The question and answer functionality is currently taking a rest.
From: Jony Bassan Date: 25 December 1997 21:42I am trying to extract the outline from tru type fonts. But I dont seem to be able to get any information beyond the first 255 chars. The function returns -1 for values above. I am trying to handle fonts like chinese japanese hebrew etc..
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated
Jony Bassan
The normal 16-bit GetGlyphOutline function only works for the first 256 characters, i.e. 8-bit char indices. You need to use the new 32-bit function, GetGlyphOutlineA which retrieves outlines by a 16-bit char or glyph index. Clear? -- Laurence
From: Arthur Alacar Date: 25 December 1997 09:18Am planning to write a TTF library for Turbo C, and will only be supporting a basic functions (displaying a TTF font with specified size and color). The questions is, what are the things that must first be understood in dealing with this project? Do i have to interpret these TTF instruction in order to just view a letter/character?
Can you recommend any complete resource/book for this matter? And as a favor, can i have a copy of your resources used in here?
Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Thank You.
sincerely,
Arthur Alacar
Ateneo de Naga University
Philippines
One approach would be to ignore the hinting instructions altogether. This would lead to poor quality images at small sizes, often illegible. It may be enough for your uses though, and is not a huge task. But the FreeType people have written a complete C library that interprets the instructions - I don't think yours is needed. -- Laurence
From: Stephen Lime Date: 23 December 1997 23:05I'm using the freetype engine to add TrueType support to a package. What's the best way to determine a minium bounding box width (i.e. bitmap width) for a string based on the horizontal metrics of each glyph. Summing the advance widths works much of the time, but sometimes results in too small a bitmap, especially with italic fonts and strings ending in w.
You really need to look at the bounding box of each character in the string, in absolute terms, and take the min and max of them all. In Windows, you can obtain "ABC metrics" which will tell you the extent of the black. FreeType will have a similar function. Note that looking at just the first and last characters is not sufficient. An italic string ending in "f." is a case in point: the top of the 'f' could easily overlap the extent of the period. -- Laurence
From: sarman b.a.s.c. Date: 15 December 1997 16:35i have heard that the font above is one of microsoft, how come then i don't seem to have it show up in my list of fonts in say office 97 or windows 95 for that matter. i would dearly love to have on my list, i believe it looks great. otherwise can anyone tell how and where to download and install this font.
I believe the font comes with Office 97. (There's a list of which fonts come with which Microsoft products at their typography site.) However, Microsoft are discontinuing this (Monotype) font since it's a rip-off of Linotype's Palatino - which itself is to be the first OpenType font. -- Laurence
From: Jeff Daly Date: 12 December 1997 01:37I only work on unix systems, and I was wondering if there is any way to take a TTF file and get a gif for each character in the font. Do you know if anything like this exists? How can someone view True Type Fonts on a unix based system? Thanks for any information you might be able to provide!
Use the FreeType system. -- Laurence
From: Miguel A. Duran Date: 11 December 1997 14:53Is there some easy-to-use tool (or group of tools) to convert Metafont shape files to True Type shapes (or a TTF file)?
Thanks a lot!
Interesting question. Unfortunately there's no simple analytic way of deriving Bézier outlines from Metafont programs, even if you go in and fiddle with internal Metafont code. You'd have to generate a high resolution bitmap and trace it using FontLab or something similar. Perhaps Y&Y would be willing to advise you - they created some good Type 1 versions of the Computer Modern series by tracing bitmaps, and now give them away for free. -- Laurence
From: Alan Simons Date: 09 December 1997 23:43By reading this site, I have given up on creating a TrueType font, but I still want to create a bitmapped font. Do you have any idea where i could find information about bitmapped fonts that windows 95 can read? Thanks.
From: Kilian Tham Date: 09 December 1997 15:21Printing equations with indices using word95 equation editor under NT 4.0 is producing problems. The characters are not the way they should be. Page view is ok so I think its a driver problem. I'm using true type fonts and a hp laserjet series II.
From: RIAHI Karim Date: 08 December 1997 16:31Hi there, I'm asked to design or to modify a TrueType font on purpose to use it for a terminal emulator. Instead of designing an entire font, I'd rather modify an existing one, adding the specific characters required for the emulator (such as 'semi-graphics' which are characters used to draw rectangles and others on a text-only screen). Does such a type exist ? If yes, can someone give me infos about how I can get it (web, phone, fax...), please ? If it doesn't exist, then perhaps can I find royalty free fonts I could use. Again, where and how ? For this last question, if I need to work within the font file itself, what tools will I need, without having all those mapping troubles and others pain-in-the-neck ? To conclude with, I have to get the job done on a PC running Windows 95, but I can have access to PCs running NT instead. Thanks for answering as fast as possible. Congratulations for this nice site without which it would have turned into a nightmare for me to get those infos !
From: Jim Gale Date: 05 December 1997 22:50I recently downloaded a barcode-TTF that shows onscreen, but doesn't actually print. In WordPad, for example, I type text in arial, and numbers in the barcode TTF, which shows onscreen. However, clicking print prints the text, with not barcodes. Any ideas. Perhaps I need someone to load & resave the barcode font?? (I'm guessing here). Thanks.
From: Don Rohde Date: 01 December 1997 15:39I'd like to use the MICR font that came with VersaCheck in another program. It's a TTF font which I dragged into my font folder. I find that when I use it within MS Word or FileMaker Pro that it reacts as though the font is bolded. Any idea what would cause this?
From: Stefan Riemer Date: 25 November 1997 13:16I need a program that can change the code number of chars in a tt font (I could use TypeTool and cut and paste chars, but I can't afford the 100$ and I don't need the other functions). Please tell me where I can get such a programm. Thanks,Stefan.
