Regular fonts are designed primarily to be printed at high resolution. Pixel fonts are designed at low resolution especially for screen display.

When you view a regular font on the screen, you are seeing an approximation of what will appear on a printed page and it is usually compromised because of the screen's relatively low resolution.

 

Regular fonts will look fine if you use them at medium to large sizes – 12 to 14 points up, especially if you set them in a program that does good font smoothing (anti-aliasing), but as the font size gets smaller, the anti-aliasing doesn't just smooth the edges of the characters, it blurs the whole thing making it fuzzy and hard to read.

Pixel fonts are designed so that they look good at small sizes without needing font smoothing.

 

The purpose of font smoothing is to get rid of the jagged edges created by curves and diagonal lines within the characters. If the characters are designed without curves and with diagonal lines that are exactly 45°, jagged edges are keep to a minimum.
 

 

A screen has a grid of small pixels like the tiles in a mosaic. The characters in a typeface are made from pixels too. Every pixel in each character has to correspond with a pixel on the screen.  

If you try to fit a five pixel high character, like a MINI 7 'A', into a space that is only 4 pixels high, you have to throw away a row of pixels to make it fit. If you try to fit a 5 pixel character into a 7 pixel space, you have to add two extra rows of pixels to make it fit. These rows could be horizontal strokes or spaces, but they will distort the characters unpredictably – they don't belong there.

Only at exact multiples of the 'designed size' where every single pixel is doubled, trebled or more, do the character proportions look right.

 

All of our font sizes are quoted by body height. That is the number of pixels from the bottom of the descender to the top of the tallest accent and may also include one ot two pixels of line space. The example below has a cap height of 7 pixels but a body height of 14 pixels.
 

 

Yes, that will happen if you enlarge any low resolution image. Unless you want your type to look deliberately pixelated, don't enlarge the fonts, use a printer font.
 

 

Anti-aliased fonts need eight or more colours to give the smoothed effect. Pixel fonts only need one colour so you can save your GIF files at a 1-bit colour depth. The smaller the bit depth, the smaller the file.
 

 

No, the main text on a Web page can only use fonts on the reader's computer - Arial, Times, Geneva, Verdana etc. It is very unlikely that your readers will have specialist fonts like these installed.

BTW, I'm often asked which fonts I use for this site. The body text is plain ol' Verdana and the menus are MiniMono — A common font for text and a pixel font for navigation. Remember, pixel fonts cannot be indexed or searched by search engines so it is a bad idea to use them for important text. Always give your GIFs an 'alt' attribute spelling out the text in the image. eg. <img alt="home button">
 

 

Any bitmap editing program that lets you enter text at a 72 ppi document resolution. At 72 ppi pixels and points are exactly the same.

The only program that I know of that can't do this is JASC's PaintShopPro which is unable to match points and pixels even at 72 ppi and won't let you enter fractional point sizes. With its 'fixed' 96 ppi font rendering, you would have to set a 10 pixel font at 7.5 points but it won't let you do that. You can change Windows to run at 72ppi, which may not be convenient, but works a treat!

If you use PaintShopPro, download our free SimpleSetter program to do the typesetting for you at the correct size and resolution, then you can paste that into PSP.

 

 

Yes, but there are some things you have to be aware of which are covered on the tips page.
 

 

Yes, they print fine at any size and are ideal when you want that 'computer text' look.

Some of out fonts are designated 'HR'. HR means High Resolution and these are intended for print situations where you want to see the individual pixels.

 

 

If you are running in OSX-native programs, fonts are best dragged into <Your Hard Disk>/System/Library/Fonts/ folder to avoid problems with permissions.

In Classic applications, fonts go in <Your Hard Disk>:System Folder:Fonts.

You can also use our fonts with font management programs such as Extensis Suitcase.

 

 

Checklist:

The fonts should be set on a page with a 72 ppi resolution.

Anti-aliasing (font smoothing) should be off.

The type size should be the 'designed size' or multiple of it. You will find this size in your ReadMe file.

All tracking and kerning should be set to zero and character widths to 100%.

Leading (line spacing) can be specified as required.

The only program I know that gives problems is PaintShopPro because it doesn't render type at 72 ppi regardless of the page resolution. A workaround is described here until it is fixed.

 

 

Usually caused by an incorrect installation in Windows. The best remedy is to completely remove the fonts by properly uninstalling them in the Fonts control panel, rebooting and reinstalling.

If a Bold version of a font doesn't show up in the menu, some programs make use of a Bold style button in the font specifying controls.

 

 

Some programs, such as the PC version of Macromedia Flash, Fireworks etc., will not show Bold variants of fonts in font menus. These variants can, however, be accessed if Bold style button is selected.

Note that, if you select the Bold style button for a Bold variant of a font in the Macintosh version of Flash, the already Bold font variant will be artificially emboldened with ugly results. So, if you are PC, use the Bold button; if you are Mac, use the variant in the font menu and leave the Bold button alone.

 

 

This Tenacity font has a typical Mac character set. Windows versions are in a slightly different order but virtually identical otherwise. Sometimes, very small characters can't be formed properly at these sizes, especially in condensed faces but those instances are rare and the characters concerned are unlikely to be used for text on a Web page.

If you find any characters missing for the language you are using or not looking as you expect, please let us know.

 

 

Producing unique, original fonts, as opposed to copies of existing ones, requires a lot of time, effort and skill, not to mention some pretty expensive software. In the end, there is very little in life that is actually free, somebody has to pay somewhere along the line.

