Lauri,

you can fly to Italy and buy "Computer Magazine" issue 96 (February 2005), fly to France and buy "Computer Arts" issue 74 (January 2005) or get last year's UK editions of Computer Arts issue 95 or Computer Arts Projects issue 57. They all have TypeTool 1.3 bundled for free. Then update to TypeTool 2 for $39.95.

If you can get a cheap flight to Rome or Paris for less than $40, you'd get away cheaper or at least not more expensive, plus be able to add a weekend in Paris or Rome ;)

Regards,
Adam Twardoch
Fontlab Ltd.

Adam,

Or get the magazine on eBay for

Lauri
However you get Type Tool 2, and if it includes a flight to Rome or Paris, great, I personally think you will like it. I use it and, now that Fontographer is no longer supported by the parent company, i.e., updated, most use either FontLab or Type Tool 2.

Yes, but Rome looks like dis from the Gianicolo,
the highest point in Rome. :-)

Jordan, thanks for the recommendation! I'll probably get Typetool 2 tonight from fontlab.

Adam, when I said cheap I didn't mean in any way that I don't appreciate the Fontlab company. I think they're/you're great! I'm just used to shopping around online (I use Amazon every month), and usually use Pricegrabber.com for finding the best prices for products. I didn't get any hits at all with that for Typetool so I'd thought I'd ask around here. I already ordered Cabarga's Fontlab/Typetool book, so I'm ready to roll when I purchase the software. When it comes to Computer Arts, I've seen several Typophile posts mentioning it.

Thanks!

Alessandro,

Looks real pretty. So are you in Italy at the moment? I thought I read here on the forum somewhere that you were in Finland.

I love your random posts. The puma/cat was awesome!

Oi pal, I'm in Finland with the heart ! I lived there one year.
In Rome it's raining and raining but in the north Italy is falling
lotsa snow at the moment, which is called 'lumi' in Finnish.
Thank you for appreciating my posts, nice to read your line !

Terveisin,
Alessandro

Lauri, are you considering taking my upcoming type design class?
http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/72/66352.html
The timing seems perfect! :-) Plus you'll get to use FontLab
and decide if it's worth the difference for your needs.

BTW, it's going to be on Wednesdays, but 4-7 PM (not 7-10).

hhp

Alessandra,

Minun veli asuu Suomessa, ja h

Hrant,

That sounds really interesting. I would love to take a type design class! I'll look into it.

The closest I've come to taking a typography class is when I was crashing classes (trying to register for a class after the semester had started if there was any available seats) at my university... So I went to the class and I saw the professor (from behind) sitting at a desk helping a student, and I go: "Excuse me sir, I was wondering if there's any seats available in the class?" and the professor turns around and it's a woman. I was totally fooled by her clothes and short hair. I was so embarrased... and if there were any seats available they probably wouldn't have been available for me.

I just realized I called Purys Papyrus. Sorry about that. That's one annoying font...

I just ordered TypeTool 2 from FontLab. Now, all I need is the serial number and I can start creating.

Thanks guys!

> "Excuse me sir ....

Funny.
Maybe you should've just added: "I meant that metaphorically."

hhp

Lauri,

"I just realized I called Purys Papyrus. Sorry about that. "

You probably mean neither Purys nor Papyrus but Pyrus. No need to be sorry. Pyrus ceased to exist five years ago. It has been inherited by the new company Fontlab Ltd.

If you're interested, the company history is
http://www.fontlab.com/About-FontLab/About-FontLab/Company-Profile/

The websites http://www.fontlab.com/ and http://www.pyrus.com/ point to the same content. The reason the domain pyrus.com still exists is because some people still associate Fontlab Ltd. products with this name.

Regards,
Adam Twardoch
Fontlab Ltd.

Hrant,

Good manners be cursed... next time I'll say "Yo, teacha!"

Or turn "Dude looks like a lady" 180 degrees...