From: Malik Khan Date: 20 November 1997 20:44Is there a published API available for the TrueType type manager/rasterizer provided by Windows? Something like what Adobe provides for ATM (AAdobe Tech Note: 5073)?
From: Faith Martin Date: 16 November 1997 18:19I am a beginning Commercial Art student. I use a PC at home with TrueType Fonts. Win'95. School has Mac's with Postscript Fonts. Our teacher, although very good and knowledgeable is MAC biased. Several students in this class need to know what the best (and least expensive) software is available to change type from TTF to Postscript type to use on the MAC's at school and is there anyway we can change the TTF to a usable format for the local printers Imagesetters.(and do we have to!) We have been told we cannot produce TTF on our PC's and send them to a printer. That it will clog up the Imagesetter and it will not be a "clean " file. I am a beginning student. Please make the explanation as simple as possible. Thank you for your time. I found your website extremely interesting and helpful. Thank you again!! P.S. I tried to find reference to the FontHopper at Adobe's Webpage but it was not listed.?
From: Jordi Ferrer Date: 14 November 1997 09:39I need Arial and Courier New fonts to load in OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0, because I need compatibility with these fonts in Windows products. I read OS/2 documentation, and it explain than I can load suplemmental fonts. But I can't find extra fonts to load on OS/2. Could you show me where I can find extra fonts to load on OS/2 operating system? Thank You
From: Mario De Bal Date: 14 November 1997 09:21Where can I find a truetype font that can be used as well as on PC as on mac
From: James Major Date: 13 November 1997 00:08I presently have an Adobe Font Pack for Windows 3.1 which contains an Adobe Type Manager program (this was included with a copy of a Lotus program I purchased years ago). The disk includes a font called "Adobe Garamond" which I have been using on all my stationary, etc. I recently made the switch to Windows 95 and Word 97 (from Windows 3.11 and Word 6.0) and installed this program so that I would still have those fonts to use. The problem is that, although I can utilize the Adobe Garamond font, Word will not print more than one page at a time, and then very slowly, even on a HP Laser Jet 5L with 1 Meg of memory. What can I do. If I disable the Adobe Type Manager software, I lose the font; if I leave it on, it takes forever to print even simple documents. Help.
From: Marvin Masson Date: 12 November 1997 21:40I've developed a TTF in Font Monger. It works great in most instances, for example Word or Pagemaker, but when it is used in programs like Visual Basic, it displays fine, but when printed it truncates the last few characters for no apparent reason. I've tried getting support on FontMonger, but that seems to be a dead product. What can I do?
From: Godefroy de Colombe Date: 10 November 1997 19:06I'm looking for a "converter" of regular font (english or french letters) into russian cyrrillic alphabet. Where can I find that? Please!
From: Pascal Essiembre Date: 07 November 1997 20:28Do you still update your TrueType Q&A?
From: Pascal Essiembre Date: 07 November 1997 16:47Do you know any utility to rename a font. I am using Fontograper 4.1 and it doesn't let me save dashes ("-") in my font name. But I need to have dashes!!! Do you know a workaround for this problem? (You can post my question, but can you please send me a copy of your answer by email). Thanks a lot.
From: Yrj Menp Date: 04 November 1997 18:34What is the difference (or sameness) of TTF instructions, described in TTF specs, and hinting? Are the new Embedded bitmap tables to be used as hinting aid? This is a question just to clarify these things to me. Thanks for this site.
TrueType fonts are hinted using TrueType instructions. These may be written by hand, or generated from a graphical interface, or generated entirely automatically. The bitmap tables override hinted outlines for particular sizes, but only on systems that support embedded bitmaps - e.g. Windows 3.1 does not. -- Laurence
From: Janko Radusinovic Date: 04 November 1997 12:06I nead to get a font name from a uninstaled TTF file Help!!!
See response to 2 October 1997 message.
From: walter heywood Date: 03 November 1997 10:07I have been using TT fonts with wordperfect 5.1 via an installation program called Truetype for Dos, published in 1992 by a company called Micrologic. Everything works fine with an HP laser printer but recently I purchased an Epson stylus 600 colour printer. The problem is that I can print using colour using the default fonts inherent in the epson drivers but when I install TT fonts to these drivers I can use the TT fonts fine but I can not get colour. Correct colours show on the preview screen but do not print. It's difficult to know who might have an answer since I am dealing with 3 different factors; the printer, wpodperfect and truetype: 4 if you count the OS. I have tried to locate Micrologic on the net without success. If anyone can help I would be grateful. Thanks, Walter Heywood
From: Ole Thrane Date: 31 October 1997 11:00Is there an easy way to display a True Type font as an outline with a custom fill color?
It depends entirely on your applications. Things like CorelDraw, Serif DrawPlus and Adobe Illustrator can manage fine. -- Laurence
From: Francois Bachmann Date: 31 October 1997 00:04Hi,
I work on a PC with Win95. I'm looking for a program to visualize my fonts (TrueType and other) when I open the drop-down list, say, in Word. This would spare me some trial-and-error searching for the right font. Suggestions ? (Every font could write its name in its own font e.g.)
I'm pretty sure this exists, but I'm unable to find it. thanx for your help !
Francois
I'm not aware of anything for Windows that does this. The Mac has such a utility though. -- Laurence
From: Mark Garry-Madden Date: 28 October 1997 01:18I have read the other bits on HP Laser Jet, my problem is a little different. When using TTF and printing in Execl 97 and Word 97 the print takes forever and a day (5 mins per page). I know that they are set up to work Parallel using internal fonts, ISO 4. It has apparently never worked fast but I cannot work out why. Surely a Pentium MMX 166 can convert TTF to Bitmaps in less than 5 mins. Oh, it has 1.5megs (1K buffer, I think). I must be missing something. Cheers in advance for any help
That time is certainly excessive. You should hardly notice a delay, unless you've switched on "TrueType as Graphics", but even then systems should not slow down as much as this. -- Laurence
From: Erfan Zahra'i Date: 27 October 1997 05:29I am looking for a software that allows me to create arabic/persian true type fonts. Thanks
There isn't any such software. For PostScript fonts, you should check out FontLab Composer from Pyrus.-- Laurence
From: Theresa Hoang Date: 26 October 1997 13:24i downloaded a TTF font from a webpage. i had to unzip it so i did. But i don't know what to do after that. I want to use this font for my homepage...how can i do that?