By keeping our overheads low, we can offer these quality fonts at low, shareware prices. Minimal advertising, administration and distribution costs means that they are not only affordable, but excellent value for money.

By purchasing the MiniFont and MiniMix Bundles, you get even better value and the various site licences reduce the cost even further.

 

 

We respect your privacy and only ask for such information necessary to process sales of our fonts.

Details of your credit card are only visible to Kagi and Paypal who handle the credit transactions and have their own privacy policies. We do not see this information at all.

We do not sell, give or otherwise devulge customer's email address to third parties for any reason whatsoever.

 

 

Unlike application software, with fonts it is impossible to provide time-limited demos or partially functional products.

We have some free sample fonts with which you can test general suitability. There is a complete character set in the section above this and each font has a 'more' information page accessible from the MORE button that provides sample settings.

We will happily provide any further information you require prior to purchase but once purchased and the download details provided, we can not offer refunds as there is no practical way to inhibit font usage thereafter.

 

 

Each font sold is subject to an End User License Agreement. By purchasing and downloading any font, you agree to abide by the conditions of the agreeement.

A Single User License allows the purchaser to install and use the font on a single Mac and single PC computer only.

There are no restrictions as to the actual usage where bitmap or vector images are produced from the fonts and embedded in such a way that they are inaccessible to any third party. It is not permissable to distribute a font, or any part thereof, that can be installed and used on another computer.

Multiple User Licenses are available for 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 users who can have any mix of Mac and PC versions up to the license limit.

A sample License Agreement is available here.

 

 

All fonts sold on this site are the copyright of their respective designers. The site is © Copyright 2002 - 2003 of Joe Gillespie/MiniFonts.com. All rights reserved.
 

 

Having trouble with your fonts order? Password doesn't work? You can find the solution here. If not, we will happily answer by email.

All orders for fonts are placed on a secure order page at Kagi.com. Kagi handle the payments and provide you with a registration code that can be used to download your fonts. The whole process normally takes only a few minutes. 

Buying with PayPal is not an automatic process and your registration codes have to be sent manually. Allow up to 48 hours to receive your confirmation.

 

 

When Kagi receives your order, they have to get authorization of your credit card details from the bank concerned. If network traffic is very busy or if there are technical problems, this process can take an hour or more. It is very rare that your confirmation would take more than a couple of hours in the worst case.

Until the bank authorizes your card, you will not be able to download the fonts. These situations are rare and beyond the control of Kagi so please be patient.

If, for some reason, the bank cannot authorize your card, you will be contacted to allow you to resolve the matter with them or make alternative payment arrangements.

If you need to contact Kagi about your order, this page tells you how.

When your payment is authorized, you will receive an acknowledgement from Kagi entitled "Thanks for your payment".

Unless you have opted to pay the nominal fee for a postcard receipt, this will be your only receipt and contains important information. It is also your proof of purchase, so please keep it in a safe place.

For each font license you have requested, you will be given a registration code which allows you to download the font.

Each font has its own unique registration code, they are not interchangeable. This registration code has to be entered exactly to access the font download.

 

 

The download window is a pop-up that appears in front of the main window. Most modern browsers can distinguish between this kind of functional pop-up and ones with annoying ads. If your browser has a pop-up window blocker that can't tell the difference, the window may not appear. In this instance, you should turn the pop-up blocker off or contact us for an alternative delivery method giving your Kagi or PayPal transaction number and font version — Mac or PC.

 

 

All registration numbers have been pre-tested before you get them. The most common error is mistaking certain ambiguous characters like capital "O" and 0 (Zero) or the characters "I" (i), "l" (L) and the numeral 1 (one). Copying and pasting the registration number gets around this problem.

If you are still denied access to your fonts after copying and pasting, you are probably using the wrong registration number for that font. Every registration number has been verified to work. Some of the font names are similar so check the name of the font that the registration number is for and make sure you click on the appropriate link to download it.

Some people think that they can guess registration codes. Their chances of winning the lottery are much better but to prevent them wasting their time, and our's, after five unsuccessful tries, they are locked out. If you find yourself in this situation somehow, you need to contact us to get unblocked.

The download dialog box asks for your name, email address and registration number. It also allows you to choose a Mac or PC version of the font. Provided all the details are correct, the font can be downloaded immediately onto you computer in .sit.hqx (Mac) or .zip(PC) format.

The font should arrive on your desktop (or other designated directory) within a few seconds, the file sizes for fonts are very small, 100k or less. You will then have to unstuff or unzip the file to decompress the font folder inside. Depending on your setup, this might happen automatically or you might have to do it manually.

Note: Mozilla-based browsers on Windows – Mozilla, Netscape and Firebird – will not download Mac fonts. If you want to download Mac fonts from a PC, you will have to use Explorer or write and ask for a self-extracting .exe.

 

 

It's very unusual for anything to go wrong at this stage but if you have trouble decompressing the file it could be caused by a corrupted download or an old or incompatible version of Stuffit Expander or unZipping utility.

If, after redownloading the file, it still won't decompress, send us an email explaining what has gone wrong and which version of the font you require and it will be emailed directly to you in an alternative format.

Instructions for installing the fonts are given in the Readme files provided.

 

 

If you still have your download details, you can download your fonts again at any time. If you have lost your download details too, you can search for past purchase information at Kagi's Order Tracking System.

If you used PayPal, login to you account and use the 'history' tab to get the details of your purchase.

We are unable to provide re-issues of download information without the relevant transaction numbers from Kagi or PayPal.