Chess font for both Macintosh and Windows?

[kaissa]

I have a Windows computer and have begun writing a chess column for a magazine. I use ChessBase Light for diagrams and chess fonts. The magazine, which uses Macintosh, cannot see the fonts. I referred them to http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm for the Macintosh fonts and sent a freeware program that supposedly transfered TrueType fonts to Macintosh.

Unfortunately they could not solve the problem and we ended up using K,Q,R,B,N for symbols. Is there a font that can be easily used for both OSes?

Thanks for your time,

[beachknight]

AFAIK, there is no solution for your problem.

[Alessandro Scotti]

Buy a Mac!

[shiv]

jose-chess.sourceforge.net uses essentially the same fonts for windows and Macintosh (using Java fonts) and most importantly has the option of exporting games to PDF (with the fonts embedded). It can import PGN files. The easiest would be for both people to use the same program if edits are needed on both sides. If acrobat is present on both sides, editing the PDF is another option.

[kaissa]

Thank you for your reply. They somehow did not prefer PDF, Word only :( . I will suggest them Jose.

[smrf]

Why not use unicode symbols e.g. from Arial Unicode MS starting at 0x2645 ?

Reinhard.

[rafowell]

The Alpine commercial chess fonts ( Linares, Zurich, Hastings - $50 per family, $100 for all three) are superb fonts available for both Windows and Mac, and may be interoperable between the two platforms. Linares is the font used to produce the diagram piece graphics on this forum. ( I have no financial interest in Alpine - just a satisfied customer)
http://www.partae.com/fonts/general/general.html

These are professional publishing grade fonts that have been used to print many chess books, magazines and newsletters. Each package includes both TrueType and Postscript versions, with different subtypes for text, diagram and figurine notation, as well as to support the key assignments of various software packages (e.g., ChessBase, Chess Assistant).

You may be unaware of the Alpine fonts, since the otherwise excellent
Nørresundby Chess Club chess font / publishing site
(which I also highly recommend: http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/homeeng.htm )
deliberately does not link to any commercial fonts, since the webmaster
feels commercial entities should pay for their own advertising
(see his own words here:
http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonfaqen.htm#D6)

When you buy an Alpine font family, you get three variants that appear (to me) common to Windows and Mac (e.g., Linares, LinaresDiagram and LinaresFigurine) whether you buy the Mac package or the Windows package (as well as a number of variants that are Mac/Windows specific).

Unfortunately, to try this out, both you and your magazine would have to pay $50 each (you to buy the Windows version, the magizine for the Mac version), for one font family (Linares, Hastings or Zurich), and you would no doubt both be unhappy if they are not interoperable.

Also, it seems that the font renderings keyed directly to Windows Chessbase and Windows Chess Assistant are not likely to transfer directly, since those fonts are listed separately. (Different key mappings between (defunct?) ChessBase Mac and ChessBase Windows, I hypothesize)

I have sent Alpine an enquiry - I'll pass on what they say about interoperabilty.

If it works, though, this should produce a very professional looking product.
To this day, I find the three font families the most like those used in chess books of the pre-computer era.

Here are the three font families:

Linares: American Style - Looks like the diagrams on this forum
http://www.partae.com/fonts/products/pr ... ew=linares

Zurich: Looks like ChessBase pieces - European style
http://www.partae.com/fonts/products/pr ... iew=zurich

Hastings: The style universally popular prior to 1930 - more ornate:
http://www.partae.com/fonts/products/pr ... w=hastings
Hastings is the font used by Anders Thulin to reset chess problem
books whose copyright has expired to make make the freely
available/usable electronic versions here:
http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS/index.htm
as pdfs (if you want to see an example, the smallest PDF file is
http://www.algonet.se/~ath/th75.pdf
the 70kb version of: John Thursby: Seventy-Five Chess Problems (1883)

I bought all three families (package price $100) for my personal use, but I suppose that would be a bit much for most folks.

Linares looks a lot like this, by the way:

[D] r1b2r1k/pp2Nppp/n4n2/8/2pB4/2NB1Q2/PqP2PPP/R3K2R b KQ - 2 15

(in this position from O H Labone vs NN: Birmingham 1901,
NN played 15 ... cxd3??, which HIARCS 11.1 indicates was the
fatal point (eval -7.98) HIARCS says 15. ... Qxa1! is +2.42 for black)
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1242901

P.S.:

As a prior poster mentioned, if the magazine were amenable to PDFs
with embedded fonts, this would work: this PDF file uses Hastings:
http://www.algonet.se/~ath/th75.pdf
and it looks fine at 6400% magnification on my Mac laptop, which does
not have Hastings loaded. However, presumably the magazine needs
to be able to reformat to position your column into their magazine, etc.

[rafowell]

Any of the Alpine chess fonts ( Linares/Hastings/Zurich) sold here:
http://www.partae.com/fonts/products/products.php
will do the trick, per the proprietor (his answer below):

==================================

>If O. Veli were to buy, say, Linares for Windows,
>and the magazine Linares for Mac, and he sent in
>his chess column in Word for Windows using
>LinaresFigurine for the text and LinaresDiagram
>for the diagrams, would the magazine be able to
>properly print his column using Word for Mac?


Yes, if the Linares Diagram & Linares Figurine TrueType fonts are installed
on both computers, then it is possible to create a file in a frequently-used
format (Word file, RTF file, etc.) on a Windows computer, and then open that
same file on a Macintosh without problems.

I do thank you for clarifying this matter on your forum.

Best regards,
Adrian Smith

[Dann Corbit]

If the document format is MS Word, then embed the TTF fonts in the document.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290952

[kaissa]

Thank you for your time and effort. I will try to get the magazine to buy them :).