I presume you're on a Windows machine... in Windows 3.1, run Control Panel, Fonts; in Windows 95, just drag and drop the TTF file into the Windows/Fonts folder.
If you want to be *sure* visitors to your website will see the font, you need to make a graphic (GIF file) using the font to write the text. This is of course an inefficient method of displaying text, and your site's visitors may not like it. The latest generation of browsers, IE4 and NS4, have capabilities for downloading and using fonts automatically, but hardly anyone's making suitable sites yet. -- Laurence
From: E. C. Rogers Date: 22 October 1997 01:19Just got a new PC, Windows 95, WordPerfect 7, etc. Boss wants me to use two fonts found in FaceLift fonts: "Dutch Roman 812 " and a "Monospace" font. Does TrueType have these fonts I can load?
Thanks
TrueType is not a type foundry... ask Bitstream, the makers of FaceLift, for TrueType versions of those fonts. -- Laurence
From: Mohamed I Alzadjali Date: 21 October 1997 14:34I am trying to create an Arabic font using Fontographer. I used an old font to place my new char shapes. But everytime I generate the font the font does not become an Arabic font. Do you know the parameters for the Arabic font
Thanks. Mohamed Alzadjali
Fontographer has serious limitations creating non-Latin fonts. -- Laurence
From: M.K. Reddy Date: 20 October 1997 21:54I created a True Type Font for a Non-European language. I kept the ascii codes (1 thru 127) same as US English and added Non_Europen language codes as 193 thru 249. In Microsoft Access, when I try to sort the Non-European language, the MS Access ignored my charecters. Later, I found out that in NT 4.0, the Codepage is responsible in setting the alphabetic order. Could you explain to me how to create a codepage for a new language, and how to add the codepage and new language(Locale) to NT 4.0. If you can point me to the documentation or a book on these topics or any other help is greatly appreciated. I am not interested Unicode solution at this point and would like to work with single byte code.
Thanks!
M.K. Reddy
From: Mary Hartman Date: 15 October 1997 13:55We are using truetype fonts that came with Microsoft Office but I have had requests from some users for more fonts. The fonts they are asking for are, I think, adobe fonts called minstrel and calligraphy. Can we order comparable fonts in truetype? If so, how. Also, is it possible to order additional truetype fonts for installing on HP Laserjet Printers? I realize these are probably pretty elementary questions, but we are a small company just learning...
"Minstrel" is probably a fake name for Mistral, one of the flamboyant script typefaces of Roger Excoffon. It's on many Bitstream Cds in TrueType format, including CorelDraw. "Calligraphy" is not the name of any particular font. -- Laurence
From: Itae Park Date: 09 October 1997 21:28Hello,
My win95 system is set up in italian, so someone suggested me to find and copy korean truetype fonts on the folder "fonts" of my windows directory. According to this guy, if I do this, when I will set up my netscape browser with the language encoding "korean", I could see everything o.k.
Is it true? Can you help me if you have or at least know where I can find any korean fonts? Thanks in advance!
Korean fonts do not work in normal Windows 95 (North American and European). You need the special Korean version. -- Laurence
From: Eugene Seidel Date: 05 October 1997 20:56I would like to get rid of FontMonster - it appears to mess up handling of fonts under Windows 95. Is there a sure method of uninstalling FontMonster?
Your annoyance is probably the "file assoiation" feature of Windows. Ensure TTF files are associated with FONTVIEW.EXE (part of Windows 95). -- Laurence
From: Joao Madeira Godinho Date: 02 October 1997 13:52Microsoft used to have a function called GetTypeFaceNameFromTTF, but it's an old and abondaned 16 bit function that hasn't been replaced.
I would like to know how to retireve the font name from the naming table of a TTF file with a funtion writen in Delphi. Can you help me?
This function was not part of the Windows 3.1 API. Perhaps it was part of some example code MS shipped on a developer CD - check out their TTFNAME, a little demo that retrieves the "Mac" format name, then rewrite it a little to get the "Windows" name. Use the TrueType spec to help you. -- Laurence
From: Jon Allbon Date: 02 October 1997 13:20Please can somebody help - I am trying to write a font viewer for Uninstalled fonts in Windows 3.1 I am using Delphi 1.0 to do this. Is there a way I can exctract the name of the font from the .TTF file. What am I doing wrong, because nothing seems to happen?
Coincidence... see above. -- Laurence
From: RICHARD BOOTH Date: 30 September 1997 02:23While surfing web I frequently want to download AND PRINT .PDF files. I find many of them use HELVETICA and SANS fonts. My IBM clone with Windows does not have these fonts. I called Microsoft and they no longer have available their TrueType Font Packages.
Any suggestion on source(s). I've tried shareware route and a couple of CDROM packages but none list these. I strongly suspect they are standard on Apple machines that create the .PDF files.
RRB/Cupertino, CA USA
The latest versions of ATM (it comes free with the free Acrobat Viewer) contain Helvetica, Zapf Dingbats, and a couple of multiple masters. -- Laurence
From: Gene Smith Date: 26 September 1997 20:46I have an old Apple Personal Laserwriter 300 and a new PowerMac 7300 PC compatible. The True Type Format works well on my Performa and on the Mac side of the 7300. Does anyone have a suggestion (if it's even possible) to print TTF from the Windows95 side (it seems to want a PS printer)? Is there a printer driver that goes from Windows95 to the PL300?
