Bitstream created a library of "classic" fonts, usually under different names, in digital form. For example,
Times Ten was released as
Dutch 801,
Akzidenz-Grotesk as
Gothic 725,
Aurora as
News 706,
Antique Olive as
Incised 901,
Bembo as
Aldine 401,
Berthold Block as
Gothic 821, Bodoni Campanile as
Modern 735,
Choc as
Staccato 555, Codex as
Calligraphic 421,
Cochin as ''Engravers' Oldstyle 205
, Coronet as Ribbon 131
, Eurostile as Square 721
, Frutiger as Humanist 777
, Gill Sans as Humanist 521
, Kabel as Geometric 231
, Memphis as GeoSlab 703
, Metro as Geometric 415
, Mistral as Staccato 222
, Melior as Zapf Elliptical
, Optima as Zapf Humanist
, Oscar as Formal 436
, Old English Text as Cloister Black
, Peignot as Exotic 350
, Perpetua as Lapidary 333
, Plantin as Aldine 721
, Profil as Decorated 035
, Palatino as Zapf Calligraphic
, Rockwell as Geometric Slabserif 712
, Syntax as Humanist 531
, Torino as Industrial 736
and Univers as Zurich''. The Bitstream font collection is most widely used through its inclusion with the
CorelDRAW software, as well as other Corel products such as WordPerfect Office. In the United States, font-names are copyrightable but the character designs themselves are not, meaning anyone digitally convert the fonts in a printed document and redistribute them under a new name. Bitstream received extensive criticism for its strategy of cheaply offering digitisations of pre-existing typefaces that it had not designed. While not illegal, font designer John Hudson would describe its selling of large numbers of typefaces on CD at discount prices as "one of the worst instances of piracy in the history of type". The company distributed fonts with
metrics matching
PostScript fonts, making it possible for output from
software clones of
PostScript to match the original. Bitstream developed a number of fonts on its own, such as Amerigo, by
Gerard Unger Charter, by
Matthew Carter, Carmina by
Gudrun Zapf, Chianti by Dennis Pasternak,
Iowan Old Style by
John Downer, Arrus by
Richard Lipton and the
freeware Bitstream Vera family of fonts. One of their best known fonts is Swiss 721 BT, which is a
Helvetica clone with condensed versions and a rounded version. It was among the first digitally available Swiss family typefaces, being designed for that purpose in 1982. Another Bitstream product is
Font Fusion, a font
rasterizing engine developed jointly with Type Solutions, Inc., which was later owned entirely by Bitstream. The multi-byte character set was named
Bitstream International Character Set (
BICS). == History ==