The SWF::Font Module
The Font object represents a set of glyphs that can be used to draw text. At this time, Ming does not directly support PostScript or TrueType fonts. The only type of font supported is a specially created FDB file.
An FDB file is a document containing a font encoded as an SWF Font Definition Block. To create an FDB file you must use the makefdb tool contained in the util directory of the Ming distribution. The makefdb program takes an SWT Generator template file and extracts the font information from it. To convert a particular font for use with Ming, follow these steps:
If you have Macromedia’s Flash tool (Version 4 or 5), download the Generator Authoring Extensions, a set of free Flash plug-ins that can be used to make SWT files.
Add some text to a movie using the font that you wish to translate. Save this movie as an SWT file.
Run the makefdb program to extract the Font Definition Block from the SWT file.
As of this writing, there are no other solutions for generating FDB files without the Flash tool. You have to rely on the kindness of strangers, who have translated several popular fonts already (see http://shawn.apocabilly.org/PFG/fonts). The Generator Authoring Extensions used for creating SWT files are available as a Flash plug-in from http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/.
Get Perl Graphics Programming now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