Adam,

Thanks! I thought I fixed that in the edit... I guess I just fixed Papyrus which I incidentally spelled Papurys the first time... I don't know why all these u's and y's are in the wrong place today. Which reminds me of something funny that happened to me once when I misspelled (or misspelt for Brits) how as who once... but that's a little bit too dirty for this forum.

Lauri,

are you suggesting that you're the autor of the French Connection United Kingdom acronym? ;)

A.

Adam,

Not quite... but pretty close. I always wanted to get one of their t-shirts that says FCUK-A-ROO, and has a picture of a cowboy.

But I am the proud owner of TypeTool 2 now, though.

Lauri,

where does he lives ? And you ?
That plajon looks like a purys typo, maybe it should be paljon ;-)
Kiitos, selva, kuullaan !

Alessandro

Alessandro,

Sorry about the typo(s). I'm usually a pretty good speller, but my weakness is that I hate proof-reading my own writings, so I don't always catch all the typos I make. But on the other hand, when I read books or magazines I find typos or grammatical errors all the time.

I'm in Los Angeles and he's in a small village named Ilvesjoki with 18 kilometers to the nearest pub.

Later!

Adam,

A quick question. According to the TypeTool 2 page at FontLab (http://www.fontlab.com/Font-tools/TypeTool/) you can export TrueType-based OpenType fonts. But when I try to generate an OpenType font I can't find the option at all in the drop-down box. Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Lauri,

The terms "TrueType fonts" and "TrueType-based OpenType fonts" can be used interchangably.

Each "TrueType" font generated by FontLab 4.6 or TypeTool 2 is automatically an OpenType TT fonts. This is why in our new series of applications, starting with TransType Pro, we'll be consistently using the terms:
* "OpenType PS" for PostScript-based OT fonts (.otf)
* "TrueType / OpenType TT" for TrueType-based OT fonts (.ttf)

In our existing applications, we're using the terms "TrueType" for "TrueType / OpenType TT" and "OpenType" or "OpenType-CFF" for "OpenType PS". Sorry for the confusion.

Microsoft Windows displays the green "O" icon for all fonts with the .otf extension and for those fonts with the .ttf extension that have a digital signature. So to have a green "O" icon in .ttf fonts generated by TypeTool 2 or FontLab 4.6, you need to digitally sign your font:
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/afdko/topic_digital_sig_guide.html

You can get a "code signing" / "Authenticode" digital signature from Verisign or Thawte (the latter is cheaper), but unfortunately, none of them is free.

Regards,
Adam

Adam,

Thanks a lot for an excellent description!

Yeah, I was looking for the green "O" icon in Windows XP. Besides from the "O", when you double-click on a font in Windows XP you get the built in font-viewer and on a test font I generated in TypeTool it says (TrueType) after the name of the font whether the extension is *.ttf or *.otf. But when I do the same thing with a TrueType-based OpenType fonts, standard Windows XP fonts for example, it says (Opentype) and on the next line "OpenType Font, Digitally Signed, TryeType Outlines". So these fonts have obviously been digitally signed, but does the designation TrueType get changed to OpenType in the process of signing a font?

I would assume that signing a font won't affect compability? So all the programs that support OpenType fonts on both Mac and PC will support and unsigned (OpenType) TTF font?

I will keep Thawte in mind when I've created my masterpieces and are ready to sell them.

Thanks again!

Yes, to all of the above.

Specifically, I know of no applications (certainly none of ours) that use the presence or absence of a digital signature to determine whether to look for or use OpenType layout tables. They all just look for the tables themselves.

I'll second Adam's comments that the dividing line between (Windows) TrueType and OpenType is exceedingly thin. If one wants to make the distinction, it's basically a question of whether it has advanced layout tables such as GSUB and/or GPOS.

Regards,

T

Thomas,

Thanks! So pretty much, if you don't "trick out" your font with ligatures, etc there isn't really any big difference between a regular TrueType and an OpenType TrueType?

In such a case, there's no difference at all between a *Windows* TrueType font and an OpenType font.

Still a big difference on the Mac, where the Mac flavor of TT fonts have resource forks with a bunch of stuff in the FOND resource. But that's another story.

T