Hoefler Text is an old-style

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

font by Jonathan Hoefler released by Apple Computer Inc. (now

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

) in 1991 to showcase advanced type technologies. Intended as a versatile font that is suitable for body text, it takes cues from a range of classic fonts, such as designs by Miklós Kis and

Jean Jannon Jean Jannon (1580 – 20 December 1658) was a French Protestant printer, type designer, punchcutter and typefounder active in Sedan in the seventeenth century. He was a reasonably prolific printer by contemporary standards, printing several hun ...

. A version of Hoefler Text has been included with every version of the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

since System 7.5 and in every version of

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. Hoefler's company, Hoefler&Co., have continued development of the typeface, developing for sale a range of additional variants.Hoefler Text , Hoefler & Frere-Jones
Released free with every Mac during the growth of

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...

, at a time when producing printed documents was becoming dramatically easier, Hoefler Text raised awareness of type features previously the concern only of professional printers. '' New York'' magazine commented in 2014 that it "helped launch a thousand font obsessives." Hoefler Text was used in the

Wikipedia logo The logo of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia depicts a white, incomplete globe-shaped jigsaw puzzle, each jigsaw piece inscribed with a glyph from a different writing system. As displayed on the web pages of English Wikipedia, the English-langu ...

until the 2010 redesign, when it was replaced with

Linux Libertine Linux Libertine is a typeface released in 2003 by the Libertine Open Fonts Project, which aims to create FOSS, free and open alternatives to Proprietary software, proprietary typefaces such as Times New Roman. It was developed with the free font e ...

Features

Hoefler Text incorporates then-advanced features which have since become standard practice for font designers, such as automatic

ligature Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

insertion, real

small capitals In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used in running ...

, optional

old style figures Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...

and optional insertion of characters such as true superscript and subscript characters, the historical round and

long s The long s, , also known as the medial ''s'' or initial ''s'', is an Archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter , found mostly in works from the late 8th to early 19th centuries. It replaced one or both of the letters ''s'' in a double-''s ...

, engraved capitals and swashes. Hoefler Text also has a matching ornament font containing arabesque motifs. It was, until

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...

made alternate characters more common, one of only a few system fonts that contained old style, or ranging, figures, which are designed to harmonize with body text. Hoefler&Co. expanded Hoefler Text to include additional typographic features, and the current commercial release now includes three weights (an additional bold weight beside the regular and black included with Macs) and two sets of engraved capitals, as well as the more slender display variant Hoefler Titling. These are released in the

format, intended for cross-platform usage. The design is based on the types Janson and Garamond No. 3 typefaces, both of whose historical names are misattributions; the designs were created by punchcutters Miklós Tótfalusi Kis and

respectively.

Gallery

Hoefler Text features.png, Hoefler Text features in the version bundled with Macs. The commercial release includes an additional bold weight (less bold than that shown) and a second, lighter design of engraved capitals. Rare and ancient ligatures in XeTeX.svg, Contextual and selectable ligatures in Hoefler Text, highlighted in red.

References

External links

*
Hoefler Text
in the Hoefler & Frere-Jones catalog
Hoefler Text features
in the Hoefler & Frere-Jones catalog
Hoefler Titling
in the Hoefler & Frere-Jones catalog {{OS X typefaces Old style serif typefaces Typefaces with text figures Hoefler & Frere-Jones typefaces Typefaces designed by Jonathan Hoefler Typefaces with optical sizes Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1991 Apple Inc. typefaces

Features

Gallery

See also

References

External links