1 TTX/FontTools 2 3 TTX/FontTools is a suite of tools for manipulating fonts. It is written in 4 Python and has a BSD-style, open-source licence -- see LICENSE.txt. 5 It's hosted at http://sourceforge.net/. 6 7 The flagship is TTX, a tool to convert OpenType and TrueType font files to 8 an XML-based format (also called TTX), and back. This lets you edit TTF or 9 OTF files with any text editor. 10 11 The FontTools library currently reads and writes TrueType font files, reads 12 PostScript Type 1 fonts and more. 13 14 15 Scope 16 17 TTX/FontTools' functionality is aimed towards font developers and font tool 18 developers. It can of course be used to just access fonts (outlines, 19 metrics, etc.) but it is not optimized for that. It will be further 20 developed so it can be the core of any font editor. And that's exactly 21 what it will be for our upcoming major rewrite of RoboFog, our (commercial) 22 PythonPowered font editor for MacOS. 23 24 25 Installation 26 27 For Windows and MacOS there are easy-to-use TTX installers. The rest if this 28 document is meant for people who want to use TTX/FontTools from the source. 29 30 You need the following software: 31 32 Python 33 The fresh versions as well as older versions (You need 2.0 or higher) 34 can be downloaded from 35 http://www.python.org/download/ 36 or here 37 http://sourceforge.net/projects/python/ 38 39 Windows: grab the Windows installer, run the full install. 40 Un*x: follow the build instructions. 41 MacOS: grab the installer, run "Easy Install" 42 43 The numpy extension 44 See http://numpy.scipy.org/ 45 46 Now run the "setup.py" script from the FontTools archive. This will install 47 all the modules in the right places, as well as tries to compile the one 48 (optional) C extension contained in FontTools. On Unix it also installs the 49 "ttx" command line tool. This tool can also be used on Windows, but might 50 need some fiddling. 51 52 For instructions how to build a standalone Windows installer, see 53 Windows/README.TXT. Thanks a LOT to Adam Twardoch for this essential 54 contribution. 55 56 For TTX usage instructions, see the file "documentation.html". 57 58 59 Feedback 60 61 Please join the fonttools-discussion mailing list at SourceForge. Subscription 62 info can be found if you follow the "Mailing Lists" link at the SourceForge 63 project page: 64 http://sourceforge.net/projects/fonttools/ 65 You can also email me directly at just (a] letterror.com. 66 67 If you want to follow the development of FontTools closely, or would like to 68 contribute, you can also subscribe to the fonttools-checkins mailing list. 69 70 71 Anonymous VCS access 72 73 The FontTools sources are also accessible here: 74 http://sourceforge.net/projects/fonttools/ 75 Let me know if you'd like to become a co-developer. 76 77 78 Developer documentation 79 80 Sorry, documentation beyond doc strings in the source code is still on my to-do list... 81 Below follows a brief overview of what's there. 82 83 84 The library 85 86 Cross-platform 87 fontTools.t1Lib -- Provides a Type 1 font reader. Writing is a planned feature. 88 fontTools.ttLib -- Extensive TrueType tools. Reads and writes. This is the flagship 89 of FontTools, it's by far the most mature component. Contains a completely modular 90 TTF table converter architecture. See ttLib/tables/table_API_readme.txt. 91 fontTools.afmLib -- And AFM file reader/writer. 92 fontTools.cffLib -- Reads CFF fonts. Writing is a planned feature. 93 fontTools.unicode -- A simple (but large) module that translates 94 Unicode values to their descriptive names. Still Unicode 2.0. 95 fontTools.agl -- Interface to the Adobe Glyph List: maps unicode values 96 to glyph names and back. 97 98 Mac-specific 99 fontTools.fondLib -- A reader/writer class for Mac FOND resources. 100 fontTools.nfntLib -- Reads Mac NFNT bitmap font resources. 101 102 103 Thank-you's 104 105 (in alphabetical order) 106 Erik van Blokland, Petr van Blokland, Jelle Bosma, Vincent Connare, 107 Simon Daniels, Hannes Famira, Greg Hitchcock, John Hudson, Jack Jansen, 108 Antoine Leca, Werner Lemberg, Peter Lofting, Dave Opstad, Laurence Penney, 109 Guido van Rossum, Adam Twardoch. 110 111 Copyrights 112 113 FontTools/TTX -- 1999-2002 Just van Rossum; Letterror (just (a] letterror.com) 114 See LICENCE.txt for the full license. 115