TrueType and PostScript are not mutually exclusive! The standard PS printer driver will work with the LaserWriter. However you won't be able to access all the printer's features, as you should with the correct driver. -- Laurence
From: Philip Losch Date: 24 September 1997 21:02I'm trying to read ttf outlines on the mac directly - as I don't want to use Quickdraw GX. Everything works fine - except for some few fonts: especially Times. When I now convert the letter 'o' I should get 2 polygons but receive 3. The third polygon consists of only one point which lies on the countour of the first polygon. Also, the first & second countours seem to lack one point. What I now want to know is, how to handle these cases or how to get information on this topic. Thanks! Either you're parsing the file incorrectly... or it's an example of a fairly unusual glyph structure employed by some TT hinters (to make attaching accents easier). But the odd 1st and 2nd contours indicate your parser needs fixing. -- Laurence
From: John Pickles Date: 22 September 1997 16:01I've heard (I may be misled!) that there is a TrueType font I need to be able to print so-called DOS characters. What I want to be able to see (and print) is the old-fashioned DOS symbol set, under Windows 3.1 (or NT 4); Special characters like the "box drawing" characters; I want to print files that include boxes etc, that print from DOS, to look the same under Windows; I don't want what I get - which is all the weird letters, like vowels with Umlauts over, letters with tildes and all the rest. Any ideas?
A font like this comes with most Windows word processors. -- Laurence
From: Br. Tim Pehta Date: 20 September 1997 18:13I am looking for character recognition software that will recognize non-language True Type fonts.
I use a set of three True Type fonts in Windows 3.1 to print Gregorian Chant manuscripts.
I am looking for an product which will do this in reverse, so that I can scan in a manuscript and let the software compare the notation to the font characters and then translate it into keyboard characters that I can work with in a word processing program. The OCR products I have seen only work with regular languages, not special True Type fonts. Are there any products available that will permit me to do this?
I don't think you'll have any luck with this, unless you're prepared to pay for the development of the system yourself. Existing systems known to me are all optimized for text. It's certainly feasible, but will - I fear - cost you many thousands of dollars. -- Laurence
From: Karpyshev Alexey Date: 19 September 1997 00:48Curve in TrueType?
Sorry, my english...
Curves in TrueType? Yes: quadratic B-splines, equivalent to quadratic Bézier curves. -- Laurence
From: Timir Karia Date: 18 September 1997 19:18First off, congratulations on a great site.
What is involved in converting a TTF string to a GIF or Bitmap? Is this a simple process and is there code out there as a sample?
Thanks,
Timir
You need to have an application that rasterizes the text, then saves that image out as a bitmap file. If you're a Windows programmer, this is not very difficult to write. The shareware program Typograf apparently contains this functionality. -- Laurence
From: Ryota Hamamoto Date: 18 September 1997 03:42How can I use GSUB table to render Japanese vertical texts in TrueType fonts? Is there a code available anywhere?
Regards,
Ryota
There is no code or tools available yet (January 1998). Microsoft expect to release some tools around the middle of 1998 to help in building OpenType tables. -- Laurence
From: monica Date: 11 September 1997 06:04Hi there, I was wondering if anyone can help me. For some reason, I have started getting this message - "Invalid trueType Font has caused an application error in Windows. Please exit Windows" and when the message comes up and I try to access any of my other programs e-mail, word, Netscape ... all the fonts have gone haywire. All of a sudden Arial has disappeared and all the netscape fonts turn into Cyrillic ! and I can't seem to identify when it happens. Its just started happening a little while ago . have looked a my win.ini file and can't find anything wrong with that. There seems to be no rhyme no reason to when its going to happen..
Anyone else had this problem ?
Monica
If you've installed any fonts from dubious sources recently, remove them. If that doesn't work, it's usually wisest to remove all fonts except the standard Windows 14, and check the system's OK with just them. Then re-install the fonts from your backups. -- Laurence
From: Erik Haffner Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 13:43:23 GMTI need the program that converts TrueType fonts to intellifonts.
There was a program called AllType which did this, but it performed poor conversions - in many cases giving incomplete character sets and poorly defined characters. The company that owns AllType no longer markets it, after it became the notorious stock-in-trade of font pirates. However, if you'd like to commission me to write a TrueType to Intellifont converter, that could be arranged. -- Laurence
From: Mick Carrick Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 07:03:31 GMTWe have a truetype font with a customer's logo which we wish
TTConverter or FontHopper should do the job fine. -- Laurence
From: Guy Dehon Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 15:59:04 GMTWould you know of a utility that could convert a TTF font into
From: saul llanos viveros Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 23:10:58 GMTComo puedo cambiar los tipos Postscrip a TrueType?
Try FontMonger, FontLab, Type Designer, Fontographer... all described on the Other Tools page. -- Laurence
From: Adam Twardoch Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:14:42 GMTI'm also looking for a program which would let me automatically
Sorry, don't know of one -- Laurence
I've found it! Typograf 4.0 available at http://www.neuber.com/typograph/ has a database function. When adding fonts to the database, Typograf creates a series of BMP files containing type samples set in the particular font. The BMP files are named accordingly to the original font files (e.g. arialb.ttf -> arialb.bmp etc.) -- Adam Twardoch, 12 December 1997
From: Moeminoe Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 11:31:32 GMTHow can I convert a Chinese Windows TTF (GB) to a Mac font? TTConvertor does not seem to handle this correctly. The script is Roman, iso Chinese Simplified / Chinese Traditional. Any suggestions?
