Fonts & Encodings

7.2. Tools for Font Conversion

We have already described several tools for font conversion in the chapter on Mac OS. Among them, TransType Pro and FontFlasher also exist in Windows versions that are identical to their Macintosh versions in every detail. The reader is therefore referred back to their descriptions under Mac OS X on pages 205 through 208 of this book.

There is, however, a competitor to TransType Pro: CrossFont, by the American company Acute Systems, whose specialty is the conversion of data between the PC and the Macintosh.

CrossFont (Figure 7-13) offers almost the same features as TransType Pro for a fraction of the price. It even goes further than TransType Pro, as it can also manage the dfont format of the Macintosh and can generate missing files, such as the PFM file, when a font comes from a Unix environment, or the AFM file, when we need kerning pairs for T_EX, etc. One very interesting property: it collects the kerning pairs from any available AFM files and integrates them into the fonts generated during conversion.

But it also has its drawbacks: we cannot view the glyphs in a font to confirm that no glyph was overlooked or incorrectly encoded, and Multiple Master fonts are not supported.

Both programs (TransType and CrossFont) are available in a demo version that is restricted only in the number of days for which it can be used. Thus one can test out their full functionality before deciding which one to buy.

Figure 7-12. The interface of TransType Pro under ...