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_Matt_Oakley_
Participant
February 3, 2009
Question

Installing Type1 font on Vista (.pfb file)

  • February 3, 2009
  • 5 replies
  • 17267 views
I am trying to install some Type1 Univers fonts that are from around 1991
(at least that's the copyright date) onto a Vista PC. Each font consists of
an .AFM, .INF, and .PFB file. The font install panel in Windows Vista does
not show anything when I browse to the folder containing those files.

There is information at the Acrobat website that says "PostScript Type 1
fonts (.pfb + .pfm)" are supported on Windows Vista:
http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/fontinstall/instructions_english.html .
Does the plus sign in the description mean that I have to have both the .pfb
and the .pfm file to be able to install the font, and not just one or the
other?
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

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    _toddabroad2004_
    Participant
    February 12, 2009
    Hello, I'm having a similar problem and hopefully you all can help!

    I'm the only vista user in my office and every else uses ATM Light to install fonts. The only files I have for the font I need are one .pfb file and one .mmm file. Is there another way to install these fonts or another compatible program I can use?

    Thanks in advance for your help!

    Todd
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    _Herb_V_B_
    Participating Frequently
    February 12, 2009
    The Multiple Master font technology is no longer supported, and
    neither is ATM, which is required for them.

    If your Multiple Master fonts were from Adobe, you can probably find
    appropriate replacements in their Open Type optical or Pro series.

    You can also go to a one of your compatriots' systems to create all
    the instances you may ever require. At some point there will be no
    such creation resources available. You'll have to do this if the MM
    fonts are from sources other than Adobe, such as the free ones from
    the now closed Apostrophic Labs, the only other source of quality MM
    fonts.

    - Herb
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    _Matt_Oakley_Author
    Participant
    February 6, 2009
    Thanks to everyone for the feedback. To avoid potential problems with a
    "converted" font, I decided to install a TrueType version that we also had,
    even though I preferred using the Type1 version.
    T
    Thomas Phinney
    Inspiring
    February 6, 2009
    Note that the PFM format contains information simply not present in the AFM file (notably the Windows menu name / style linking information). The utility had better also be processing the INF file in addition to the AGM in order to get that info right, else the result won't be reliably interoperable with the "real" fonts from other sources.

    Cheers,

    T
    _
    _Herb_V_B_
    Participating Frequently
    February 6, 2009
    Good point (as always), Tom.

    Unless I've missed it, there's no way to automatically incorporate the
    .inf file data with Fontlab. I've done it manually a couple of times.

    - Herb
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    _Herb_V_B_
    Participating Frequently
    February 3, 2009
    As Dov said.

    There are a number of utilities that will convert an .afm file to
    .pfm. Just about all of them seem to be named afmtopfm or afm2pfm.
    Some are very old, but functional, dos command line, and I found this
    Windows-based one that seems to work well.

    http://www.proximasoftware.com/afmtopfm/

    Googling for afmtopfm and afm2pfm will find more.

    If you have a font creation program like FontLab, you can open the
    .pfb file and import the data from the .afm file to create a new
    .pfb/.pfm combination.

    - Herb
    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    February 3, 2009
    For Windows Type 1 font installation using Windows' native "Install Font" facility (in Windows Vista as well as XP and 2000), you need both the .PFM and .PFB files. In the "old" days, Adobe Type Manager (no longer supported) did have the ability to install Type 1 fonts via the combination of .PFB, .AFM, and .INF file, creating a .PFM from same. But that is not supported by the Windows' native facility.

    - Dov
    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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