From: Adam Twardoch Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:12:22 GMTI've once read somewhere about a generic Type 1 font editor
From: stephen woodruff Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 15:10:30 GMTI obtained TT fonts "ER Bukinist 1251" for both Mac and PC (Win 95)
It sounds like the problem is Word expecting the character mapping to be different, rather than identical (which you say it is), since normal fonts are mapped differently for each platform. You could try making the font a "symbol" font using a font editor, as these are not remapped by applications. -- Laurence
From: Adam Twardoch Date: Fri, 8 Aug 1997 16:11:26 GMTI'm a PC user. Are the Apple font tools (RoyalT, DumpCMAP,
There is little difference between Mac and Windows TrueTypes. Even the new bitmap tables are almost identical and the same data can usually be indexed by Windows and Mac table names. So Windows fonts should survive a session under the knife of Apple's tools. Whether fonts will survive the cross-platform interchange depends on programs respectfully copying tables they don't understand. -- Laurence
From: Ethan Maehl Date: Thu, 7 Aug 1997 16:21:54 GMTI have heard that True Type fonts do not print at higher resolutions than 600 dpi - unless of course you have the high-res postscript version of the font resident on the printer. Is this true? I am particularly interested in this as it applies to Japanese True Type fonts.
This is nonsense. TrueType fonts can be printed at any resolution, like Type 1. We've got to overcome this myth that PostScript fonts are "high-res" and TrueType fonts somehow are not. It just happens that TrueType is especially good at low-res type - with NO trade-off on high-res! -- Laurence
From: Sun Jiguang Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 07:55:42 GMTDear Sir/Madam:
An on-curve point pops into existence automatically exactly half-way between every pair of consecutive off-curve points. So, if you had 5 consecutive off-curve points, you'd get 4 of these automatic on-curve points. Calculate the locations by averaging the coordinates separately for x and y. -- Laurence
From: Seth Witmer Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 01:24:06 GMTI'm printing custom-made TrueType fonts from several applications on Windows NT. The fonts look fine on screen, but are printing with stray lines extending from some characters. What would cause these lines to appear?
Sounds like badly made fonts. Return them to their manufacturer. Hinting and rounding may be disguising the problems at screen resolutions. But have you tried more than one printer? -- Laurence
From: R. Hamilton Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 04:00:40 GMTThis should be a straightforward program, right off the
You're right, it should be a pretty easy program to write. But I'm not aware of any free ones. Unless you want source code, you could try recent drivers for Level 2 printers: these should make Type 42's which you could possibly hack out of their surroundings. -- Laurence
From: Barb Daniel Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 14:33:41 GMTIs it OK to install MS TrueType Fonts for Windows on an NT machine.? If not, where can I get fonts for my NT?
Go right ahead. Windows NT handles normal Windows TrueTypes just fine. -- Laurence
From: Helene Davidsson Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 14:09:23 GMTHow can I replace an existing gasp table with another? I have the TTOAsm and TTODAsm Utilities downloaded but still do not understand enough of the binary code to be able to do it. Need som hints.
These programs won't do the job. I think there is a 'gasp' table hacker around on the web somewhere. -- Laurence
From: Chrisitaan Van den Poel Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 15:16:00 GMTHye
Your best solution is to generate any bitmaps you need on-site from the vast range of TrueType and PostScript fonts around. I sell a couple of programs that are useful here: TTFtoSFP to get bitmap "strikes" from TrueType fonts installed in Windows (using Windows to execute the hints), and Striker to edit these bitmap fonts interactively. Email me for more info. -- Laurence
From: Eric Holland Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:19:04 GMTI'm trying to implement some print preview in Windows 95 and cannot get my TTF's to scale properly between the screen and the printer. I understand that the correct way to request the font is to set request a particular Height in device units instead of using a point size. I am doing this and it comes close but not exact. Is there some way to get an exact match.
From: KIrsten Kirschner-Schmidt Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 19:36:11 GMTI would like to know, where chinese or japanese TTF-Fonts
From: Dusan Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 19:56:06 GMTI have got problems with modifying Arial CE. I wanted to add a few special letters onto unused places in font table. I used Fontographer 3.5 but WIN 95 does have problems with registering of such font.
Fontographer is unable to modify these and other double-byte fonts successfully; it's a known fault. -- Laurence
From: Gianni Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 15:29:29 GMTPlease send me name of shareware software to do a new font.
There is no such software. -- Laurence
From: Tobias J Viljoen Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 10:08:23 GMTMy client has a Varityper 4000/5300. Can you advise me on which TT Fonts will work on this VT?
I doubt it. Only major operating systems and some printers support TrueType. -- Laurence
From: Ofer Samocha Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:09:11 GMThi,
Check your code again. I use that function successfully in my programs which retrieve bitmaps from TrueTypes, and manipulate bitmaps (TTFtoSFP and Striker). -- Laurence
From: Johan S Starck Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:57:25 GMTI need to know where I can find the True Tyoe font "Tahoma".
Sounds like you've got an incomplete Microsoft Office installation. Some of the programs in Office do require Tahoma. Try reinstalling the program that asks for it - if an application requires a font, it would be on the disks along with the rest of the program. -- Laurence
From: Sten Madsen Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 15:03:27 GMTI needed cyrrillic characters with accents and nordic characters in the same font. The font I create with Font Monger worked fine with Word 7 (MSOffice 95). I could use multiple keyboards to change between the character sets. But now with Word 97 this doesn't work (alt +0xxx doesn't work either), I just get squares instead of letters. If I paste the characters from Windows Character Map accessories I get the characters in the document!. I guess that when typed from the keyboard Word 97 checks the font to see if it is a multiple character set font. Which font editor can help me. Does a tool exist to create new keyboard layouts for Windows 95? Any advices will be welcomed
From: Harald Gasch Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 10:18:00 GMTHi,
Normally, this presents no problem at all. However some applications, notably Corel Draw 3 in my experience, do not like such fonts. This is simply a bug with Corel. Once I kept taking characters out of a font using Fontographer until there came a point that Corel choked... -- Laurence
From: Art Du Rea Date: Wed, 2 Jul 1997 03:56:14 GMTCan anyone recommend a MONOSPACED font with a
From: richard david Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 14:00:50 GMTIs it permitted to translate a Type 1 Font (Monotype Frutiger d'Adobe) to True Type font ?
