[XeTeX] Type1 and TTF to OTF converter

[Adam Twardoch]

Alexey Kryukov wrote:
> What I wanted to say is that if one
> takes a Type 1 font which is already supposed to be usable in XeTeX
> (typically, a standard Western font with a limited set of characters)

but not a mathematical font (made out of .pfb and .tfm)

> and converts it to OTF (e. g. with fontforge) (s)he will not lose
> any functionality and may even get some benefits.

That depends: the converting script may need to generate some OpenType
Layout code at least for standard ligatures.

> Of course producing a really good OTF font from a set of pfb/afm files
> (especially if there are additional fonts available in the family,
> such as Expert or SC/OsF) is a completely different task.

Yes, that is what I mean. So I would rephrase your statement:

> Of course converting Type 1 to OTF is a
> completely different case, as this operation is safe and really can
> be recommended in case of problems.

To something like:

Converting Type 1 to OTF is a completely different case. For Western
text fonts in Type 1 format, with Adobe Standard Encoding, it is a
pretty straightforward task (though different tools will nonetheless
generate different results, especially when it comes to linespacing).

For all other Type 1 fonts (e.g. expert fonts, non-Western fonts, math
fonts etc.), the task is not really trivial and can hardly be automated.

As for the best tool to do the conversion, I would of course recommend
Adobe FDK for OpenType (AFDKO):
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype/afdko/
which is free for Mac and Windows and runs in command line.

Regards,
Adam

-- 

Adam Twardoch
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