{"id":57055,"date":"2026-03-10T16:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=57055"},"modified":"2026-03-10T16:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:33:34","slug":"long-vanished-pre-unicode-greek-fonts-embedded-in-pdfs-the-problem-of-times-ten-greek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2026\/03\/10\/long-vanished-pre-unicode-greek-fonts-embedded-in-pdfs-the-problem-of-times-ten-greek\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-vanished pre-unicode Greek fonts embedded in PDFs – the problem of “Times Ten Greek”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2010, I wrote about the problem of Greek text formatted<\/a> in pre-unicode fonts.\u00a0 Yes, it was a problem even then.\u00a0 But the problem is still with us, because we have editions of Greek texts, embedded in older PDFs, which are not in unicode.<\/p>\n

A PDF from Byzantinische Zeitschrift 98 (2006) contains the following bit of text:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But when I copy the Greek text from line 1, I get this:<\/p>\n

\n

Met\u00dbvra, Mon\u00e3 ^Ag\u00ddaw Tri\u00c0dow<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yes, the PDF has embedded an old pre-unicode font.\u00a0 Looking at the file properties, I see which one it is:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was “Times-TenGreek”.\u00a0 Whatever that was.<\/p>\n

A lot of googling gives little information, and a vast number of fake sites offering “downloads” that are of some random font.\u00a0 Eventually I stumble across this site<\/a> by Luc Devroye:<\/p>\n

\n

Times Ten (Adobe, 1988-1990) was the house font used by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It has an Adobe version with Greek, called Times Ten Greek Upright (1988-1991). The full family can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But sadly Times Ten Greek Upright is not there, although other TimesTenFonts are:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking at the file name patterns, I conclude that “TimesTenGreek-Upright.otf” or something like that might be the file name.\u00a0 Searching for this gives a PDF at https:\/\/www.fonts.at\/pdf\/LT_Originals_OT_Edition_3.pdf, which lists four files.<\/p>\n

\n

4584. Times\u00ae Ten Greek Upright\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 TimesTenGreek-Upright.otf
\n4585. Times\u00ae Ten Greek Inclined\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 TimesTenGreek-Inclined.otf
\n4586. Times\u00ae Ten Greek Bold\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0TimesTenGreek-Bold.otf
\n4587. Times\u00ae Ten Greek Bold Inclined\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 TimesTenGreek-BdInclined.otf<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So these did exist.\u00a0 But that’s all I can find.\u00a0 No source from which to obtain it, and no indication of what the encoding was.\u00a0 Basically we have an electronic text but no way to use it.<\/p>\n

This will become a significant problem, if it is not already so.\u00a0 What can be done about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2010, I wrote about the problem of Greek text formatted in pre-unicode fonts.\u00a0 Yes, it was a problem even then.\u00a0 But the problem is still with us, because we have editions of Greek texts, embedded in older PDFs, which are not in unicode. A PDF from Byzantinische Zeitschrift 98 (2006) contains the following […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[889],"class_list":["post-57055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-information-access"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}