TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Apr 15 04:52:00 EDT 2024
FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE
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Mac <=> PC Font Conversion | ||
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SWITCH TO INDEX FILE
Font software company that offers a nice intro to the font formats, and sells conversion software such as Crossfont, Wrefont and TransMac. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Allan Murray
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Ares FontMonger is an older PC-based font conversion (PC to/from Mac) program. FontMonger, when applied to type 1 fonts, does not preserve hinting or kerning, so be careful. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Commercial 45 USD shareware Windows utility by Acute Systems: CrossFont is a Windows 95/98/NT utility for moving PostScript Type1 and TrueType fonts between Macintosh and PC platforms. Some features: Convert PostScript Type 1 fonts to OpenType fonts for Windows PC and Macintosh - Convert PostScript Type 1 fonts between PC and Mac. - Convert TrueType between PC and Mac. - Character outlines, metrics and hinting are not touched. - Drag and drop interface. - Registered version can batch convert to many file types at once. - Automatic sensing of file type. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Mark Douma's donationware utility (2004) for Mac OS X: dfontifier is an application that can convert Mac OS X-style Datafork TrueType fonts (.dfonts) into ordinary Mac OS 9-style TrueType fonts and vice versa. Review by Benjamin Levisay. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Dfontsplitter
| DfontSplitter for Windows and Mac are open source programs which allow you to take Mac-formatted .dfont font files and convert them into TrueType TTF fonts, which Windows and other operating systems can usually understand. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
DfontSplitter
| Free Windows and Mac program to convert (Mac) .dfont files to truetype. By Peter Upfold. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
Package that used to be at the Y&Y site, but seems to have disappeared. It said: Use these two dozen command line programs to alter and adjust fonts in Adobe Type 1 format without disturbing the "hinting" information. Adjust glyph sidebearings and advance widths, extract sub-fonts, merge glyph sets from two fonts, add new composite characters, convert between Macintosh and IBM PC format, convert between different metric file formats (AFM, PFM, TFM, SCR, MET), etc Includes PFAtoAFM, PFMtoAFM, PFBtoMAC (PC type 1 to Mac type 1), MACtoPFA (Mac type 1 to UNIX type 1), AFMtoSCR, SCRtoAFM, REENCODE, RENAMECH, MERGEPFA, SUBFONT, COMPOSIT, SIDEBEAR, TRANSFRM, SAFESEAC, AFMtoPFM, AFMtoTFM, TFMtoAFM, PFAtoPFB, PFBtoPFB, TFMtoMET, METtoTFM, BINtoHEX, HEXtoBIN, SERIAL, and DOWNLOAD. A commercial product from Y&Y. Some say Refont (free, DOS) and Wrefont (25USD, Windows) are better, but I disagree--FMP includes TFM related commands, for example. For hacker types, note that most of these things are freely available for UNIX platforms. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
This FontLab software converts Fontographer database files (versions 3 and 4 are supported) to FontLab files. FogLamp is available separately (for both platforms) and in bundles with Fontographer and TransType Pro. Combination of Fog, FogLamp and TransType Pro allows to build Fog-based font-editing environment which can generate OpenType fonts in both flavors as well as any other font format. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
A series of (free open source code) programs to interconvert between mac fonts (and FONDs) and unix font formats. Headed by George Williams, the creator of pfaedit (now FontForge). [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
George Williams has a number of free UNIX utilities related to Mac font files:
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Free program for the Mac for some font conversion to/from PC. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Mac <=> PC font conversion was nicely explained explained by Dieter Schumacher. Page disappeared. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Font Finagler
| Mark Douma's free utility (2004) for Mac OS X which used to be called Font Cache Cleaner. It can in some cases help clean up font cache inconsistencies. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
FontCollector is a free open source program by Dr. Alexander R. Pruss from the Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Font conversion between these formats: FontHack 123 (including eReader), Mobipocket, Fonts4OS5 (conversion to other formats only for registered Fonts4OS5 3.1 users), FontSubst (conversion to other formats only for registered FontSubst 1.50 users), FontHackV, Fonts inside all applications' main .prc files and their overlays, Plucker, Silo, PalmBible+, VersaMail fonts, FontBucket, Built-in Sony NX fonts, Built-in Palm OS fonts on many devices. Check also PalmFontConv(erter) and FontSmoother. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
FontConverter.Org
