Unifont.org >> Font Playground >> About Font Playground
Copyright (c) 2006 by Edward H. Trager. All Rights Reserved.
Font Playground is a companion to Unifont.org's Font Guide. The Font Guide provides links to Free/Libre Open Source fonts that you can download. The Font Playground gives you the chance to see what those fonts look like before you download.
Your text will appear typeset in the font you chose in a window.
You can create as many font windows as you want to compare and contrast the fonts. It's easy and fun!
By default, the first letter is typeset larger than the rest of the text. In Western typography, this is called a "drop capital."
In many cases it may be more appropriate to typeset the entire first word in a larger size. In Western typography, this may be an optional design feature. In many non-Western scripts, this may be a design necessity.
To typeset multiple letters, the entire first word, or even multiple words in large type, just insert the hat character, "^" into the text to show where the large text should end and where the standard-size text should begin. (The hat character "^" appears over the numeral "6" on standard U.S. keyboard layouts).
For example, as shown in the image, by default the quotation on slavery from Abraham Lincoln will be typeset with the single letter "A" as a drop capital.
However, inserting the hat character after the first word "As" (like this: "As^ I would ...") causes the entire first word to be set in large type. Try it!
Font Playground uses FontConfig. The FontConfig library will always try to find a font to use to typeset the text. As an example, this means that if you choose a Bengali font to typeset Chinese, you will most likely end up with a result that shows Chinese characters, and not square boxes -- This may be contrary to your expectations! Because a Bengali font does not contain glyphs for Chinese, FontConfig simply substitutes another font that does contain Chinese characters. Often the default font that FontConfig will choose will be something like Bitstream Vera Sans (at least for Latin). So, if your result looks too much like Bitstream Vera Sans, it may be because it is Bitstream Vera Sans. And anytime you get some characters typeset in the expected font, but some other characters typset in a mis-matched font, then you will know for sure that the expected font is lacking some of the required glyphs and that FontConfig is just doing it's job.