Most font companies allow this kind of modification, as long as you definitely do not distribute the font. Check your license agreement. If OK, try FontMonger, FontLab, Type Designer, Fontographer... (see my Other Tools page). -- Laurence
From: David W. Gilpin Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 04:50:36 GMTI have a strange problem that no one I know can answer; my
Hmm... a strange one. System fonts are OK? Including the system TrueType fonts? Whatever, try switching to a different printer driver, say the LaserJet Plus driver, and check out the problem. -- Laurence
From: Tomek Bartoszynski Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 14:31:33 GMTI am looking for a way to install True Type fonts under Linux.
Answer: There is a tool called xfstt which renders true type fonts in linux. A search will turn up several download sites such as sunsite.edu. xfstt is the only free true type tool that I know of that lets you use any true type font. Once you have it running, installing fonts is very simple. Just copy the .ttf file to /usr/ttfonts, and add it to X as described in the readme (simply run xset +fp or add to your .xinitrc). -- Trig, 27 December 1997.
From: Rich Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 17:40:20 GMTA client has a forms application that uses Univers ATT font...worked great under Windows 3.1 but does not display well under Windows 95. The characters are pushed together. Any suggestions?
Maybe the application was calculating character widths in an odd manner. There should be no such discrepancies. -- Laurence
From: David Asaph Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 18:05:46 GMTHi,I am looking for a tool or code that would allow me to rename allthe characters in any type of truetype font. (Prefferably on the PC)
Sorry, there's no such application for the PC. Apple's RoyalT might do what you want on the Mac. -- Laurence
From: jun GU Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 06:46:13 GMTI am writing a TrueType Editor, but I do not have too much knowlege on TrueType File, I have the problem to compare the checksum in TrueType file, and I expected checksum, I read the length of bytes which in the truetype file, cast them into unsinged long, and use the checksum routine which written in TTF Spec, CalcTableChecksum, but the return is not the same as the checksum in truetype table. what can be wrong?, oh!, I also swap the data after I read. then run the CalcTableChecksum.
Sounds like you're doing everything right... You're probably not swapping every value, or forgetting to add the checksum adjustment value, or something like that. -- Laurence
From: Mike Meagher Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 10:28:07 GMTIs there any utility available which will convert from a Windows 3.1 TrueType font to a new Multilingual TrueType Open font as used in Microsoft Windows '95?
There isn't such a utility, and one cannot realistically be written. TrueType Open fonts are a superset of TrueType, so in a sense, all TrueType fonts are already TrueType Open fonts. But when Windows 3.1 is used for multilingual applications, the font handling is done in a proprietary manner, not with fonts that can be automatically converted to the more widely useable TrueType Open. -- Laurence
From: Clark Novak Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 16:45:11 GMTI'm looking for a TrueType equivalent for the ATM font "Else". Do you know of one? Or is there an equivalence chart somewhere that can be accessed?
Let me use this opportunity to dispel the myth that TrueType "equivalents" have different names from their Type 1 counterparts. Font manufacturers produce Type 1 versions of their designs, or TrueType versions, or both! If they produce both, they will have the same name. The confusion arises because companies (e.g. Microsoft) wanted their new font systems (e.g. Windows) to have similar default fonts to existing systems (e.g. the Mac & PostScript/ATM). Thus, Arial was introduced because Microsoft preferred developing this Monotype face to licensing Linotype's similar Helvetica. Microsoft includes Book Antiqua in many of its products since (perhaps) Linotype refused to license the (very similar) Palatino on favourable terms. But Linotype makes excellent TrueType versions of Helvetica and Palatino: if you want these fonts in TrueType, go to Linotype. And if you want a Type 1 version of Arial, Monotype will be just as happy to oblige. -- Laurence
From: David Beutel Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 20:52:29 GMTX11R6 comes with scalable fonts in Speedo and Type1 format.
From: Alan Nishioka Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 18:31:26 GMTI am using Window NT and a Chinese font.
Hmmm... that's a shame. I'd have assumed NT would handle this well. Maybe there's a 32-bit version of the function. Try asking the helpful folks at MS Typography. -- Laurence
From: Anthony Viscardi Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 18:16:04 GMTI need to create one simple (strange) "font" that consists of
What's a "1x8 vector of squares"? Do you mean an 8x8 dot matrix? Or are the characters made up of variable-width 8-dot high patterns? Either way, you could theoretically make a TT file by tracing round such bitmaps; it would look weird, but you sound like you want this "blocky" look. (Bitmaps of such low resolution are just not suitable for converting automatically into smooth scalable outlines.) Windows 95's TrueType engine can handle bitmaps placed direclty in the font. There are tools on Microsoft's site to add such bitmaps to TrueType files. Lastly, you cannot include fonts in RTF files. RTF is like standard HTML pages in this respect: graphics is the only way to go, unless you can be sure every user will have the font installed. -- Laurence
From: Noriharu Fujiwara Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 06:00:20 GMTI wanna know how to calculate checkSumAdjustment values of each 'head' table in ttc font.
But why should you need more than one 'head' table? -- Laurence
From: Daniel Pilisi Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 21:34:25 GMTI have a number of fonts from Monotype. The file dates spread over several years. I would think only recent revisions of the font files have the ESQ label. How can I tell if I have the right ones? Thank you for a clue.