| Free on-line font format converter from these formats (as input): TrueType, PostScript (Type 1 font), TeX Bitmap Fonts, OTB (X11 bitmap only sfnt), BDF (Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format), FON (Windows), FNT (Windows), OTF OpenType font, SVG, TTC, ABF (Adobe Binary Screen Font), AFM (Adobe Font Metrics File), BDF (Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format), DFONT (Mac OS X Data Fork Font). The output is one of these: TTF TrueType, OTF OpenType, FON Generic font, PFB Printer font binary, dfont Mac OS X data fork font. By T. Reinhardt, Switzerland. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
FontForge
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Interview. Wikipedia page on FontForge. FontForge documentation. FontForge history. Footnote: the headline of this page is set in New G8 by Artifex and Michael Sharpe based on URW Garamond No.8, a project developed, like hundreds of others in the open source community, by FontForge. Github link. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
Mac utility to convert PC type 1 and TTF to Mac format. Reportedly faster and easier to use than FontMonger. Free software. (Click in Font Utilities.). Dead link. No longer available, but preferred by many over the commercial product TransType (such as by Don Hosek). Bought by Adober and then dumped because the product annoyed them. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
FontMonger converts from Windows to Mac and vice versa, and outputs fonts on the Mac in all formats (TTF, type 1, type 3). Free Mac software. Look for fmw108.zip on the web. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Mac font utility for conversion between Windows truetype and Mac GS font formats. Charityware by Lysergic Software (1998). Bad link? [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Commercial Mac and PC software by Morrison SoftDesign (Charlotte, NC) for converting fonts between type 1, OpenType and truetype. Not cheap. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
FreeFontConverter
| A free on-line font converter between these font formats: pfa, pfb, pt3, sfd, ttf, otf, otb, t42, cef, cff, gsf, ttc, svg, ik, mf, dfont, bin, suit and bdf. By J. Bench in the UK. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
Quote: "Altsoft FTMaster (Font Type Master) is an application for font designing, editing and converting. It is completely based on Altsoft FTMBase .NET API which provides a comprehensive set of classes and methods dealing with a variety of modern font formats." It supports Type1, Type2, Type42, TrueType, OpenType, CID-based fonts, and Multiple Master fonts. Free evaluation version. Commercial product: 1000 US dollars. Written for Windows, it converts between formats, allows editing, renaming, generating multiple master font instances. Extracting fonts from PDF files is possible as well. Personal note: I see nothing in here that one cannot achieve with FontForge (free). [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
George Williams
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J. Bench
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Free Windows utility fore extracting fonts from a Mac font file. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Step-by-step instructions for PC users for converting fonts grabbed from Mac sites or the alt.binaries.mac.fonts newsgroup to PC. Needs Aladdin Expander v5.0 and Crossfont v1.4. Works for both type 1 and truetype fonts. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
For many Mac truetype fonts, this little UNIX shell file (requiring bin2ascii, sed, gawk) converts a truetype file to Windows format. Tinker with it for better results. for i do filename=$i rm -rf $filename.bin $filename.$$ bin2ascii $filename > $filename.bin sed '/\\0\\x01\\0\\0\\0/s//XXXXX/' $filename.bin | gawk ' BEGIN {m=0}$0 ~ /XXXXX/ && m == 0 {print "AAAAA" $0; m=1}m == 2 {print $0}$0 ~ /name/ || $0 ~ /cmap/ {m=2} ' |sed '/^AAAAA.*XXXXX/s//\\0\\x01\\0\\0\\0/' | sed '/XXXXX/s//\\0\\x01\\0\\0\\0/' > $filename.$$ bin2ascii -i $filename.$$ > $filename.ttf #rename $filename.ttf # (use above line if you have a font renaming utility) rm -rf $filename.bin $filename.$$ done[Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Usually a piece of cake without any software. You can do it in a text editor at least if that editor permits some viewing of binary data. Just go to the top and find the first occurrence of these hexadecimal bytes: 00 01 00 00 00, usually a bit before the first pieces of readable text such as LTSH, OS/2, NVDM, cmap, fpgm, gasp, and so on. There may be more than one such sequence, so iterate. Remove everything before that hexadecimal sequence. Bingo, you now have a Windows truetype font, compliments of yours truly. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Batch conversion program (free) for Mac (type 1, truetype) fonts to PC format, written by BabyBoot. Announced on alt.binaries.fonts on July 6, 1998, and in development since March 1998. Requires Wrefont. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Free Mac2PC conversion program by PublishGirl. Mac2pfb, bmap2afm, Refont 1.4. All free. Link gone. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Commercial software for Mac/PC conversions in general. It also converts truetype fonts between Mac and PC, and type 1 fonts from Mac to PC. All programs by Paris-based Pierre Duhem, whose company is called Logiciels&Services Duhem. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Mark Douma
