Nimbus Sans

Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica.

Nimbus Sans

Category	Sans-serif
Classification	Neo-grotesque
Designer(s)	URW Studio
Foundry	URW++
Date released	1999
Design based on	Helvetica
Variations	URW Heisei Gothic

Nimbus Sans

It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages.

Some of the fonts have history predating Helvetica's first release. For example, Nimbus Sans bold condensed, Nimbus Sans bold condensed (D) were dated 1940; Nimbus Sans Black Condensed, Nimbus Sans Black Condensed (D) were dated 1946.

The font names ending with (D) have slightly lighter font weights and tighter spacing.

Weight	condensed	medium	extended
Black	roman	roman, italic	roman
Bold	roman	roman, italic	roman
Regular	roman	roman, italic	roman
Light	-	roman, italic	roman
(D) fonts
Weight	condensed	medium	extended
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman, outline
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic, outline	roman
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic	roman
Ultra Light	-	roman	-

Nimbus Sans Poster

It is a version of Nimbus Sans with even tighter spacing than the Nimbus Sans (D) fonts. Other changes include alternate designs for currency symbols.

Weight	condensed	medium
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
Ultra Light	-	roman

Nimbus Sans Diagonal

It is a version with more right lean than Nimbus Sans italic fonts. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Black weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Mono

It is a monospaced variant of Nimbus Sans. The family currently only includes 1 font, in Regular weight in medium width.

Nimbus Sans Global

It is a family supporting Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, CJK ideographic, Japanese kana, Korean Hangul syllables, Thai characters. The family includes 5 fonts in 1 (medium) width, with 4 proportional and 1 monospaced fonts. The proportional fonts are in 4 weights (bold, medium, regular, light), while the monospace font is in medium weight.

Nimbus Sans L

Nimbus Sans L is a version of Nimbus Sans using Adobe font sources. It was designed in 1987. The family includes 17 fonts in 5 weights and 2 widths, with Nimbus Sans L Extra Black only available in condensed roman format.

A subset of Nimbus Sans L, which includes regular and bold weight fonts in all widths and styles, were released under the GPL and AFPL in Type 1 format in 1996[1][2][3][4][5][6] and LPPL in 2009,[7] and is one of several freely licensed fonts offered by URW++.

Although the characters are not exactly the same, Nimbus Sans L has metrics almost identical to Helvetica and Arial. Nimbus Sans L is one of the Ghostscript fonts, a set of free alternatives to the 35 basic PostScript fonts (which include Helvetica).[8][9][10][11]

It is a standard typeface in many GNU/Linux distributions.[12] It was used as default font in OpenOffice.org Calc and Impress in some GNU/Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu - up to version 8.10; since Ubuntu 9.04 the default font was changed to Liberation Sans).

Ghostscript version

It was extended to include Cyrillic support by Valek Filippov.

Nimbus Sans Novus

It is a version Linotype's Stempel Studio source, based on Neue Helvetica, but without the extended fonts.

The font names ending with (D) have tighter letter spacing.

Weight	condensed	medium
Ultra	roman, italic	-
Black	roman, italic	roman, italic
Heavy	roman, italic	roman, italic
Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic, outline
Semi Bold	roman, italic	roman, italic
Medium	roman, italic	roman, italic
Regular	roman, italic	roman, italic
Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
Ultra Light	roman, italic	roman, italic
(D) fonts
Weight	condensed	medium
Ultra	roman	-
Black	roman	roman, outline
Heavy	roman	roman
Bold	roman	roman
Semi Bold	roman	roman
Medium	roman	roman
Regular	roman	roman
Light	roman	roman
Ultra Light	roman	roman

See also

• Nimbus Roman No9 L
• Nimbus Mono L
• Free software Unicode typefaces

References

1. Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts., archived from the original on 2002-10-23, retrieved 2010-05-06
2. Finally! Good-quality free (GPL) basic-35 PostScript Type 1 fonts. (TXT), retrieved 2010-05-06
3. "Fonts and TeX". 2009-12-19. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
4. Five years after: Report on international TEX font projects (PDF), 2007, retrieved 2010-05-06
5. ghostscript-fonts-std-4.0.tar.gz - GhostScript 4.0 standard fonts - AFPL license, 1996-06-28, archived from the original (TAR.GZ) on 2011-04-24, retrieved 2010-05-06
6. ghostscript-fonts-std-6.0.tar.gz - GhostScript 6.0 standard fonts - GPL license, 1999-12-22, archived from the original (TAR.GZ) on 2011-04-24, retrieved 2010-05-06
7. URW++ making original 35 fonts available under LPPL, retrieved 2010-05-06
8. "Fonts and font facilities supplied with Ghostscript". Retrieved 2010-04-21.
9. "Linux fonts (mostly X11)". 2009-08-15. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
10. "Ghostscript SVN - URW fonts". Retrieved 2010-04-21.
11. "URW font ttf conversions". Ghostscript. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
12. "Debian package - gsfonts". Retrieved 2010-04-21.

External links

Nimbus Sans

• URW pages:

Nimbus Sans Family,

Nimbus Sans Global

• Nimbus Sans on MyFonts
• URW fonts sources on Ghostscript (Type 1, OTF and TTF fonts)

Nimbus Sans L

• URW pages: Nimbus Sans L
• URW fonts releases
• Fonts and font facilities supplied with Ghostscript (Type 1)

Nimbus Sans Novus

• URW pages: Nimbus Sans Novus