Physical Fonts

Starting with the 1.2 release, the Java 2 SDK includes a set of TrueType fonts in the lib/fonts subdirectory. Prior to the 1.2 release, the JDK software relied on the host platform fonts. Logical fonts, such as Monospaced, are mapped to the host platform fonts in the font.properties file. To distinguish them from the logical fonts, this document refers to the TrueType fonts as physical fonts.

Benefits

The SDK's physical fonts offer the following benefits:

• Consistent Look and Feel

  Your applications will look the same on all platforms because they will be using the same fonts. This makes testing, deployment, and support easier in a cross-platform environment.

• Rich Character Sets

  You don't have to switch fonts if you use characters from various scripts. For example, in a text component that uses the Lucida Sans Regular font, you can display characters in Hebrew, Arabic, German, and English, which are all included as part of the SDK's Lucida Sans Regular font. (Asian character sets for the physical fonts are not supported in the current release.)

• Euro Currency Symbol

  All of the physical fonts of the Java 2 Platform support the Euro currency symbol.

The Physical Fonts Supplied by the Java 2 Platform

• Lucida Sans Regular
• Lucida Sans Bold
• Lucida Sans Oblique
• Lucida Sans Bold Oblique

• Lucida Bright Regular
• Lucida Bright Bold
• Lucida Bright Italic
• Lucida Bright Bold Italic

• Lucida Sans Typewriter Regular
• Lucida Sans Typewriter Bold
• Lucida Sans Typewriter Oblique
• Lucida Sans Typewriter Bold Oblique

Related Methods in the Java 2D^TM API

• GraphicsEnvironment.getAvailableFontFamilyNames

  Returns an array of font family names available for use, including font families provided by the host platform as well as the families provided by the SDK.

• GraphicsEnvironment.getAllFonts

  Returns an array of physical fonts in this environment. The fonts returned include the fonts supplied by the host platform and the physical fonts of the SDK.

Using the SDK's Physical Fonts

Font f = new Font("Lucida Sans", font.PLAIN, 12)

Font f = new Font("Lucida Sans Typewriter", font.ITALIC, 18)

The Java 2 Platform's physical fonts are located in the jre/lib/fonts folder in the Java 2 SDK and in the lib/fonts directory of the Java 2 Runtime Environment. Users can add additional TrueType fonts to this directory for use by their programs. The TrueType fonts must be Unicode encoded.