Fonts are expensive

Couperin47

Member
SoSH Member
CoRP said:
I'm trying to find a place to download a font (Bank Gothic) to add to MSWord. Do I really have to pay $30 for it? 
 
 
 
Yes and no.
 
If you want that EXACT font from a specific foundry ...then probably yes. The reality is that there are a gazillion versions of bank gothic that you would find indistinguishable. On a very technical level there are wide variations depending on the format (Adobe Type 1, Truetype, OpenType, etc) including the level of hinting and other details that affect kerning and what happens when you try to use the font at very large sizes, not to mention interactions depending on what app you're using it with. In this case MS Word is only semi-sophisticated about these things. BTW, technically, you don't add fonts to Word, you add them to your OS and are available to all apps, so you use the Font options in your Control Panel to extract fonts from any app and install them into the OS.
 
Once upon a time fonts were expensive, these days you can get them free. The dam really broke when Corel started bundling a portfolio of over 250 Bitstream fonts (a very well regarded font house) in all their products. These days large packages of fonts get traded all over the Net, the legality of some of this may be sorta dubious but no one seems to really care that much, even the Adobe Type 1 collection which used to sell for a fortune, can be found as a free torrent everywhere. Google "bank gothic free" and 6 of the first 10 results are sites that offer dozens of variations.
 
Google "Bitstream Fonts collection" and you can download the Corel collection from tons of places, it's a very nice basic collection of very high quality fonts that includes BankGothic Lt and BankGothic Md. If getting it free makes you squeamish, simply buy any version of Wordperfect or most other Corel software made in the last 5 years for dirt and you can install the collection that comes with any of them.