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Font Issue - Please HELP!

J

jason.weaver

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
19
0
Hello everyone,

I have been asked to design some media pieces for an upcoming event at our school, and I am having a problem with one font.

The organization that is facilitating the event uses Friz Quadrata for their logo, and the folder they sent me of resources to use has this font's folder is full of files with extensions like AFM, INF, PFB, and PFM - and none of these will open for me.

I have looked around for info on how to convert the font to a Mac-usable file type, but all I find is expense software and other tips that require going into Terminal - which I do not feel comfortable doing.

There is no budget for this, and I am doing it for free - can someone tell me how else I can get this font into a file extension that Macs like?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Jason
 
jason.weaver said:
Hello everyone,

I have been asked to design some media pieces for an upcoming event at our school, and I am having a problem with one font.

The organization that is facilitating the event uses Friz Quadrata for their logo, and the folder they sent me of resources to use has this font's folder is full of files with extensions like AFM, INF, PFB, and PFM - and none of these will open for me.

I have looked around for info on how to convert the font to a Mac-usable file type, but all I find is expense software and other tips that require going into Terminal - which I do not feel comfortable doing.

There is no budget for this, and I am doing it for free - can someone tell me how else I can get this font into a file extension that Macs like?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Jason
Click to expand...

I can't help with conversion software, but I have a link where you can buy what you need in Mac Opentype or Postscript.

http://www.fonts.com/findfonts/mond...=standard&OVADID=854906022&OVKWID=29045564522

Dale

Edit: Search for these file extensions on Google and you will find more about them. Probably won't help but it's knowledge...
 
jason.weaver said:
The organization that is facilitating the event uses Friz Quadrata for their logo, and the folder they sent me of resources to use has this font's folder is full of files with extensions like AFM, INF, PFB, and PFM - and none of these will open for me.
Click to expand...

None of those sounds like an actual font file to me ... ask 'em to send you either TrueType or OpenType, .ttf or .otf.

Note that unless they have a redistributive license, they shouldn't actually be sending out font files, however.

Fonts.com has a 20% discount offer at the moment, so purchasing the font wouldn't be that expensive.

If the organization you refer to is expecting you to do this job for free, then explain to them that the font in question would represent an out-of-pocket expense and ask them to pay for it.

Cheers!

Jim
 
Jim Campbell said:
None of those sounds like an actual font file to me ...
Click to expand...


They're components of Windows PostScript (Type 1) fonts. Had a lot of dealings with them 10 or 15 years ago, supported natively within Windows 2000, needing ATM (now there's a flashback) for Win95/98. Not sure about XP.

PFM files are the font metrics, used for rendering. PFB are the binaries. AFM is an encapsulated file. They're comparatively rare these days, definitely a good thing.
 
If you have X11 installed*, you could use FontForge to convert the Windows Postscript Type 1 into a TrueType font. It might not be perfect and some of the hinting may be lost upon conversion, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in Illustrator. It'd be worth a shot since it's free.

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

* If it's not installed, it's located ion the Optional Installs folder on your OS X Installation DVD.
 
jason.weaver said:
The organization that is facilitating the event uses Friz Quadrata for their logo, and the folder they sent me of resources to use has this font's folder is full of files with extensions like AFM, INF, PFB, and PFM - and none of these will open for me.
Click to expand...


These are Type 1 Postscript font files, used on Windows systems.
The four files were actually a complete multiple master font.

Anyway, Type1 has been slowly phased out on Windows platform too (look at the latest Adobe CS4 apps and how are these supporting the Type 1 PS fonts).

There are applications, that can convert Type 1 (PC) fonts to OpenType PS (or Opentype TTF, whatever you want). One of those is Fontlab's TransType (Mac/Win), or Accute Systems CrossFont (Windows only).
 
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