
New Fonts on macOS Catalina - tosh
https://typography.guru/journal/awesome-catalina-fonts/
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derefr
So, what’s the point of something being a “system font” if it isn’t used for
display by anything in the OS itself? Does some first-party app use them, e.g.
GarageBand’s first-party VSTs? Or are they just there to provide you options
for styling your own text in Pages et al? (And, if so, why not make them
visible in the Text Styles OS modal in such apps, with them zero-installed on
first selection? They’re nigh-undiscoverable as it is.)

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dawnerd
Proxima Nova is very common on websites so from that perspective it makes
sense to bundle it.

~~~
derefr
If a website declares a CSS @font-face rule that defines font-family foo, and
then later uses `font-family: foo` in a style; and foo is _also_ the name of a
system font-family; do browsers then skip the @font-face "version" of the font
and use the system one instead? Hopefully not bothering to even download the
web font?

I've never run into this case, despite using web fonts a couple of times,
because I don't think I've ever seen anyone attempting to use a font that's a
system font of an OS _as_ a web font.

But that seems like the main use-case here: knowing that at least macOS ships
with Proxima Nova, you'd declare a dependency on the Google Fonts copy of
Proxima Nova as a polyfill of sorts; and then the OSes that have it would use
their version instead of needing to pull it from Google.

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afloatboat
There’s a local function for @font-face that allows you to link a webfont to a
locally installed font and it will indeed skip the download if it can find it.

~~~
harlanlewis
Relevant:
[https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/o...](https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-
content-efficiency/webfont-optimization#format_selection)

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mmoez
Posted 8 days ago with the original title without gaining any traction
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428245)

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philippantoni
This is a really pleasant surprise from Apple. Klim and Commercial Type employ
some of the most talented type designers in the industry and licenses for
their fonts would usually cost you many hundreds of dollars, so it's great for
graphic designers to have have them more widely available.

~~~
ladyanita22
I think you can't use it for public works unless you have a valid license.

~~~
Cenk
From a comment by Ralf Herrmann on the page:

> > Great, but what about license details – what kind of usage is permitted? I
> can't seem to find any EULAs anywhere.

> The Mac OS Eula applies. Like with other bundled OS fonts, there are very
> few restrictions. You just can’t move the files away from the system and you
> can’t override the embedding restrictions.

> Here is the Eula: >
> [https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSCatalina.pdf](https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSCatalina.pdf)

> The relevant part is:

>> E. Fonts. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you may use
the fonts included with the Apple Software to display and print content while
running the Apple Software; however, you may only embed fonts in content if
that is permitted by the embedding restrictions accompanying the font in
question. These embedding restrictions can be found in the Font
Book/Preview/Show Font Info panel.

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petercooper
Is there something regional about this? While I do have a bunch of fonts I can
download, Proxima Nova is not in the list.

~~~
tosh
When I read your comment I used the search box to look for Proxima Nova and I
swear I also could not find it.

Then later I clicked on all fonts and scrolled down and there it was. Can you
try another time?

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netsharc
Why do these fonts have to be hidden in there, never to be seen by a high
percentage of users? I'd imagine a cleverer UI would be to have them available
in a text editor's font chooser, but with some sort of indication that the
font will be downloaded if you choose to use it.

Although obviously, then, people who are somewhere without internet connection
will complain about not being able to use many fonts...

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reaperducer
_Why do these fonts have to be hidden in there, never to be seen by a high
percentage of users?_

Probably to save disk space, since Macs often have smaller storage since the
switch to SSDs. People who use fonts heavily will see them in Font Book.

Similarly, 99½% of Mac users will never install the extra voices, or high-
quality versions of the macOS default voices.

~~~
draugadrotten
> high-quality versions of the macOS default voices.

How do I do that?

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saagarjha
It's in System Preferences, under Accessibility > Speech.

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ecliptik
The first thing I do when setting up a new install of MacOS is to load the
Input Font, [https://input.fontbureau.com/](https://input.fontbureau.com/)

It’s a great monospaced font for the terminal and occasionally I’ve set it as
the system wide font.

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gorgoiler
I noticed macOS has SF Mono installed. I was able to embed this in PDFs using
locally available tools.

I shall therefore assume I have an implicit license to redistribute material
set in this typeface.

Surely they couldn’t have meant to ship this face to me purely for my own
local delectations? It must have been included so that I could make fair use
by sharing work with others?! Thanks, Apple!

Not the case? So? Sue me!

