Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Fonts Announced

Elk Grove Village, IL – May 12, 2006 – Ascender Corporation, a leading provider of advanced font products today announced that Microsoft licensed eight original typefaces designed by Ascender for the Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF) Software Development Kit (SDK). Ascender created the fonts in the OpenType® font format with rich typographic features designed to enhance the reading experience and facilitate better typography.

Windows Presentation Foundation is Microsoft's unified presentation subsystem for Windows Vista™. WPF consists of a display engine that takes full advantage of modern graphics hardware and an extensible set of managed classes that developers can use to create rich, visually stunning applications. WPF introduces the next generation of text rendering, with new advances that improve the readability of text on a computer display, including:

ClearType® for sub-pixel rendering of fonts on-screen
Advanced typographic features in OpenType fonts
Support for Adobe® Compact Font Format (CFF)

The WPF font collection includes the following original fonts designed by Steve Matteson, Ascender’s Type Director:

Kootenay™ regular – an approachable, curvaceous sans serif typeface that works particularly well for on-screen reading and user interfaces
Lindsey™ regular – a casual script font made to simulate youthful handwriting
Miramonte™ regular and bold – an unpretentious sans serif design with elegant proportions that has a wide range of uses in print and on screen
Pericles™ light and regular – an attractive sans serif typeface for headlines and short passages of text which recall inscriptional lettering and playful, art deco design
Pescadero™ regular and bold - a delicate and detailed serif typeface that adds a touch of distinction and elegance

The Ascender fonts were licensed by Microsoft to provide a satisfactory palette with which to show the advanced OpenType typographic features available in WPF, including the ability to leverage true small capitals, old style figures, tabular figures, proportional figures, superscripts and subscripts, alternative vowels and ligatures.

“These eight typefaces are a great showcase for WPF’s OpenType feature support and help demonstrate how developers can use OpenType fonts to create great WPF UI and reading experiences” said Chris Han, Microsoft WPF program manager.

Developers using the WPF SDK are permitted to use the fonts ‘as is’ in any of their projects or products. If additional language support or custom characters are desired, developers can contact Ascender for a license extension or to create special fonts as needed.

Ascender is also releasing enhanced “Pro” versions of these fonts with comprehensive character sets for consumers and creative professionals to download. Lindsey Pro and Pericles Pro are currently available, and the other Pro versions are due for release in the coming weeks. More information on these fonts is available from the Ascender Corp. website at: http://www.ascendercorp.com/WPF_fonts.html

About Ascender
Ascender® Corporation is a leading provider of advanced font products specializing in type design, font development and licensing. Ascender’s founders are font industry experts and have been involved in developing some of the most important and influential fonts used in computers and mobile devices. Ascender provides multilingual, custom font development for a wide range of customers including creative professionals, enterprises and hardware & software developers. Ascender also provides fonts for download to graphic designers and consumers through the Ascender Font Store website.

Contact:
Bill Davis
Ascender Corporation
25 Northwest Point Blvd, Suite 225
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007 USA
Phone: (847) 357 0730 ext. 10
Fax: (847) 357 0731

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