{"id":563,"date":"2011-01-23T01:02:28","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T01:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/?p=563"},"modified":"2013-11-28T08:59:43","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T08:59:43","slug":"thank-you-microsoft-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"Thank you Microsoft, here&#8217;s why!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am a <strong>massive<\/strong> fan of open source software and enjoy the freedom of being able to download source code via SVN (e.g., LuaTeX and GhostScript). I subscribe to numerous mailing lists to keep up-to-date with various open source distributions close to my heart and interests (FreeType, GhostScript, LuaTeX, Lua, &#8230;). In short, I love, enjoy and applaud open source software. So, why am I saying &#8220;Thank you Microsoft, here&#8217;s why!&#8221;  About 6 months ago I purchased, at some expense (about \u00a3500, that hurt!), a copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fontlab.com\/font-editor\/fontlab-studio\/\">Fontlab Studio<\/a> to support my research into OpenType fonts with LuaTeX. Of course, I have also installed <a href=\"http:\/\/fontforge.sourceforge.net\/\">Fontforge<\/a> and, in addition, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/typography\/volt.mspx\">Microsoft VOLT<\/a> (Visual OpenType Layout Tool ). Of course, FontForge is open source whereas VOLT is free to use: you only get the executable, not the source code. Another useful addition to the armoury is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/devnet\/opentype\/afdko.html\">Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType<\/a>. With all these tools and resources at your disposal you have everything to occupy many lifetimes of research. <\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, during the course of my research, I came across the blog by <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/b\/murrays\/\">Murray Sargent<\/a>, professor and laser physicist who works for Microsoft. In short, Professor Sargent is responsible for the excellent mathematical typesetting in Microsoft Word 2007, and later. The Cambria-Math OpenType mathematical font was produced by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tiro.com\/projects.html\">Tiro Typeworks<\/a> and currently defines the standard for OpenType mathematical typography; in addition, Microsoft proposed and pioneered the MATH table for OpenType fonts. Cambria-Math works wonderfully well with LuaTeX. Personally, I am grateful to Microsoft for contributing to mathematical typesetting, releasing VOLT and, on a personal basis, sending me a copy of their excellent book &#8220;Mathematical Typesetting&#8221;. I just want to leave you with the thought that no matter how big a corporation might be, within it are departments and groups run and managed by real people who are dedicated to their art and responsive to requests from respectful, like-minded, individuals. The corporate machine is one thing, small dedicated teams of friendly, helpful experts are another. That is why I say &#8220;Thank you Microsoft, here&#8217;s why!&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am a massive fan of open source software and enjoy the freedom of being able to download source code via SVN (e.g., LuaTeX and GhostScript). I subscribe to numerous mailing lists to keep up-to-date with various open source distributions close to my heart and interests (FreeType, GhostScript, LuaTeX, Lua, &#8230;). In short, I love, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opentype"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3244,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/3244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.readytext.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}