TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Wed Nov 20 11:43:12 EST 2024

FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE

LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

OTF => Other formats

OpenType (or: OTF) comes essentially in two formats: the truetype kind (the font is truetype inside) and the type 1 kind (font is type 1 inside). For most fonts, OTF is just any old font with some wrapping paper around it to make the font less open. One can create truetype and/or type 1 fonts from OpenType fonts using many of today's font editors. I like pfaedit (now FontForge), George Williams' free and sturdy work horse for UNIX/LINUX and MacOS X. For example, I learned that Chaparral is of the "type 1 wrapper" kind. There are about 650 glyphs in that font, more than any type 1 font can actively hold, so when exporting in "type 1" format, while all 650 glyphs are created, only those numbered up to 256 in the encoding vector can actually be accessed. How do you get the other ones? I guess, you will need to replace the encoding vector by two other ones, one for the small caps, say, and one for ornaments. The names of all the glyphs can be obtained either from the AFM file (generated by pfaedit) or from the output of t1disasm (a free type 1 disassembler). It should be noted that the generated font is a perfect high quality type 1 font, with all hinting preserved, all kerning pairs present in the AFM, and even the "flex and hint replacement code", typical of many Adobe fonts, inside. Nothing is lost. The Chaparral OTF font was created by Adobe using a program they internally call "makeotf": Adobe has a type 1 to OTF program. Childish of them not to put their type 1 originals and their conversion programs on the market.

EXTERNAL LINKS
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
OpenType software ⦿