream or URW. Zapf's brief autobiographical sketch on Linotype's web site recommends the Linotype fonts, for these are the originals. According to URW, he completely corrected their digitization of Palladio from the beginning as well. On the other hand, several years since, URW has made Palladio (or fonts based on it) freely available to Ghostscript users, and Zapf was not consulted on this. Bitstream's Zapf Calligraphic was actually digitized before Linotype digitized Palatino, but Bitstream refused to license the name. Bitstream was the first ever digital type foundry, founded by Matthew Carter, the only other living type designer who has worked in as many media and whose designs are as prolific as Hermann Zapf. It's easy to get confused by all the different names given to various executions of the Palatino design, and remember which ones are approved by Zapf and which are not. The main reason for this phenomenon is simply the vast number of advancements that type and typesetting technology have undergone in the past fifty years, combined with the many subtleties and nuances of several nations' intellectual property laws. (Palatino is fast approaching its fifty year anniversary!) =====> Which version does Zapf approve of least? Never having had the honour of meeting Zapf, I really couldn't say. I would think it's a toss-up between Monotype's Book Antiqua and the SSI ripoff. Probably Monotype, since they should definitely know better than to do something that unprofessional, and because it's far more prevalent since Microsoft licensed it. If there was any bad blood between Zapf and Microsoft for having licensed Monotype's knockoff, it seems to be gone now that Microsoft and Linotype have worked with Zapf to make the Opentype version, and to replace Book Antiqua. I don't know if Monotype ever sold any standalone copies of Book Antiqua, or if they were all sold through Microsoft. The vast majority of them were certainly bundled with Microsoft Office. =====> Why should I pay for the real Palatino? If you want to use the Palatino design, you *should* abide by Zapf's request. Palatino holds the sad record for being the world's most heavily pirated typeface design, no thanks to Monotype's Book Antiqua, which has been given without royalty to every Microsoft Office user in the world. =====> Where can I find out more? Contact any of the foundries mentioned above. For non-digital specimens of Palatino and its derivatives, see _Twentieth_Century_Type_Designers_ by Sebastian Carter. There's also a large Zapf coffee table book, _Hermann_ Zapf_and_His_Design_Philosophy_, compiled from Zapf's writing and published by the Society of Typographic Arts in Chicago, 1987. Zapf also published some specimen books with good samples of original Linotype and foundry Palatino several years ago, which also included his wife Gudrun's designs. Alexander Lawson's _Anatomy_of_a_Typeface_ (Godine, 1990, pp. 120-128) has a whole chapter devoted to Palatino. Bringhurst's book also contains some coverage. Finally, Hermann Zapf has a brief autobiography available at Linotype's web site, https://ift.tt/2EBeOTQ.

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