FontForge - converting fonts...

users
#1

I've been very interested in the discussion of the problems users are
having in LO5.4.1.2 not reading fonts. Someone mentioned that he had
converted a font to one LO had no trouble finding, So I thought I would
try and do the same .

Downloaded FontForge with the purpose of converting Garamond Adobe fonts
to a format which LO 5.4.1.2 can read.

When I open the Garamond fonts in Font Forge they are displayed

ugmm8a.pfb
ugmmi8a.pfb
ugmmr8a.pfb
ugmmri8a.pfb

Clicking on any one of them displays an edit window and I presume that I
should be able to convert each to something other than .pfb but have no
idea how to do it.

I have looked at several utube videos but they do not cover conversion
from one font type to another, concentrating upon creating new fonts. I
tried to access the fontforge website but after some twenty minutes of
waiting for it to load, without success, I gave up.

All advice would be welcome, as the Garamond font is used for my business
letterhead.

zed

#2

I've been very interested in the discussion of the problems users are
having in LO5.4.1.2 not reading fonts. Someone mentioned that he had
converted a font to one LO had no trouble finding, So I thought I would
try and do the same .

Downloaded FontForge with the purpose of converting Garamond Adobe fonts
to a format which LO 5.4.1.2 can read.

When I open the Garamond fonts in Font Forge they are displayed

ugmm8a.pfb
ugmmi8a.pfb
ugmmr8a.pfb
ugmmri8a.pfb

Clicking on any one of them displays an edit window and I presume that I
should be able to convert each to something other than .pfb but have no
idea how to do it.

I have looked at several utube videos but they do not cover conversion
from one font type to another, concentrating upon creating new fonts. I
tried to access the fontforge website but after some twenty minutes of
waiting for it to load, without success, I gave up.

All advice would be welcome, as the Garamond font is used for my business
letterhead.

It seems you need to create a script for that. A quick search gives me this

http://jeromejaglale.com/doc/convert_pfb_pfm_font_to_otf

https://fontforge.github.io/scripting-tutorial.html

I've never did that, so I cannot help you more. But if you need to use a
garalde font for headings try switching to Cormorant, a really good OFL
licensed font full of OpenType features:

https://github.com/CatharsisFonts/Cormorant

The stylistic set 2 (+ss02) provides an even more "garamond" shape than the
basic font.

Regards,
Ricardo

#3

Zed,

   I know that reading is so 20th Century compared to watching someone's
video on youtube, but the answer can be found on the new fontforge web site
(using the scripts option)[1]. Or check out this techwalla web site (found
with a duckduckgo search
<https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-convert-fonts-from-otf-to-ttf>.
While not the translation you want, the protocol is sound.

   To get you started (and please do read the fontforge scripting tutorial to
tune it for your needs) here is the script I use to convert to .otf fonts:

x<--------------
[1] convert-fonts.sh

#!/usr/bin/fontforge

# Use fontforge to convert .ttf, .pfb, and .svg to .otf
# invoke as ./convert-fonts.sh <font_name>.

i = 1
format = ".otf"
while (i < $argc)
   if ($argv[i] == "-format" || $argv[i] == "--format")
     i = i+1
     if (i < $argc)
       format = $argv[i]
       if (format != ".ttf" && format != ".otf" && \
           format != ".pfb" && format != ".svg")
          Error( "Expected one of '.ttf', '.otf', '.pfb' or '.svg' for format" )
        endif
      endif
    else
      Open($argv[i])
      if ($order == 2 && (format == ".otf" || format == ".pfb" ))
   SetFontOrder(3)
         SelectAll()
         Simplify(128+32+8,1.5)
         ScaleToEm(1000)
       elseif ($order == 3 && format == ".ttf" )
         ScaleToEm(2048)
         RoundToInt()
       endif
       Generate($argv[i]:r + format)
    endif
    i = i + 1
endloop
x<==========================

HTH,

Rich

#4

I just tried Fontforge using Ubuntu 16.04/MATE.

In opened a TTF font and went to File > Generate Fonts.  I looked at the option "buttons" and choose to make it an OTF one. All I had to do after that was to save the font.

The process gave me some errors, but the resulting font looked the same.  Since I used a font that was decorative one, so it was not a "standard" font.  I think that was what the errors were about.

I do have the Adobe font collection in "storage", but I never used Type 1 fonts so I could not test Fontforge with that type of font.