looks nice. I will check the resulting otfs later but this seems to be a nice solution.

The zero KB display in Finder is a known "misbehavior" of the Finder it is a bit lazy updating the info. Easiest way to get correct values is to change view mode of the finder window to icon view and back to details.

I’m not familiar with Fontforge. How you script it? With Python? Then you could better build a small PyObj app with xCode.

Georg

> How you script it? With Python?

No I used the fontForge script language, old fashioned Bourne shell and called osascript when needed, trying to depend on as few resources as possible. That means a 70 line script file, plus the file Info.plist (40 lines of text), plus an icon which is the big part, 40312 bytes.

> Easiest way to get correct values is to change view mode of the finder window to icon view and back to details.

I changed the script to do that. The window flickers but at least the sizes are fixed when the files are first generated. Thanks.

Worked perfectly for me. Thanks for posting this, it's a life saver.

I'm having trouble with this. I've got X11 installed, downloaded Font Forge, and your PFB-OTF converter. However, when I select the folder nothing happens. Does the OTF font go somewhere else? I get a "Done" window but I don't see the OTF font anywhere.

At first I thought it was because I had .pfm & .pfb files instead of .afm & .pfb files. But when I tried it on another font which had the "correct" .afm files nothing happened either.

Am I doing something wrong?

You do not need X11.

You put the afm and pfb files in a folder where you are allowed to write. For instance, I put some computer modern fonts in some folder called cmr on my mac. After clicking the application pfb2otf, I select that folder and I see this:

I then click "Choose" and get the following:

The otf files that are created can be seen appearing in the window behind as they are written. They are in the same folder as the .afm and .pfb files. I never added the feature to read kerning from .pfm files. This works on my ppc mac wich OS X 10.4 but I see no reason for it not to work on 10.5 or an intel mac.

Michel

Hi Michel!

I just tried DLing pfb2otf 3 times. Each time I got a [gibberish].zip(2).part that stopped DLing at ~22kb. (Not the same gibberish every time.) I've only ever seen something like that happen a half dozen times in a bunch of years, and it generally means something's corrupted somewhere.

I could go ahead and do the conversions via Unix, but any time there's an easier way, my basically lazy self will definitely go for that.

I'm using a Mac G4-400, OSX 10.4.11. If you can help me out, I'll greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi,

The zip file is 22433 bytes that's all. pfb2otf.app is just a unix script wrapped in a clickable application. I guess the server configuration was changed because the file no longer unzips automatically. You need only unzip it. I added a .zip extension to the filename and adjusted the link in the post; the application now unzips automatically on my mac G4 with OSX 10.4.11 when I click on the link.

Michel

Hi again, Michel: Sorry to be a pin in the drain, but....

The file unzips just fine and the app gets as far as choosing the folder, but then......

Nothing happens. The app closes without converting anything. All I get is the source folder with its original contents.

Now what?

Thanks for your help!

Hmmmmmmmmm........ tried to run FontForge & got this message:

Link (dyld) error:

Library not loaded: /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.6.dylib
Referenced from: /Applications/FontForge.app/Contents/MacOS/FontForge
Reason: image not found

Off to pester the FontForge folks.......... cul8r......

That means you'll need to find your OS X installation disks and install X-Windows.

FontForge is a tricky beast to get running on a Mac, and even more so on Windows that I've heard. Follow the installation instructions at http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/mac-install.html very carefully and you should be all right.

Easiest way is to install is via MacPorts.
sudo port install fontforge

Macports requires the XCode Dev Kit 2.5 installation for OS X 10.4.*

With a good Macports install, you get all sorts of easy to install Unix goodness.

AHA! My X11 is borked! I tried launching GIMP just to make sure, and it won't run either. I didn't even realize it was messed up - it's been a while since I used GIMP.

Wow, I asked for help with one problem and you've helped me track down an even bigger problem! I can fix that one pretty easily. Thanks! :-)

I appended to the original post a link to a version of pfb2otf that uses the fontforge python module and does not require X11. You might also try that.

Michel

Hi. I have been looking for something like this. Thanks. BUT, I cannot get it to work properly. I am not very technical, so forgive me if my questions seems silly. I have downloaded your app and fontforge, but when I try to run the app it says that I should download fontforge executables for mac. Then it sends me back to the page where I downloaded fontforge in the first place.