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An old discussion of a wonderful discontinued piece of software: " Metamorphosis was the premiere font conversion utility for the Macintosh and has only gotten better now that it has metamorphosed into Metamorphosis Professional. It's a fine utility from a fine company. (Altsys's portfolio also boasts Freehand (marketed by Aldus), Art Importer, and Fontographer.) Metamorphosis converts fonts and does it well. It currently boasts the ability to convert between seven outline formats: Type 1 fonts for the Mac, PC, and NeXT; Type 3 fonts for the Mac and PC; and TrueType for the Mac and PC. In addition, it can also convert any of the above formats to a PICT file containing smooth-polygon versions of the text, an EPS file containing the PostScript outlines, or a Fontographer file for editing with Fontographer. Metamorphosis Professional does its translations in one of two ways, either outline-to-outline or outline-to-PostScript-printer-to-outline. In most cases, Metamorphosis Professional will read in the outline file of one format and transform it into the new format. For a few Type 3 fonts with unknown formats, it will instead download the font to an attached PostScript printer and then have the printer send back the outlines. As an added perk, Metamorphosis Professional will allow you to convert fonts stored in a PostScript printer's RAM or ROM. Altsys is also supposed to send you a DA which will duplicate the conversion functions of the application when you register your version, though I've yet to receive mine. " [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Mike Doughty's great font site, with particularly interesting subpages on the following:
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Font tips by Mike Doughty. Explains about font installation on Mac and PC, font conversions between Mac and PC, font browsers, font editors and font software. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Free on-line font converter (truetype, dfont, opentype). I checked this out, and have to warn people not to use it---it does not preserve several tables. Most importantly, the "name" table is lost in the conversion. Furthermore, this may be a way of grabbing your font. One should do these delicate tasks with trusted software on one's own computer. Nevertheless, if you insist, here are the formats between which it converts: .dfont .eot .otf .pfb .tfm .pfm .suit .svg .ttf .pfa .bin .pt3 .ps .t42 .cff .afm .ttc and .woff. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Project developed by Dr. Alexander R. Pruss from the Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. It aims to develop utilities to manipulate Palm fonts, in v1 and v2 formats: afnx, nfnt (lo/hi/both densities), NFNT, conversion from Type 1/TrueType/BDF/PCF/etc. Anti-aliased font support. Includes Plucker (anti-aliased and normal) font generator GUI. FreeType2. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Peter Frane
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Peter Upfold
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Peter Upfold
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George Williams' free Open Source UNIX-based font editor for type 1 and truetype fonts. Also does truetype collections (TTC) and opentype fonts. Note that PFAedit can be used to do all conversions between all formats (type 1, truetype; PC, UNIX and Mac): it's a formidable tool. In 2004, Pfaedit was renamed FontForge. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
The world's leading typography tool outfit. Makers of the T1/TTF font editor FontLab3 and 4 (Mac, PC), FONmaker (create bitmap fonts from truetype or T1, for PCs), TransType (conversion from PC to Mac and vice versa), Scanfont 3.13 (from scanned glyphs to font), TypeTool (cheapo truetype font editor), FLcomposer (edit CJKV and unicode fonts), EuroFonter (adds Euro symbol to truetype fonts), Sigmaker (signature into truetype font), Compocompiler (composite fonts and templates). Alternate site. Excellent customer support. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Shareware (24 USD) utility for DOS for converting Mac TT and type 1 fonts to PC format and vice versa, originally written by Paul Thomson. The software has been replaced first by Wrefont and then by the shareware CrossFont at Acute Systems. Italian mirror. British mirror. Taiwanese mirror. Download also from Kemosabe's Font Tools. Mirror at LEO. Yet another site. Lycos search turns up hundreds of hits for Refont14 such as asy.com. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
30 USD Mac utility by Robert Schenk for converting Windows ttf fonts to Mac format. May have been removed from circulation. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Taviso
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Tobias Reinhardt
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Free on-line font format converter among these formats: pfa, pfb, pt3, sfd, ttf, otf, otb, t42, cef, cff, gsf, ttc, svg, ik, mf, dfont, bin, suit and bdf. This site refers to three other conversion sites---a middle man, so to speak. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
PC utility for accessing Mac CD ROMs and Mac files. By Acute Systems. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
