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Leave the “Append a FONTLOG entry” and “Prepend timestamp” options unchecked.Ĭlick the “Generate” button, and FontForge will build your font file. You can check the “Validate Before Saving” option if you wish (to potentially catch additional errors), but this is optional. On the line below, make sure No Rename is selected for the “Force glyph names to:” option.
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On the right-hand side, make sure No Bitmap Fonts is selected. You should choose either TrueType or OpenType (CFF), as discussed earlier. On the left-hand side is a pull-down menu from which you select the format of the font you wish to generate. All of the options you need to look at are found in the bottom half of the window. This is strictly a means to help you quickly find the right place to save your output file, or to choose an existing font file if you intend to overwrite a previous save.
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The top half of the window shows the familiar file-chooser options - a list of the files found in the current directory, a text-entry box for you to enter a filename, and buttons to navigate to other folders and directories if necessary. Open the Generate Fonts window by choosing it from the “File” menu. Click OK at the bottom of the window, and you are ready to generate TrueType output. Click on the “Layers” tab, and check the All layers quadratic option. Open the “Font Info” window from the “Element” menu. Finally, open the “Find Problems” tool, select the Open paths test as described above, and also select all of the tests in the “Refs” tab.Īfter you can run these tests without errors, you will then need to convert your paths to quadratic curves. Next, adjust all points to have integer coordinates, either hit Ctrl + Shift + _ (underscore), or choose To Int from the “Element” > “Round” menu. You should first correct the direction of all of your paths as described above. Once your font passes the test without errors, you are ready to generate OpenType output.įor TrueType fonts, a few additional steps are required. Choose “Find problems” from the “Element” menu, select the Open paths option in the “Paths” tab, and click OK to run the test. Next, check to make sure that you have not left any unclosed paths. Hit Ctrl + Shift + D or choose “Correct Direction” from the “Element” menu. Be sure to save your work before you proceed any further, though: some of the changes required to validate your font for export will alter the shapes of your glyphs in subtle ways.įor OpenType fonts, first correct the direction of all of your paths. You can use the Validate Font tool found in the Element menu to do this (see Making Sure Your Font Works, Validation for a more detailed explanation), or you can select all of the glyphs (hit Ctrl + A or choose “Select” > “Select All” from the “Edit” menu) then run a few commands to apply some basic changes in bulk. To build a font file for testing purposes - such as to examine the spacing in a web browser - you need only to ensure that your font passes the required validation tests. Technically the OpenType format can encompass a range of other options, but the CFF type is the one in widespread use. ttf filename extension) and OpenType CFF (which is found with the. You will use the Generate Fonts tool (found in the File menu) to build a usable output font regardless of whether you are making it for your own testing purposes or to publish it for consumption by others, but you will want to employ a few extra steps when building the finished product.įontForge can export your font to a variety of different formats, but in practice only two are important: TrueType (which is found with the.
FONTFORGE SCRIPT OTF TO TTF INSTALL
In addition, your ultimate goal is, of course, to create a font that you can make available in an output format for other people to install and use. Although you can do a wide range of testing within FontForge itself, you will need to generate installable font files in order to perform real-world testing during the development process.
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