Am I doing somehing wrong?

Thank again

Gustav

@ Stavros: Did you read the instructions for installation I linked above?

First you need to have X11 installed on your Mac. It comes on the MacOS X install discs, but is not installed by default.

The Fontforge executables are at this link.
There are currently three variants for Mac depending on OS version and processor type, along with Linux and Cygwin versions. Choose the one that suits your machine.

There are additional libraries needed to give Fontforge full functionality. They are packaged for installing convenience for Mac, and can be downloaded via this link.

Hi

I tried pfb2otfpy on a powerbook pro with 10.5 and on a mac mini with 10.6 and got your symptom on both. Something in Fontforge seems to have changed since the last time I used it (on a ppc with 10.4). I removed a test and the program works fine on my Powerbook Pro. I'll check tomorrow on the mini. You can download again and see if things go better. That is not a clean solution. I'll try to do better when I have time.

On the other hand, pfb2otf works for me on both machines (but requires X11, which is no big trouble to install).

Michel

correction: it is a MacBook Pro not a Powerbook pro with 10.5 on which I checked.

Hi Michel

I am on a MacBook Pro with 10.5. The last link to pfb2otf you sent seems to work.

Thanks for your time and the great app!!

So there is a spin off. If I open a font it automatically launches in Font Explorer. Can I change this back to launch on font book?

To change back, right click on an otf file, select "Get Info". then go to "Open with", select "Font Book" and Change All. You'll have to do the same with a .ttf and a .dfont file.

Michel

Instead of installing Fontforge via an installer, IMO an easier/better solution would be to install it via Macports. Then you know for certain that all of your dependencies, requirements, etc., are taken care of.

Installing via macport requires compiling and thus the developer installation. And it takes time before getting a running version; I have a macport installation on my MacBook Pro and I know. If the aim is only to use pfb2otf, the installer is fast and the version of pfb2otf that uses a fontforge script is quite stable. It runs in less than a minute or so if X11 is already installed (I just tested again on my MacBook pro and fontforge requires /usr/X11/lib/libXi.6.dylib to run in batch mode; can you tell me why?). The fontforge python libraries also come with the installer. The problem is that the version of python that is to be used changes with time and with the OS. With OS X 10.5 and OS X 10.6, fontforge now expects python2.5 (and on my mini with 10.6, /usr/bin/python is /usr/bin/python2.6). With OS X 10.4, it uses python2.3; pfb2otfpy thus requires some maintenance (and I do it only when someone asks), pfb2otf is quite happy with old or new versions of fontforge; it requires no change and is quite happy with the installer.

Michel

What I do is install the latest X11 from the XQuartz project instead of what came on the system DVD. Everything else I try to get from Macports.

But you're right, it requires the developer SDK installed, which isn't as straightforward (or fast) as just using the installer.

I also installed the XQuartz version of X11 on my MacBook Pro else Inkscape (download from http://www.inkscape.org/) would not run.

Hi Michel, and congratulations for your work.

Unfortunately I can't get pfb2otf to work. When I point at the folder containing the fonts to be converted, I get an error message saying "Error: the folder you chose is not writable" even though I have chmoded the folder's permissions to 777.
This is all running on OS X 10.7. fontforge installed through MacPorts. XCode 4 installed through the Appstore.
:/

Any idea?

Merry Christmas ;)

I just tried on 10.6, also with a MacPorts installed FontForge, and everything worked fine (on some type1 font file in /usr/local/texlive/2011).

I won't be able to check on 10.7 before next week. Since then, and since you seem to know unix, you could try this: inside pfb2otf.app/Contents/MacOS there is a text file, pfbtootf.txt which is just an executable script. Copy it in some of your working folders; then just execute in a shell window sudo pfbtootf.txt. It will execute as the super user.

By the way, when you click "Choose", you must be inside the directory containing the font files. It should look like this, with the font files in grey:

When I point at the folder containing the fonts to be converted, I get an error message saying "Error: [...] '

I changed the message to "Enter the folder with the font files to convert (listed in grey)".

Message in the header updated.

My, how time flies. When I was first messing around with all of this, I was still a beginner when it came to Unix and the command line. Now I do web development for a living, and feel naked when I don't have a proper *nix available, along with all the available power and flexibility.

Thanks for keeping this updated Michel!