Re: [ft-devel] font file converter

[George Williams]

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 08:25, Mark DeVries wrote:
> I am looking for code I can incorporate into my product to convert 
> OpenType font files to PostScript Type 1.
FreeType isn't designed for this. It has no means of outputting a type1
font. You can get the splines out of it, but you'd have to write your
own output routines, and you would lose all your hints.

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 08:36, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> This sounds like FontForge used on the command line (see
> http://fontforge.sf.net).  Note that such a conversion is not a
> trivial thing.
FontForge can indeed do this from the command line. FF can also be built
without a GUI (though it's been a while since I checked that that still
works, might take a little tweaking)

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 08:25, Mark DeVries wrote:
> I am looking for code I can incorporate into my p
> .- At the very least, this should process OpenType (CFF-flavored, Type
> 1 outlines);  OpenType CFF/CID is also important, and OpenType 
> (TrueType) would be nice but not required.
Do you really mean CFF Type1 outlines? I've never actually seen a font
with this combination though it is theoretically possible (You wouldn't
be able to do flex hints or hint substitution since CFF has no provision
for OtherSubrs). Generally CFF fonts have Type2 charstrings.

FF can read Type1, CFF-Type2, OpenType/CFF, OpenType/CID, TrueType, etc.
and can convert the result to Type1. (TrueType hinting does not
translate, but hints from Type2 go to Type1).

> This may be run on Windows, Solaris, AIX, or HP-UX -- for now.
FF runs on *nix systems. I build it all the time on Solaris. I don't
have an AIX or HP-UX box to build on but it should configure there too.

I've only tried building FF on Windows under CygWin. It might be
buildable under something like MS SFU but I've never tried. I assume
cygwin counts as an unusable "alternative development environments".

> I have some tools that use Perl and ghostscript to produce an AFM 
> from .pfb or .pfa -- but need something to convert the OpenType into 
> that format.
FF will produce afm files too. Much better to use FF to generate an afm
file. The pfb does not contain kerning or ligature info.

FF might well be overkill for what you want though, it is much larger
than freetype.