MacDirectory Magazine

Rachel Gray

MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.

Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1359241

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Fortunately there is a third alternative - convert your Type 1 fonts into OpenType fonts. There are a number of apps and websites which can do this, but the quality of the conversion varies significantly and fonts must usually be converted one at a time. Also, you should check your font’s EULA. Some EULAs do not permit conversion. That being said, converting fonts from T1 to OT is not a difficult process. We’ll demonstrate with an example in TransType, Fontlab’s font conversion app. This works the same way on both Mac and Windows. After opening TransType the first step is to drag-drop the Type 1 font file to the black main panel on the left of the window (Figure 1). For Windows Type 1 this will be a .pfb file, on Mac just go (in Finder) to Macintosh HD|Library|Fonts and click-drag-drop the font. Select the font by clicking on its square in the main panel and you will see all the information about the font appear in the panels to the right. Just above the top right panel you will see a drop down menu for PROFILE and another for DESTINATION. In the PROFILE menu select “OpenType PS .otf” (Figure 2). This will preserve all the Type 1 curves exactly as they were in the original. Next, in the DESTINATION menu select the folder where you want the new OpenType font file to be placed (Figure 3). Notice that you can drag-drop multiple fonts into the main panel and convert them all simultaneously as long as they are the same type and going to the same folder. Finally, you can now perform the conversion(s) by just clicking on the big “Convert Font” button in the upper right corner of the window. Et voila! You will find all your new OpenType fonts in the destination folder. There is a short video demonstrating this process at https://www.fontlab.com/font-converter/transtype/. So don’t despair if you’re Type 1 dependent. Just a few keystrokes can ensure that your old faithful fonts will remain viable and useful for a long time to come. For more info visit www.fontlab.com

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