You need to check with Monotype whether a particular font is classed ESQ or not. The date and version number within the font would be a clue. ESQ fonts started to appear in 1995, but it's unlikely that only ESQ fonts were produced after that date. -- Laurence
From: Olivier ROCHON Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 07:08:42 GMTI am looking for C Source to convert TTF Font in SFS Font or
I don't think any Microsoft products/drivers actually convert TrueType into SFS (scalable) fonts. But the LaserJet III driver C source, included in the DDK, uses the TT rasterizer to create SFPs (bitmaps). The resulting fonts are good enough for what they do, but they don't conform to every aspect of the SFP specification. I have written a program (TTFtoSFP) that does this: you can buy the program but not the source! -- Laurence
From: Fred Wysocki Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 05:18:05 GMTI would like to take an existing truetype font file, and change the font name and the size it appears on the screen, by changing the unitsPerEm value (I think). Is there any font utilities that will do this?
FontMonster does this, if you can still find it. It's shareware, but the author is difficult to track down and remunerate, and it doesn't work properly on Windows 95 -- Laurence
From: Ariel Shamir Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 17:04:54 GMTAs you mentioned it in your answer to Jim Robinson, is C source code for the TrueType rasterizer realy available? and where?
C source for the TT rasterizer is available in systems from me (nearly finished), Microsoft, AGFA and Bitstream -- Laurence
From: H. Schmid Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 12:48:51 GMTIs there any Font Conversion Program, for Windows or DOS wich
You can use FontLab, Fontographer or similar programs to convert fonts. But you can't call them from other programs. One thing you may want to have a look at is the PostScript printer driver source that Microsoft gave away on the DDK: that converts TT to PFB. -- Laurence
From: Soeren Sandmann Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 17:51:49 GMTIn one of the questions, you mention that the TrueType rasterizer is available as C source. Where can I find this?
Well, I've almost finished such a system (portable C source); Microsoft will sell theirs for certain applications; AGFA and Bitstream sell one too. -- Laurence
From: kirk levis Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 18:49:05 GMTany info on adding PCLT tables to True Type font files.. These tables are needed to download True Type fonts to our 9200 line o PCL printers.
Sorry, I can't add anything to what is in Microsoft's specification regarding the PCLT table. -- Laurence
From: Donald Braman Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 02:57:27 GMTOffice 97 requires the Tahoma TrueType font . I think it is ugly, and want a way out. Help! I've tried changing Window's "Appearances", but Office 97 just overrides my settings. Can I rename a more appealing font as "Tahoma"? How?
You almost certainly can, but replacing system fonts (or a font an application expects to find) is something you should do very carefully. Try FontMonster, if you can still get hold of it. -- Laurence
From: Haroon Ahmed Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 07:41:41 GMTQ. Do Unicode characters are supported by Win95? if so, then please let me know the function names to handle the same?
Windows 95 handles Unicode only partially. You should be able to access all characters in the font with GetGlyphOutline. The TextOut family of calls has also been extended. -- Laurence
From: Sindre Mehus Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 15:17:16 GMTIs the source code for a (or should I say 'the'?) scan converter available, or is it at least available through a DLL? Is there a standard scan converter from Microsoft? If so, is its API described somewhere? Thanks!
Do you mean just the scan-converter or the whole TrueType system including the hint interpreter? The latter is available, for a fee, for certain applications. Apply to Microsoft Typography. If what you want to do is simply obtain bitmaps or character outlines without displaying them, have a look at the GetGlyphOutline Windows GDI call. -- Laurence
From: Ian Hayes Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 12:57:07 GMTI haven't made it through the whole site yet, but so far it's looking great!
First, you never need to obtain FOT files: they're generated automatically on installation into Windows 3.1. The reason it's not showing up in the directory is probably because it has no name in ASCII characters. It's probably designed for Chinese Windows, and is unlikely to work on western Windows. Second, you really need a dedicated TrueType editor to cut the font down. And they're not cheap. -- Laurence
From: Rob Ikeda Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 19:37:30 GMTI am running Win3.1 configured to startup Netware on a laptop. After Windows is up, the first application that I open is Mcafee VirusScan. Viruscan starts up okay with the network drivers loaded. When I start Windows without the network drivers (win : /N), Viruscan get the Invalid TrueType Font message. I have checked all the fonts through Control Panel and do not have 0 or 2k lengths. All TrueType Fonts have both a .FOT and .TTF file. When I start Windows without the network drivers but with VirusScan (win : /N c:\mcafee\viruscan\wscan.exe), VirusScan starts without any problems.
From: Johanes Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 03:53:46 GMTI've read the TTF specification v1.66 from Microsoft and I found out there are three tables (cmap, loca, and glyf) have relation to a particular glyph index. But I don't know how to use them.
You're on the right track. Use the Unicode index of 'A' (0041) to index into the 'cmap' format 4 data. This gives you a glyph index if you program it correctly. Use this to look up a value in the 'loca' table, remembering to check the 'head' table to get the 'loca' format. Add this value to the start of the 'glyf' table, then start parsing the glyph for the letter 'A'! The tables do make sense if you persevere... -- Laurence
From: Eric Muzzy Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 21:48:18 GMTI'm using Fontographer 4.1 to add a few diacritics to Microsofts Times New Roman (Windows). After generating a font the new font looks ragged in comparison to the original. And as a test I didn't make any changes. I simply generated a new font. What's going on?
If Macromedia is responding this way to your problem, then they're being utterly incompetent! This must be one of the most common complaints when editing exising fonts with Fontographer. What's going on is that Fontographer is stripping out all those hand-tuned hints (low-resolution enhancements) that the guys at Monotype slaved over! Solution: buy a real TrueType editor. Problem: there aren't any, but FontLab soon will be one, and I might make mine available... -- Laurence
From: Kit Smithers Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 08:12:50 GMTI've got a number of Chinese fonts. The problem is that the name of each font is in Chinese. This is ok when I run Chinese windows but in English all I get is a bunch of ||||| vertical bars instead of a name. I need a tool that lets me change the name of the font so I can use it in English. Since its a one off task I'd really rather not spend any money.....
