Wally
Newbie
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« on: July 21, 2008, 04:56:35 PM » |
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I am a font rookie and I want to convert an old Macintosh System 9 font suitcase into a modern True Type font that will work on Mac and Windows. The old font has a resource and data fork(I think.)
The old font has characters that I need for some computer programs I made for High School chemistry students.
Please help!!
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Alex Petrov
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« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2008, 12:38:21 PM » |
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If the font has only bitmaps you cannot convert it with TransType. You can mail me the font packed with StuffIt or Zipped and I'll look ...
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Alex Petrov
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Alex Petrov
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« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2008, 05:42:52 AM » |
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As I suspected the font was a Mac font suitcase with bitmaps inside. It has custom characters encoded with MacOS Roman encoding. Theoretically you can export the font as Windows bitmap font (.fon) or create a TTF from it with the help of BitFonter 3 ( http://www.fontlab.com/photofont/bitfonter/) but you would not solve the encoding problem. You will not be able to use custom chemical characters on both platforms. |
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Alex Petrov
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Wally
Newbie
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« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2008, 11:06:00 AM » |
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Thank you for the help.
So what are my options?
Can I build my own cross platform font(if I have to) with a program that's not to expensive. There are only maybe 35 "special" characters- subscripts(type with shift and option and the number key),superscripts, equation double arrows, degrees Celcius etc.
Are font experts available to hire for a job such as this?
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Alex Petrov
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« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2008, 10:28:36 AM » |
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Surely you can. You can try TypeTool or Fontographer but you will have to draw outline characters manually.
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Alex Petrov
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Wally
Newbie
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« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2008, 01:49:10 PM » |
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Ok, I've decided to try the demo version of Type Tool because it supposedly can use pasted or imported material right from Adobe Illustrator(AI.) No drawing outlines manually! I have the Macintosh CS2 AI and have set it and Type Tool up to work together. I followed the how to in the Type Tool docs and it works!!
Secondly, as I said earlier, I am a font rookie so please forgive the following question. How (where) do I place my custom glyphs so that I can dictate which keystrokes produce which characters. For example, If I make a subscript number glyph(say a 2,) how easy or hard is it to set up so the user types it with the shift, option and the 2 keys depressed. Can you point me to where I can learn this?
If this is easy to do and I can easily create a cross platform font(Mac and Windows,) I will probably buy TypeTool.
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« Last Edit: July 24, 2008, 02:04:31 PM by Wally »
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Alex Petrov
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« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2008, 08:11:55 AM » |
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What character appears depends on the keyboard layout. Keyboard layouts are different on different platforms and even on different localizations of one platform. So if you want your font work both on MacOS and Windows US you must use character positions presented both in MacOS and Windows US keyboards. Or you may create your custom keyboard layouts for use especially with your font.
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Alex Petrov
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Wally
Newbie
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« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2008, 01:02:57 PM » |
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Where can I find which characters are common to Mac and Windows and what keystrokes produce them?
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Der FontMeister
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« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2008, 03:14:43 PM » |
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Hmmm... not sure where you wanted the help to start but you are talking about a cross-platform font...
SOoooo... if you think about it something like Arial works on Mac and PC (except for things like the Windows or Mac logo and a few other characters)...
Soooo... you open Arial -paste your characters in place of Arial's -rename it -and regenerate it for Mac and for PC and tell me what happens...
Jimmy G.
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