DSE Typewriter Font

A project to create a monospace coding font inspired by early 20th-century typewriters.

And to practice editing fonts directly in FontForge.

About This Font

This font is not the result of any scans or traces of samples, specimens, or other output from an actual typewriter.

It's more like an amalgamation of old-school typewriter fonts with features semi-arbitrarily picked from each one, as well as a few not in use on actual typewriters.

Features and Characteristics

Relatively low ex-height.

Coding-friendly distinctive characters: li1| Oo0 `'"

Elite scale typeface (12 characters per inch at 12-point font size).

Perfectly useful as a traditional typewriter face for other purposes, if you don’t mind the zero (0) having a dot in the middle.

Fun With Typographic Features

name description before after onum oldstyle figures 0123456789 01234567890 zero slashed zero 0123456789 01234567890

Fun With Character Variants

name description before after cv01 dotless zero 0123456789 01234567890 cv02 dollar sign with two vertical lines $1,234.56 $1,234.56 cv03 digit one shaped like lowercase L 0123456789 01234567890

Fun With Stylistic Sets

name description before after ss05 lowercase I and L with bottom serif only to the right il1| il1|

Fun Combinations

combination results cv01 + cv03 01234567890 traditional typewriters with lining numerals, no dedicated one or zero keys onum + zero 01234567890 fun coding alternative onum + cv01 01234567890 traditional typewriters with oldstyle numerals onum + cv01 + cv03 01234567890 traditional typewriters with oldstyle numerals, no dedicated one or zero keys

Unicode Coverage

Includes the following in their entirety: US-International Windows-1252 All macOS accented characters available by holding down a letter. All macOS accented characters available using Alt- (Option-) or Shift-Alt- (Shift-Option-).

Includes the following Unicode blocks in their entirety: Basic Latin (ASCII) Latin-1 Supplement (completing ISO Latin-1) Box Drawing Block Elements Braille Patterns

Selected extended Latin, to support most western European languages.

Basic Cyrillic and Greek.

Additional selected punctuation, currency symbols, arrows, math operators, and more.

Full coverage of Code Page 437 and WGL4 in progress.

Check out the complete list of characters covered, and how much we cover important Unicode blocks and WGL4.

Caveats and Answers to Questions You Might Ask

There are no hints, so on certain platforms this font may not be readable at lower font sizes. Auto-hints seem to work okay-ish.

This is most definitely a work in progress.

Download

dse-typewriter-font.ttf, the base variant.

dse-typewriter-font-lh.ttf, a variant with a taller (1.2) line-height.

GitHub

https://github.com/dse/dse-typewriter-font

Copyright/License

Copyright © 2020 Darren Embry. SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Contact

dse COMMERCIAL AT webonastick FULL STOP com

Screenshots

Windows Text Sample Coding macOS Text Sample Coding

Samples

Small Medium Large Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D., bags few lynx.

GQ’s oft lucky whiz Dr. J, ex-NBA MVP

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

How vexingly quick daft zebras jump!

Watch “Jeopardy!”, Alex Trebek’s fun TV quiz game.

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.

MR. JOCK, TV QUIZ PH.D., BAGS FEW LYNX.

GQ’S OFT LUCKY WHIZ DR. J, EX-NBA MVP

SPHINX OF BLACK QUARTZ, JUDGE MY VOW.

PACK MY BOX WITH FIVE DOZEN LIQUOR JUGS.

THE FIVE BOXING WIZARDS JUMP QUICKLY.

HOW VEXINGLY QUICK DAFT ZEBRAS JUMP!

WATCH “JEOPARDY!”, ALEX TREBEK’S FUN TV QUIZ GAME.

PACK MY BOX WITH FIVE DOZEN LIQUOR JUGS.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt. Ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. /* from Linux kernel source (GPL2): */ /* If CLONE_SYSVSEM is set, establish sharing of SEM_UNDO state between * parent and child tasks. */ int copy_semundo(unsigned long clone_flags, struct task_struct *tsk) { struct sem_undo_list *undo_list; int error; if (clone_flags & CLONE_SYSVSEM) { error = get_undo_list(&undo_list); if (error) return error; refcount_inc(&undo_list->refcnt); tsk->sysvsem.undo_list = undo_list; } else tsk->sysvsem.undo_list = NULL; return 0; }

Try It Out!

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