Problem with makeOTF

Report · Apr 14, 2004

Im using windows XP. Ive been trying to convert some of my fonts created in fontographer to OTF. So far, I have had no success. When I import the .ttf or type one font, it will create a file that windows recognizes as an OTF, (with no errors from makeOTF) but when I click on it it says it is not a valid font file. When I open the file with MS VOLT, there are not characters in it. When I run the font that doesnt work through a troubleshooting program and have it create a proof sheet, everything comes out. Nothing opens it as an OTF font- not ATM, nothing. I have not been using a features file with it, but that didnt seem to effect the sample provided by adobe. I have tried adobe type 1 files that also fail, so I dont think its a fontographer problem.

Sorry for such a newbie question.

JDooley

Report · Apr 14, 2004

Report · Apr 17, 2004

Hi, Jeremy,

I'm afraid this is not so much a "newbie" question but one from an old Fontographer user. Why don't try to switch to Fontlab, *the* reference in this matter for some time? I must admit, it's expensive. But I think there are even upgrade prices for Fontographer users. And my version 4.6 is simply perfect. I even don't use the FDK at all to create my OpenType fonts. Fontlab makes it itself (even merging, glyph renaming and things of that kind, before creating an OTF), and much easier!

Regards,

Christoph

Report · Apr 19, 2004

This makes me suspect that you do not have all the OpenType font menu names set. Have you built a FontMenuDB file for this font, that supplies the family and style names? You can also use OTF proof to dump the name table, and verify that you have name ID's 1 and 2 for both the Mac and Windows platforms.

I recommend that you do not use TTF fonts as input to MakeOTF; it works, but you lose any hints.
I agree with Christoph Herald that FontLab helps a great deal, with more documention on how to make openType fonts, and lets you see most of yoru font data.

Report · May 06, 2004

I'll note that VOLT doesn't work with CFF (PostScript) OpenType fonts, only with TrueType OpenType fonts. So that part is no surprise.

T