Palatino - Variants and Similar Typefaces

Variants and Similar Typefaces

Zapf also designed Aldus, which appeared in the D. Stempel AG catalog in 1954. Both Aldus and Palatino were Zapf’s new form of old style typefaces inspired by the Renaissance. Originally intended as the book or text weight for Zapf's Palatino font family, it was instead released as a separate family.

Microsoft distributes a similar typeface, Book Antiqua (originally by Monotype), which is considered by Zapf to be an imitation. Book Antiqua was designed as an alternative to licensing the fonts mandated by Adobe's PostScript standard. Both Book Antiqua and Arial (the alternative for Helvetica) share the original typefaces' character width, spacing and kerning properties. However, Book Antiqua resembles Palatino much more than Arial does Helvetica; indeed, the two are quite difficult to tell apart. Discernable differences include in the following characters:

• S — wider for Book Antiqua;
• K and R — the lower-right serifs are 'stubbier' for Book Antiqua (more apparent due to thinner strokes on the diagonal 'leg' for Palatino Linotype);
• 1 — the top serif is longer narrower for Book Antiqua (making the outward taper more obvious).
• Italic forms for all letters are taller and narrower for Book Antiqua than for Palatino Linotype. The two fonts are more distinguishable in their italic forms than in their Roman forms.

In 1993, Zapf resigned from l'Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members. In the United States, the abstract design of a typeface is not protected by copyright, and can be imitated freely (unless the typeface is protected by a design patent, which is of much more limited duration and rarely applied for). Copyright protection is available for the representation of a typeface in software (a computer font), and the names of typefaces can be protected by trademark.

Microsoft has since licensed and distributes a version of Zapf's original design called Palatino Linotype in Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

URW Palladio L, another similar typeface is available, this time by URW (Unternehmensberatung Rubow Weber — from the founders' names now retitled URW++). Zapf actually did work with URW on this typeface, but it could not have the same name because Linotype has a trademark on the name Palatino.

TeX Gyre Pagella is another similar typeface based on the URW Palladio L font. Pagella includes accents for European languages as well as glyphs for a few non-European languages. This typeface is released in formats compatible with LaTeX as well as with modern OpenType compatible systems.

FPL Neu is yet another typeface based on URW Palladio L font. It has both text figures and lining figures. It is available both in Type 1 format and OpenType format.

Zapf Renaissance Antiqua was a newer interpretation by Zapf of the same general design.

Zapf Calligraphic 801 is a version of Palatino from the Bitstream type foundry, again with Zapf's blessing.