STIX Fonts project

Mathematical OpenType typeface

STIX

Category| Various
Classification| Transitional
Commissioned by| STIX Pub
Foundry| MicroPress and others
Date created| 2008; 17 years ago (2008)
Website| stixfonts.org
Latest release version| 1.1.3[1]
Latest release date| 17 April 2018; 7 years ago (17 April 2018)
ESSTIX

Category| Various
Classification| Transitional
Commissioned by| Elsevier
Foundry| Elsevier
Date created| 2000; 25 years ago (2000)

The STIX Fonts project or Scientific and Technical Information Exchange (STIX), is a project sponsored by several leading scientific and technical publishers to provide, under royalty-free license, a comprehensive font set of mathematical symbols and alphabets, intended to serve the scientific and engineering community for electronic and print publication. The STIX fonts are available as fully hinted OpenType/CFF fonts.[2] The project was initiated in 1995 and officially released its first stable version (STIX 1.0) in May 2010, after 15 years of development, with subsequent updates including STIX Two released in 2016. There is currently no TrueType version of the STIX fonts available, but the STIX Mission Statement includes the intention to create one in the future.[3] However, there exists an unofficial conversion of STIX Fonts (from the beta version release) to TrueType, suitable for use with software without OpenType support.[4]

STIX fonts also include[5] natural language glyphs for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. The family is designed to be visually compatible with the Times New Roman family, a popular choice in book publishing.

## Composition

[edit]

Among the glyphs in STIX, 32.9% have been contributed by the project members. The commercial TeX vendor and TeX font foundry MicroPress has been contracted to create the additional glyphs. The STIX project will also create a TeX implementation. Goals also include incorporating the characters into Unicode, and ensuring that browsers can use them.

Members of the STIX Fonts project, known collectively as the STI Pub consortium, include the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, the American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society, and Elsevier.

> The Font contents were assembled from a list of every character/glyph required for publication in the journals of the participating STI Pub companies. Every scientific discipline is represented in this list, as well as many other fields from the arts and humanities. Most of the glyphs in the STIX Fonts have been designed in Times-compatible style. In addition to Times-compatible glyphs, some portions of the STIX Fonts include other design styles such as sans serif, monospace, Fraktur, Script, and calligraphic.

— STIX Fonts website

## Development process

[edit]

A beta version of the fonts was released on October 31, 2007. This version does not include enough of the OpenType mathematical layout features present in Cambria Math, so it is not usable to the fullest extent in Microsoft Office 2007.[6] The Latin glyph set included in the beta version does not yet cover all the characters required to typeset in Eastern European languages.

"Final design changes" were declared "complete" at the project website on June 9, 2008. A release by end of May 2009 for the "initial production release" was announced, still without the support for OpenType layout features of Office 2007 or TeX. In September 2009, the fonts went to the final packaging stage. However, in October, missing glyphs were discovered, adding a delay. The fonts were scheduled to be released in April 2010, and released on May 28, 2010.

The project has taken considerably longer than forecast. The website has been updated only intermittently, and thus has regularly been out-of-date, with forecast milestones often being overshot. For example, on 20 July 2011 the main page on the official site[7] stated, "Version 1.1, which will include fonts packaged for use with Microsoft Office applications, is scheduled for release by the end of 2010. [...] This site was last updated on 1 November [2010]." Version 1.1.0 was released February 24, 2012. This version facilitates equation editing in recent versions of Microsoft Word.[8] Version 1.1.0 with LaTeX support was released on May 29, 2013.

## STIX 2.0.0

[edit]

STIX Two compared to the standard digitisation of Times New Roman. STIX Two has a higher x-height and a reduction in fine detail.

On December 1, 2016, the official project website announced the release of STIX version 2.0.0. This was created by Ross Mills and John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks. Unlike the previous version, which closely matches Nimbus Roman No. 9 L, it is an original design loosely inspired by a smaller 10 point size of Times New Roman, with a higher x-height.[9][10]

In April 2018, the Type 1 version of the STIX Two fonts for use in LaTeX was released. At the same time, the STIX project hosting platform has been migrated to GitHub (https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts/).

## Uptake

[edit]

The STIX Fonts are included in OS X in versions from Lion (10.7) onwards.

The JavaScript framework MathJax uses the STIX fonts for including mathematics in web pages. Installing the fonts on the local computer improves MathJax's typesetting speed.[11]

The Math Editor equation editor uses STIX fonts as its primary font.

## ESSTIX

[edit]

A precursor to the STIX project is the ESSTIX (Elsevier Science STIX) font, developed and later donated by Elsevier. It is currently available from the World Wide Web Consortium as part of the Amaya (web browser).[12] However, the STIX fonts are not used in most of the peer-reviewed journals published by Elsevier.

## See also

[edit]

* Open-source Unicode typefaces
* Cantarell, the default typeface in past versions of GNOME
* Droid (typeface), the default fonts for first versions of Android
* Noto fonts, the default fonts for newer versions of Android
* Open Sans, another font based on Droid Sans
* Roboto, the default fonts for newer versions of Android
* IBM Plex, free and open-source fonts from IBM
* National Fonts, free and open-source Thai fonts
* PT Fonts, free and open-source fonts from Russia

