Using FontForge to convert Adobe Type fonts on OS X

Posted on Monday, April 14, 2008 @ 14:34 CET

I've mentioned FontForge before, but never really explained how to use it - its really powerful and I use about 2% of its functionality, a little like how I use Photoshop probably. In any case, this is a quick recipe to converting Adobe Type fonts that have .PFM and .PFB extensions.

First we need to install it, so:

Check if you have X11 - its under Applications/Utilities. If not, install it - located on your OS X install DVD under Xcode Developer Tools
Download and install the FontForge package for your flavour of OS X from here. FontForge_intelmacX.4_... for Tiger, FontForge_intelmacX.5_... for Leopard.

Once you have it installed, run X11. Then from the menu select Applications > FontForge. The app starts up, you forgive the interface and find the font you want to open by locating the .PFB file or files (you can select multiple files). Once the font is opened:

Select File > Generate Fonts
Select the type of font you want to output. OpenType (CFF) does the job for me, but if you're use them with an app that doesn't support OTF, then TrueType is another way to go
I turn off "Validate before saving", because there will be warnings, but this is optional
Hit Save and FontForge will create the font files for you. My usual settings are shown in the image below.
In the Finder, select all the new fonts and open them at the same time. FontBook is smart enough to recognize the fonts within the same family and install those at the same time which is a nice touch. This means you don't have to handle 20 different windows when installing the font

That's it! Is there a better, more efficient way to do this? Yeah, according to a Linux friend of mine you can run it from the Terminal which means you could script it if you need to convert tons of fonts. But for smaller operations this will work out quite nicely.

Will there be issues with the fonts that are converted? Maybe - I'm no fontographer, but so far this has worked fine for me :)

- paulo