Typophile

Albertus MT defect?

Sam Olley

I was typing out a heading in Albertus (Albertus Std Regular, the Monotype Opentype file) but with the V I noticed something odd. I zoomed in and saw the right serif has a sort of slope to it. When on the Light and Italic of the same family, it is not sloped.

Additionally, the Bitstream Flareserif 821 has not got this slope either.

Is this a defect in the file, and should I go back to the distributor or is it a quirk that's been there for a while? Is it only this newer Opentype one that has this or was it on the older files too?

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HVB

It appears to be a quirk that's been there for a long time. At least since a file internally dated 1991 as published by Adobe in 1995. Fontlab shows a 3 unit drop from left to right, from 750 to 747. It is not in versions created by other companies or in other weights or variants.

- Herb

Sam Olley

What other company versions are there, apart from Bitstream version? Most I see are just the Monotype one, which seems just like the Adobe one (the myFonts sample can show the quirk, which doesn't show in the character dump).

Also, I recall seeing somewhere a crossed W in something set in Albertus. Is this an old alternate character or was it probably custom made?

HVB

Other 'Albertus' implementors:

ScanGraphic
Elseware
Miles, Inc.
The Font Company
Image Club Graphics (ICG) - had straight, rather than curved, stroke ends
Hewlett-Packard - had more extensive character set than most
Agfa Monotype (A different implementation than Adobe/Linotype's Albertus MT)
Albertus equivalents, copies, and/or clones:

Flareserif 821 (Bitstream)
Adelon (Softmaker/B&P Graphics)
Alert (Opti Castcraft)
Alhambra (Primafont)
Alberta (WSI/IMSI)
Alstrale Romana (WSI/IMSI)

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