A commercial PC and Mac program by Yuri Yarmola, the FontLab developer, that allows conversion between Mac and PC formats for type 1 and/or truetype fonts. Free 3-day demo version. Download page. Originally it was for the Mac only (" It does automatic or manual reencoding of fonts when necessary. - It automatically creates font suitcases on Mac and font metric files on PC. - When Type 1 fonts are converted from PC to Mac, TransType can use ATM to generate bitmap fonts. - TransType can work in batch mode, doing any type of conversion in the same operation. - All Mac-specific user interface features are supported, including drag-drop of files and folders and balloon help.") Should be about 100USD. Don Hosek says that TransType (for the Mac) "can't handle extended families of fonts (which is nearly everything I (=Don Hosek) have). As long as you stick to the basic regular/italic/bold/bold-italic it's fine. Personally I prefer the no-longer-available FontHopper." A very positive review by Chris MacGregor. TransType2, released in 2002, can also convert multiple master fonts and even create instances of multiple master fonts. In December 2003, we will get TransType Pro, which can convert to and from OpenType format with all the other supported formats: Type 1, TrueType, multiple master, and VFB (FontLab's internal format). In addition, it will have a Python scripting interface. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
A truetype tool by UniDoc System. TrueKeys is the only font conversion utility that handles Chinese/Japanese/Korean TrueType font conversion between Windows and Mac OS platforms. Can also be used to add Unicode support (required for OS X) to older fonts that don't have it. US$50, and crippled free demo. An OS X version is available. The manufacturer reports: "TrueKeys is a Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK) 2-byte truetype font conversion utilities. What makes it different from other truetype utilities such as TTConvert 1.5 and TrueConvert 0.3b is that it generates its own cmap table for specified language encoding, and assemble the original font data into a new truetype. This strategy corrects some common PC font problems such as no Mac cmap table support, etc. When TTConvert or TrueConvert does not work for your font, you should seriously try TrueKeys. TrueKeys v3.5 is guarenteed to work with any Mac format CJK truetypes and Windows format truetypes (including TTC format). TrueKeys v3.6 is currently in beta, supporting both pre-MacOS 9 and MacOS X platform." [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Chris Reed's free utility for Mac users that converts PC TTF format to Mac TrueType and vice versa. Alternate URL. Alternate site. Download from USA, USA, UK, Germany, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, France, USA. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Free truetype to DXF conversion utility for PCs. With DXF, AutoCAD people can start using these fonts. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
ttf2eot
| Small free utility (by "Taviso") to convert truetype fonts to EOT (embedded OpenType). EOT is used by Internet Explorer to support css @font-face declarations. The developer is Taviso. A front end to this software was written by Casey Kirsle in 2009. See also here on Github or here or here or here or here or here or here. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
Freeware utility by Evan Hall from Sunnyvale, CA, to convert Macintosh TrueType fonts to a format usable by Windows and other operating systems. For Mac users. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Type 3.2 (was: CR8type)
| CR8type for Windows is a commercial Windows truetype and opentype font editor written by Allan Murray. Free demo. Also, CR8tracer is a freeware utility based on Peter Selinger's 'Potrace' to convert bitmap images into monochrome vector formats. Combine with CR8type 2.0 to create fonts from scanned images of signatures, handwriting etc. Windows only. It can edit PostScript and OpenType fonts and has a knife and freehand drawing tool. It draws, kerns, deals with unicode, converts between formats, and basically is a full-fledged type design tool. Type Light (2012) is a free light version of Type 3.2 for Windows. The full Type 3.2 program is for Windows, Linux and mac OS/X. CR8 Software Solutions are an independant software vendor located in Auckland, New Zealand. A creation of Allan Murray - a self-taught software developer who began programming computers in the early eighties and who has been involved in the ID card and digital printing industries for the past twelve years. CR8 Software Solutions has had a web presence since 2006. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
German page on type conversion between PC and Mac, nicely illustrated. In summary:
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WOFF2OT and OTFWOFF
| WOFF2OT and OTFWOFF are two free on-line conversion tools between the ".woff" web font format and OpenType (.otf). Developed by Peter Frane Jr. [Google] [More] ⦿ |
WOFF2OTF and OTF2WOFF are two free on-line conversion tools between the ".woff" web font format and OpenType (.otf). Similar converters are available for TrueType (ttf) and ttc formats, to and from woff. [Google] [More] ⦿ | |
Commercial program for conversions of Mac Type 1 to Windows and vice versa. Now replaced by Acute Systems' Crossfont. Hard to locate now: just use Crossfont! [Google] [More] ⦿ |
George Williams' free Open Source UNIX-based font editor for type 1 and truetype fonts, previously called Pfaedit. Also does truetype collections (TTC) and opentype fonts. Note that FontForge can be used to do all conversions between all formats (type 1, truetype, OpenType; PC, UNIX and Mac): it's a formidable tool. The internal text format for fonts is called SFD. It is a format that is acceptable for communicating and storing fonts. Note also that there is a 
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