[K12OSN] liberation-fonts instead of msttcorefonts?

["Terrell Prudé Jr."]

I use and like them as well.  They are indeed close, but not quite
exact.  I actually had someone comment to me about the "different look"
of a document that I had sent them that used Liberation (I use
OpenOffice.org).  They looked at it in Times New Roman--on MS Word,
naturally--and actually complained!  Reason?  The ends of the paragraphs
didn't fall exactly in the same places (my printout vs. her screen
display).  They were close, but not exactly the same.

Therefore, I decided on a little test.  I then viewed the same document
again in OpenOffice.org, changing everything from Liberation to Times
New Roman, and sure enough, the paragraphs ended in OpenOffice.org
exactly where they did in my colleague's MS Word 2003.  She seemed to
have a valid point at first.

OK, let's continue testing, I thought.  I fired up a Windows box w/ MS
Word XP, followed later with MS Word 2000, and viewed the same document
in each, using Times New Roman.  Guess what?  The paragraphs didn't land
exactly where they had in MS Word 2003!  Furthermore, Word XP and Word
2000 had the paragraphs ending in slightly different places.  So, I said
to my MS Word-using colleague, "so how do you deal with this with your
Word XP-using boss?" My colleague then got quiet.

The test showed me two things.  First, OpenOffice.org 2.x is so
compatible with MS Word 2003 that at times it even beats MS Word XP and
2000 (I didn't bother trying Word 97).  Second, using the Liberation
typefaces doesn't produce any layout changes greater than switching
between different versions of Microsoft Word.  A whole lot of businesses
and schools continue to use MS Office 2000/XP, so this point is relevant.

Conclusion:  the Liberation typefaces are certainly good enough to
replace Times New Roman.  Further, they are Free as in Freedom.  I
absolutely will continue to use them.

I believe that we should continue to make the msttcorefonts available,
if only to continue to serve notice to Microsoft:  WE WILL EXERCISE OUR
RIGHTS.  It's much like why USA warships would sail periodically in the
Black Sea during the Cold War as a notice to the Soviet Union.  However,
we should also certainly pre-load Liberation and furthermore make it the
default typeface.  If someone wants to choose the msttcorefonts, then
they still can, but with Liberation, they don't have to anymore.

--TP
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Nadav Kavalerchik wrote:
> i second that :-)
>
> i use them too, and they are great!
> i also set the Font Replacement Table in OpenOffice to replace the
> corresponding MS fonts with these fonts according to their fonts families.
> it can be patched globally by editing the file:
> /{where OO is
> installed}/openoffice.org2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Common.xcu
> where the "Font Replacement Table" setting are stored.
>
> i'm attaching it.
>
> On 7/8/07, *Nils Breunese* <nils at breun.nl <mailto:nils at breun.nl>> wrote:
>
>     Hello,
>
>     I recently installed K12LTSP 5EL and notice that the 'Get Fonts'
>     launcher in 'Install additional software' builds and installs
>     msttcorefonts. Red Hat has recently released the liberation-fonts
>     package, which contains GPL substitutes for Microsoft's fonts.
>
>     The press release says: "There are three sets: Sans (a substitute for
>     Arial, Albany, Helvetica, Nimbus Sans L, and Bitstream Vera Sans),
>     Serif (a substitute for Times New Roman, Thorndale, Nimbus Roman, and
>     Bitstream Vera Serif) and Mono (a substitute for Courier New,
>     Cumberland, Courier, Nimbus Mono L, and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono)."
>
>     I've installed the liberation-fonts package on K12LTSP 5EL and it
>     works great. Shouldn't the script install these fonts instead?
>
>        < https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/
>     <https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/>>
>
>     Nils Breunese.
>
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