Re: potentially stupid questions from a new user

[Tom Kacvinsky]

Hi David,

> 
> I'm very new to Freetype, so apologies in advance for any stupid
> questions that I may ask ;-)
> 
> To start off with, I don't suppose anybody has got any code to go
> through a vector outline and dump the data in a more human readable
> format (like something similar to that produced by t1disasm)?
> 

For what kind of fonts?  For Type 1, you are right on the money with
t1disasm.  For True Type fonts, I don't know of a tool that will give
you outline information in a format like t1disasm.  There is, however,
a True Type to XML tool called TTX.  It is from Just van Rossum, who
is on this list.

I have an incomplete CFF disassembler, but it is from another
person. I'd have to ask him if it is all right to redistribute his
code.  Bsides, I have to fix some stuff with respect to dunping
correct hintmask/cntrmask data.

For CFF fonts there is also the possibility of using ftview with

    -d -l 4

which will dump outline data to stdout (or is it stderr?).  You could
then parse the resulting log...

> Also, has anybody thought about (or actually done) taking the glyph
> outline data, and using it to generate a Type 1 PFB/AFM set? Just
> asking, as this could be a neat way of converting TT and OTF fonts
> to T1.
> 

Thought about it, yes.  Worked on it, no.  You could always install
the OpenType/CFF font on a Windows box (using ATM 4.1), and print to a
PS file.  The AdobePS driver will autoconvert the CFF data to Type 1
data (without subroutine data).  I am not sure if it will do the
correct thing with hint replacement.

Tom