Need to change character positions within fonts

Question

Need to change character positions within fonts

I've got a bunch of English-Greek fonts (TTFs) which, though, have the greek character set in the wrong places within their tables! I think it's because they are old, from pre-Unicode times, written for Win 3.x.

Any suggestion as to a (preferrably freeware) font editor to allow me to re-map the various greek characters to their proper Unicode places, so I can use the fonts with the greek keyboard driver I have?

Many thanks, as always.

PowerBook G4 17 1.67GHz, Mac OS X (10.4.8), TiBook Gigabit Ethernet, B/W G3, Win2K, WinXP

Posted on Mar 10, 2007 2:07 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Mar 10, 2007 5:31 AM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

Try FontForge:

http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/

Of course it would be better to move to Unicode stuff if possible, to avoid creating text which no one but you can read correctly. Here is some info in case it is useful for other purposes:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/TypingGreek.html

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Answer 2

Mar 10, 2007 12:40 PM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

Cheers, Tom! I ran FontForge, it looks the job. Only, I feel I am out way beyond my league with it 😟

Two things I would like to ask, if I may:
1. If I somehow manage to remap the greek characters to their proper Unicode positions (which, by the way, right now are not being used), will not the text I then create be readable by any other Unicode system?

2. Where can I find a quick how-to in order to tell FontForge to shift the greek "A" in the offending fonts from its current, wrong, position (00C1) to the right one (0391)?

Thanks,
Alex.

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Mar 10, 2007 12:58 PM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

1. If I somehow manage to remap the greek characters
to their proper Unicode positions (which, by the way,
right now are not being used), will not the text I
then create be readable by any other Unicode system?

Yes, totally. My earlier comment was poorly written.

Is there some special reason you can't just use the Unicode fonts for Greek that come with OS X and with the Word2004 testdrive or are free for downloading? Are these old fonts worth all the trouble to make them Unicode?

2. Where can I find a quick how-to in order to tell
FontForge to shift the greek "A" in the offending
fonts from its current, wrong, position (00C1) to the
right one (0391)?

Check the Help. But I think you can just copy/paste the glyphs from the wrong position to the right one.

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Answer 4

Mar 10, 2007 1:17 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I am trying to find the greek equivalent of the 'Architect' font. It's very similar to the UB (Unibrain) Fine font, but it's old technology. Since I haven't been able to locate the Unicode version of it, I am looking into converting the old one.

Will have a go with the copy-paste approach. If it doesn't work, I'll post back.

Many thanks, Tom. See you around.

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Answer 5

Mar 11, 2007 5:46 AM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

I've embarked on the process of re-positioning all the greek characters from their current locations to their reserved spaces further down the font table.

After repositioning all the capital accented vowels, though, I saved (a copy) and tried to load the modified font in my Font Book, just to see if I was moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, the font doesn't load. I double click the modified copy, Font Book comes to the foreground but nothing happens. I launched Font Examiner, clicked on File>Open, pointed to the modified copy, the dialog requester went away and nothing happens.

I checked the file sizes: the original font is 56kB, the modified one 240kB.

I also noticed that the little rectangles above each cell in the font table change to yellow right after I paste the glyph from the previous (wrong) position. These yellow rectangles show as blue after the font file has been saved, closed and re-opened in FontForge.

EDIT: I also noticed that if instead of merely saving the file, I choose File>Generate Fonts... and then allow FontForge to guide me with its warnings, the file size dropped to 48kB, and the font was properly installed by Font Book!

Like I state above, font making is a serious business. To the extend necessary, I am willing to understand it and solve a few problems, though. I just need some guidance.

Any clues?

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,118 points

Mar 11, 2007 6:40 AM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

Any clues?

One thing you can do is forget Fontbook. Just manually put your test font in Home/Library/Fonts and see if it works when you select it and try typing in a Uncode app like TextEdit.

Saving a file in Fontforge does nothing of any use. You must generate the font. Windows ttf should work fine, but other options may be just as good.

Does your generated font work or not? If yes, then you're on the right track. If not, let us know what the problem is and what generation options you have tried.

Also make sure you look through the extensive help provided with FontForge -- it's a good way to get familiar with the subject, which can be very complex, but not overly so for your particular project I think.

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Answer 7

Mar 12, 2007 12:53 PM in response to Alex Zachopoulos

Many thanks, Tom. Like I state in my previous post, I 'Generated the font' instead of just saving a FontForge file, and it worked like a charm. Windows TTF. Brilliant.

And all by chance, after I had finished the conversion, I bumped across a Unicode version of the old font I had been converting. Typical...

Anyway, it's all done now. Thanks for your help.

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