Need to send someone a font, but font files are zero bytes

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Level 1

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Need to send someone a font, but font files are zero bytes

I have a flash file that references two unusual fonts. I need to send these fonts to another developer, but when I list the contents of the font folder, the font files are zero. The other developer is working on a windows machine and cannot read the files I send him for some reason.

Can anyone tell me how I might send these fonts?

Check out the directory listing. You can see the fonts but all have size of zero.
My-Mac:fonts christopherwalsh$ ls -l
total 2600
-rwx--x--x@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Aug 5 1993 BerliGroLig
-rwx--x--x@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Aug 5 1993 BerliGroMed
-rw-r--r--@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 BerlinerGrotesk Light
-rw-r--r--@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 BerlinerGrotesk Medium
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Black t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Black t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN BlackAlternate t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN BlackAlternate t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Bold t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Bold t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN BoldAlternate t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN BoldAlternate t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Light t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Light t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN LightAlternate t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN LightAlternate t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Medium t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Medium t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN MediumAlternate t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN MediumAlternate t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Regular t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN Regular t1 1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN RegularAlternate t1
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 christopherwalsh staff 0 Jun 10 2006 DIN RegularAlternate t1 1
-

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 24, 2010 12:11 PM

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Answer 1

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Jan 24, 2010 3:50 PM in response to sneakyimp

Where did you get these fonts?

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Answer 2

sneakyimp Author

Level 1

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Jan 24, 2010 4:20 PM in response to sig

They were sent to me by the original designer of the flash file.

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Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jan 24, 2010 4:44 PM in response to sneakyimp

these are likely resource forks fonts where everything is stored in the resource fork. run this to see the resource fork sizes listed.


ls -l@

you should see that. or run


ls -l BerliGroLig/rsrc

this will list the resource fork for this font and its size. I don't know how to transfer such fonts to windows. this tool seems to be relevant
http://fondu.sourceforge.net/

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Answer 4

sneakyimp Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 24, 2010 6:41 PM in response to V.K.

That link was extremely helpful.

I have managed to get the fonts working on my windows machine by doing the following:

1) download the Mac OSX package of fondu and install it:
http://fondu.sourceforge.net/index.html#Downloads

2) open a terminal window on the mac and convert the fonts using fondu:
cd ~/Library/Fonts
/usr/local/bin/fondu Berli*

that 2nd command converts all the fonts starting with 'Berli' into pfb fonts. Not sure what these are exactly but I think they're unix fonts.

3) Move all the resulting pfb and bdf files to my windows machine.

4) Download and install the trial version of CrossFont on my windows machine and use it to covert the files from pfb to otf.

5) use the font control panel to install the resulting otf fonts.

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Answer 5

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jan 24, 2010 7:01 PM in response to sneakyimp

very good! and thanks for feedback and instructions! let me bookmark this...

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Answer 6

sneakyimp Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 24, 2010 7:12 PM in response to V.K.

I like to give back when I can.

There was a bit of weirdness in this whole operation. As you can see from the file listing, I have 4 Berli* fonts. When I ran the fondu command, I got 4 files, but two were .pft and two were .bdf. I have no idea what this meant. I have no idea what the significance of that is.

When I converted my DIN* fonts, I was repeatedly asked if I wanted to overwrite files. Apparently two distinct font files would result in the same name being auto-generated by fondu. I just said yes and moved on.

At any rate, it's good enough for now.

Oh, and the CrossFont trial version only lasts 15 days. It looks like a powerful product, though. There might be some way to just use CrossFont but I doubt it. Half the trick was getting the resource fork parts of the file and fondu did that very very well.

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