A ZIP package of fonts from a client contains a couple of .bmp fonts which, after unpacking, turn out to have no data (0 KB). The file names have no extension and, as they also are dated some 1992 or 1997, my guess is they are old Mac OS 9 fonts. The question is - how to restore the files and - as converting them would probably be not a welcome solution - how to use them for an InDesign project I am working on (translation and localization of some technical manuals). Thanks.
Surely you mean .bmap? These are cached bitmaps, not actual outlines. Clients that supplied .bmaps used to be a royal pain in the rear, because these look good on screen -- because they were scaled to be used as such -- but were, obviously, worthless in print.
Replace with the correct outline fonts, I'd suggest.
Reason the files are 0 kb is because those were the days of the dreaded Apple Resource Fork: a separate part of each file where data was supposed to be stored. Almost no other file system could handle such an advanced file system (in fact, Apple itself abandoned it with, if I remember it right, OS X). Most file packers also had problems with these: either when packing (so the data forks never were stored), or when unpacking (as it needs a resource fork aware OS to be able to store that blasted data again). But since it's highly unlikely these particular files would be of any use, I wouldn't bother about it any further.
Thank you!
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