October 16th, 2011 byKudos to everyone using the Ubuntu Font Family on their websites as a web font! This week the total to date reached over one billion requests—and it’ll go up even faster if you add Ubuntu Mono and Ubuntu Condensed to your sites too.
Shortly after the Ubuntu Font Family was added to Google Webfonts directory, Bruno and Dalton Maag team noticed that there had been 12 million API requests in the first month. I think you’ll agree that the current figure dwarfs that! Here’s the announcement from back then, now blown away:
Only added recently into Google’s font directory, the Ubuntu font family has already been viewed over 12 Million times around the world.
We expect the fonts to become even more popular once the font family is available in all its weights, and the core set is extended with Arabic and Hebrew, too.
Bruno and Dalton Maag, just a few months ago
I had a feeling that the usage might ramp up and now the those API requests to the Google Webfonts have reached one billion (109) or as David Wurtz, product manager for Google Webfonts put it:
…A big milestone!
David Wurtz, Product Manager, Google Web Fonts Team
Version 0.80 expansion
The statistics are not the only big milestone recently. Ubuntu Font Family 0.80 was released at the end of September 2011. In the release announcement it introduces the five additional .ttf files:
- Ubuntu Mono (four styles)
- Ubuntu Condensed (one style)
Hinting work continues on the Ubuntu Mono with Vincent Connare at Dalton Maag working to perfect the distortions to improve the rendering at low resolutions.
Mark Shuttleworth (who along with other people has been testing the Ubuntu Mono for nearly a year) is so happy with the Ubnutu Mono that in bug #865013 “Ubuntu Mono” has been made the default system monospace font in Ubuntu 11.10. For Kubuntu, Xubuntu and friends the monospace fonts are also shipped in release 11.10, but are not yet set as default.
Get them now!
I’ll hand it over to Dave Crossland to do the summing up. Dave is an independent font consultant working with the Google Web Fonts team who’s been heavily involved with building up the number of libre and open fonts available in the directory and knows intimately what works and what doesn’t:
The Ubuntu Font Family is one of the most popular fonts available in Google Web Fonts, …thanks to its excellent quality in design and technical engineering, and also its extensive character set that supports many languages. As more and more people learn about why web fonts are important, it’s great that the Ubuntu project has shared this high quality typeface and font family with the world!
Dave Crossland, independent consultant to Google Web Fonts team
To view and use the Ubuntu Font Family via Google Web Fonts; there’s a choice of Ubuntu (proportional ×8), Ubuntu Mono (monospace ×4) and Ubuntu Condensed (condensed ×1). You are expressly welcome and encouraged to share and use the webfonts on your own sites!
The toolkit
13 Responseshide comments
Ubuntu Mono is a really amazing font. It is so legible. Seriously, congrats to the designers.
For the Kubuntu users who want to use Ubuntu Mono in Konsole:
1)Click on “Settings” in the Menu.
2)Click the “Edit Profile” button.
3)Click on the “Appearance” tab.
4)Click on the ‘Edit Font…” button.
5)Set to “Ubuntu Mono” and save.
Congratulations! It is my default font for everything, but Ubuntu Mono is my favorite.
The Ubuntu font is awesome, I also use it with Google Docs.
You make the asmusption that Microsoft’s patents are legal in my jurisdiction. They aren’t. Software patents aren’t legal where I live. And of course you have to ask yourself if Microsoft’s VFat patents are legal where Microsoft applied for them, because they quite probably aren’t (I’ve read the U.S. Patent rules). Of course that isn’t an issue any more, since the Kernel was modified to avoid the issue.Samba is clear. The European Union made sure of that.Mono wasn’t designed to bring C# to Linux users. It was designed to bring C# to Linux programmers. Big difference.As to there being One Pure Way, sure there is. It’s called Assembler.WayneLike or Dislike: 0 0
What’s the right place to report bugs in Ubuntu Mono? The height of the lowercase ‘i’ feels wrong in Ubuntu Mono Bold at whatever point size is the default when you check “Use system monospace font” in Gnome Terminal: http://i.imgur.com/nWan2.png
Other sizes appear to be fine.
Please file a bug against ubuntu-font-family project in Launchpad.
Filed.
We are using it on our school website: http://www.gyotr.cz/
Everyone seems to be very satisfied with that font and visitors like it. Unfortunately, the schools computers are still running Windows, but that may change soon.
Thanks Canonical
Hi guys, I don’t know if this is the right channel, but would you guys be kind enough to consider adding the Naira sign to the ubuntu font? It is unicode character U+20A6, and looks visually like an “N” with an “=” overlaid on it…. Included here: ₦.
I maintain a number of websites which need to display currency, and there is currently no universal solution to this problem (Linux machines handle it fine, but windows machines aren’t so predictable). A web font that includes this would solve the problem nicely for users of modern browsers irrespective of their underlying OS.
Cheers.
Afanen01: Please could you file the request in the Launchpad bug-tracker so that it doesn’t get lost:
We dtlenieify understand your pain. We have shopped at Wegman’s before and understand the longing. There is a location in Woodbridge, NJ. In theory it may not seem like it’s worth the trek, but it’s Wegman’s! It might be worth it!
I absolutely adore this font, especially for display/UI purposes. It’s even the default font on my phone!
Awesome! Way to go guys!