From: D. Schlei Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 20:04:01 GMTTrue Type fonts will not plot to our HP DesignJet 650C. The printing worked fine before the installation of a Windows '95 workstation. I am running a Novell Network, Windows 3.11 and NetTools. The fonts print fine from Windows '95 and from a local Windows setup.
From: Johanes Rudi Siswanto Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 08:45:43 GMTI want to create an application which can list and print
There's no difference whatsoever between installed and uninstalled TTF files. That specification is just about as good as it gets, I'm afraid. They do make sense if you persevere! However, make sure what you want to do can't be achieved with a Windows GDI or MacOS call before diving into the TrueType file. The way I (and others) write similar utilities is to install the font temporarily into Windows. You still need to work out how to get the name though... -- Laurence
From: Ablert Chong Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 13:12:42 GMTI apply the provided check sum program to a windows 95 truetype
Most fonts I've looked at have been OK in this respect, apart from one major exception: Fontographer doesn't get the checksums right! (Although I haven't checked the latest versions.) -- Laurence
From: R. Jennings Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 02:50:42 GMTI purchased Adobe's "Graphite" font in PostScript format. My cad
FontMonger would do this task, but as you've found it's difficult to get hold of now. Better to use Type Designer (cheap) or FontLab 3.0: for details, see the Non-native Tools page. -- Laurence
From: Jonathan Reynolds Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 17:00:28 -0500Hi,
Many writers on typography have proposed their own type classification systems, but generally they only get used within the confines of their own books. In the late 1980s however, the PANOSE classification system was devised and received wider interest. If your 600 fonts are professionally created, they should all have a PANOSE field, which takes certain parameters about the font, useful for classifying by certain properties: x-height, contrast, serif style, etc. It's useful when you receive a document without its fonts: PANOSE will locate what it thinks is the closest match. Ultimately no form of font classification will ever be entirely logical; there are too many important subjective features for complete agreement. -- Laurence
From: Tim Harvey Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:10:14 GMTWhy can one "corrupt" TrueType font bring WIN95 to its knees,
You're welcome! ... A corrupt TrueType font is one that has some kind of bug in it. There are strict rules about how a TrueType file is laid out internally, and if these are violated the font can cause problems. Furthermore, TrueType fonts often have complex hinting programs in them which can have bugs unless they've been well tested. However, it's uncommon for any TrueType to bring down Windows 95; usually the corrupt font is simply disabled so as not to interfere with the system (gosh, these metaphors are positively fascist!). Advice: complain to your font supplier. -- Laurence
From: Bill Petersman Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 03:25:04 GMTAre there any VB or C code examples/DLLs or can you point me to an area that would help me to read two parameters in the TrueType OS/2 table: usWeightClass and fsSelection.
There's some example code on the MS Typography site which parses the 'name' table. This at least shows clearly how TrueType's table structure works. After that, you simply need to find where the OS/2 table starts, then read bytes 4 & 5 for usWeightClass, and bytes 62 & 63 for fsSelection. They are USHORT values in Motorola format, i.e. usWeightClass = (256 * os2[4]) + os2[5] -- Laurence
From: Walter Holmes Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 15:39:18 GMTI'm using an ATI "Graphics Expression" accelerator at
You can adjust the size of displayed fonts under Win95 by right clicking on an empty section of desktop. Choose properties, settings, and custom in the dialogs. I'm using 125% for an 800X600 display on a 14" screen. Hope this helps. -- Casey King
From: Alex Gu Date: Wed, 5 Feb 97 21:12:03 PSTI'm looking for Uzbek or Tadjik (cyrillic fonts plus 5 more characters)
From: Ted Tawara Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 13:06:39 GMTIs it true that the TrueType pointsize is converted using yMax and yMin?
Although it might seem "typographically traditional" to use the yMax and yMin fields, these should not be used. The vital scaling factor - from coordinates in the master outline to pixel coordinates on a device - is: pointSize * dpiResolution / (72 * unitsPerEm). Thus the unitsPerEm field can be regarded as the font's component of the scaling factor: everything else is under the control of the OS, the output device and the application. If yMax and yMin were used, they could easily be skewed by larger characters added to the font (such as logotypes or accented capitals). Of course there is no guarantee that all applications respect this rule for pointSize. -- Laurence
From: Alan Watson Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 10:40:49 GMTIs Fontographer the best tool to use to create TrueType fonts for some logos that I want to create in TrueType format.
DTP Type Designer is better in many ways, and FontLab is better in almost all ways. See the Non-native Tools page -- Laurence
From: Jim Robinson Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 19:49:10 GMTDo you know of any tools available for Unix which can save
This would require a complete TrueType rasterizer to be written, including a hint interpreter; there's no short cut. The TT rasterizer is available as C source code, but you would need to build it into a usable tool. -- Laurence
From: JOSELYN WHITE Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 16:02:48 GMTCould you please tell me what exactly graphic typography is?
This isn't a TrueType question! I don't think the term has a widespread meaning, but the term could apply to the FUSE experimental fonts. -- Laurence
From: Richard Dunstan Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 23:24:29 GMTI'm using your code39six font in a win3.1 environment
(I didn't make the font you mention!) If there's a problem with a font, it should show up on all machines that use the font the same way. Perhaps there's a different bad font on the problem machine. TrueType fonts occasionally display oddly in very low memory conditions. -- Laurence
From: loren Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 00:41:08 GMTi need a truetype equivlant of Palatino
Try Palatino, available in TrueType from Linotype -- Laurence