FontForge
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This article's lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (September 2011) |
 FontForge's user interface |
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| Developer(s) | George Williams |
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| Stable release | 20110222 / February 22, 2011 |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Type | Font editor |
| License | BSD license (Free software) |
| Website | http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ |
FontForge (formerly known as PfaEdit[1]) is a typeface (font) editor program developed by George Williams. FontForge is free software and is distributed under the BSD license.[2] FontForge is available for several operating systems and is localized in several languages.
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[edit] Features
Fontforge supports many font formats, including TrueType, PostScript, OpenType, and SVG. It can convert fonts from one format to another, or can store fonts in its native "spline font database" format (.sfd file name extension), which has the advantage of being text-based.[3] This format facilitates designer collaboration, because difference files can be easily created, but users usually need to use the same Fontforge version, otherwise the .sfd text representation can differ too much to be useful for difference reviewing.
To facilitate automated format conversions and other transformations, Fontforge implements two scripting languages: its own legacy language, and more recently Python.[4] FontForge can be built as a python module to be loaded from python scripts.[5]
Fontforge supports Adobe's OpenType feature file specification (with its own extensions to the syntax).[6] It also supports the unofficial Microsoft mathematical typesetting extensions (MATH table)[7] introduced for Cambria Math and supported by Office 2007, XeTeX and LuaTeX. At least one free OpenType mathematical font has been developed in FontForge (see below).
FontForge uses FreeType for rendering fonts on screen.[8] Since the November 15, 2008 release, FontForge can use libcairo and libpango software libraries for graphics and text rendering[9] providing anti-aliased graphics and complex text layout support.
FontForge can use Potrace or AutoTrace to auto trace bitmap images and import them into a font.
Parts of FontForge code are used by the LuaTeX typesetting engine for reading and parsing OpenType fonts.[10]
[edit] Supported font formats
- SFD (Fontforge's native file format)
- TTF (TrueType font)
- (PostScript, Type 1 font)
- (TeX Bitmap Fonts)
- OTB (X11 bitmap only sfnt)
- BDF (Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format)
- FON (Windows)
- FNT (Windows)
- OTF (OpenType)
- SVG
- TTC (TrueType Collection)
- WOFF (Web Open Font Format)
[edit] Free fonts developed with FontForge
- Free UCS Outline Fonts
- Linux Libertine
- DejaVu fonts
- Asana-Math
- Beteckna
- Inconsolata
- Junicode
- OCR-A
- M+ Fonts
- XITS font project
- Exo font family (free)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "The history of the development of FontForge". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ff-history.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ FontForge main page, license
- ^ "Spline Font Database File Format". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/sfdformat.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "Writing scripts to change fonts in FontForge". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/scripting.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "Writing python scripts to change fonts in FontForge". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/python.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "FontForge's implementation of Adobe's Feature File syntax". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/featurefile.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "MATH typesetting information". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. 2007-08-04. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/math.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "Building FontForge from source". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/source-build.html#Dependencies. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "Change log for FontForge". Fontforge.sourceforge.net. http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/changelog.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ "LuaTeX — Taco Hoekwater, July 24, TUG 2008" (PDF). http://www.luatex.org/talks/tug2008-taco-luatex.pdf. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- "I think the ideas behind it are beautiful in my mind": long interview with George Williams, July 8, 2007
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