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The Stix Package" (PDF). Retrieved 15 April 2024.
2. ^ Owens, Evan (2010-05-28). "Press Release - STIX Fonts Version 1.0 Released". New York City: American Institute of Physics. Archived from the original on June 1, 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
3. ^ STIX Fonts - Mission Statement
4. ^ "STIX Fonts - TTF (True Type)". Archived from the original on March 3, 2009. Retrieved September 19, 2008.
5. ^ Barbara Beeton, "STIX fonts and Unicode", talk at TUG 2007 video Archived December 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
6. ^ Murray Sargent, (Nov. 6, 2007) STIX Beta Fonts
7. ^ STIX Fonts Project Website, archived on 2011-09-15.
8. ^ STIX Fonts Project Website accessed 2012-03-05.
9. ^ "Tweet". Twitter. Tiro Typeworks. Retrieved 10 December 2016. "The original STIX fonts were based on a Times New Roman clone. The new #STIX2 faces are redesigned, inspired by 10pt metal Times fonts."
10. ^ Twardoch, Adam. "New "STIX Two" opensource fonts by Tiro". Facebook. Retrieved 10 December 2016. "The new design is fantastic — it can be described as "the better Times New Roman". It's somewhat similar to Times, but with a touch of Fleischmann. Its lower contrast, enlarged x-height and less inclined italic all contribute to superb(!) readability, in both web and print. STIX Text is a neutral, non-invasive text face for continuous reading."
11. ^ "MathJax Font Help". Archived from the original on 2012-07-28. Retrieved 2012-08-14.
12. ^ "Amaya FAQ".

## External links

[edit]

* Official website
* STIX Fonts at Everything Fonts
* "STIX Fonts project". AMS. Oct 20, 2006. "Historical outline of the Unicode facet of the STIX project"
* Math Editor on GitHub -- Free and open source equation editor utilizing STIX Fonts
* STIX Two Math Archived 2022-06-27 at the Wayback Machine at Google Fonts

* v
* t
* e

Free and open-source typography

Software
and libraries|

* FontForge
* Fontmatrix
* FreeType
* Ghostscript
* HarfBuzz
* Metafont
* MetaPost
* MetaType1
* Pango
* TeX
* Graphite
* ICU

Licenses|

* Apache License
* BSD licenses
* Creative Commons licenses
* GNU General Public License \+ GPL font exception
* GNU Lesser General Public License
* LaTeX Project Public License
* MIT License
* SIL Open Font License
* Ubuntu Font Licence

Operating system,
corporate and
professional|

* Andika
* Bitstream Charter
* Bitstream Vera
* DejaVu
* Breeze Sans
* Cascadia Code
* Cantarell
* Charis SIL
* Computer Modern
* Concrete Roman
* Courier Prime
* Doulos SIL
* Droid
* Noto
* Open Sans
* Roboto
* Fira
* Gentium
* Ghostscript fonts
* GNU FreeFont
* GNU Unifont
* Go and Go Mono
* Hershey fonts
* IBM Plex
* Liberation
* Croscore
* Literata
* Lohit
* Nanum fonts
* Nimbus Mono
* Sans
* Roman
* OCR-A
* OCR-B
* Overpass
* Selawik
* Source Code
* Source Han Sans
* Source Han Serif
* Source Sans
* Source Serif
* STIX fonts
* Tiresias
* Ubuntu, Ubuntu Titling
* Utopia
* Zilla Slab

Government
typefaces|

* National Fonts
* PT Fonts
* Railway Sans
* e-Ukraine

Other
typefaces|

* Amiri
* Antykwa Półtawskiego
* Asana-Math
* Atkinson Hyperlegible
* Cardo
* Chandas
* Comic Neue
* Cormorant
* EB Garamond
* Gentium
* IM Fell
* Inconsolata
* Iosevka
* Jomolhari
* Junicode
* Kochi
* Lato
* Linux Libertine
* Montserrat
* M+
* News Cycle
* Open Baskerville
* OpenDyslexic
* Squarish Sans CT
* Theano Didot
* WenQuanYi
* XITS

Groups and
people|

* Donald Knuth
* Ray Larabie
* Raph Levien
* Behdad Esfahbod
* Font Awesome
* Greek Font Society
* Font Library
* Google Fonts
* SIL International

Free and open-source software portal

* Open-source Unicode typefaces
* List of open source typefaces
* List of free software Unicode typefaces

* v
* t
* e

macOS typefaces

Latin, Greek, Cyrillic|

| Serif|

* Academy Engraved
* American Typewriter
* Athelas
* Baskerville MT
* Big Caslon
* Bodoni 72
* Canela
* Cochin
* Charter
* Didot
* Domaine
* Georgia
* Hoefler Text
* Iowan Old Style
* Marion
* New York
* Produkt
* Publico
* STIX Fonts
* Superclarendon
* Palatino
* PT Serif
* Rockwell
* Times, Times New Roman

|

Sans-serif|

* Adelle Sans
* Arial, Arial Rounded, Arial Unicode MS
* Avenir, Avenir Next
* DIN
* Druk
* Euphemia UCAS
* Founders Grotesk
* Futura
* Geneva
* Gill Sans
* Graphik
* Helvetica, Neue Helvetica
* Impact
* Lucida Grande
* Microsoft Sans Serif
* Myriad Arabic
* Noto Sans
* October
* PT Sans
* Optima
* Phosphate
* Proxima Nova
* San Francisco
* Seravek
* Skia
* Tahoma
* Trebuchet MS
* Verdana

Monospaced|

* Andalé Mono
* Apple Braille
* Courier, Courier New
* Menlo
* Monaco
* PT Mono
* SF Mono
* Spot Mono

Script / Display|

* Apple Chancery
* Bradley Hand Bold
* Brush Script MT
* Chalkboard
* Chalkduster
* Comic Sans
* Copperplate
* Herculanum
* Luminari
* Marker Felt
* Noteworthy
* Pilgiche
* Papyrus
* Quotes
* Sauber Script
* Savoye LET
* SignPainter
* Snell Roundhand
* Trattatello
* Zapfino

Non-alphabetic|

* Apple Color Emoji
* Apple Symbols
* Symbol
* Webdings
* Wingdings
* Zapf Dingbats

List of typefaces included with macOS
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template