Converting Amiga fonts for use under other OSs

[Galaxy]

Does anyone know of anyway to easily convert the scalable fonts included with Final Copy 2 / Final Writer (I believe that they were Nimbus-Q fonts) to a format such as Windows True Type? (From memory they did not work with the Windows version of Final Writer 1.0)

I remember that there were a few fonts that came with FC2 that I really liked (and have not seen similar ones elsewhere).

[Marcuz]

after some research, wich was due as i didn't know even that this font format existed, i think that both Fontmonger, wich has been aquired by Adobe and discontinued and Typesmith from the 2.02 release can convert them to postscript 1 format.
also i've found a NewDeal software' page that claims to use types built on a derivative of NimbusQ and have a table of comparison with theirs and the relative/similar more known fonts.
http://www.geos-infobase.de/ND_DOCS/220.HTM

i think that Typesmith is your best try tough:
http://www.df.lth.se/~glue/AmigaLinks.html
http://me.avalonsoftware.org/idgaw/56/typesmith.html

can you show one of them tough? i would like to try to convert it with the stuff i have

[Amiga1992]

I didn't know Final Writer used this strange format.

How about Amiga bitmap fonts and Agfa Compugraphic scalable fonts?

[Galaxy]

@marco
Thanks for the pointers. I've got Typesmith 2.5b AF (the version that came with Amiga Format). I'm not sure if the AF version was a lite version, but I don't think Typesmith supports Nimbus-Q, although correct me if I'm wrong.

@Akira
Typesmith supports both Amiga Bitmap fonts and the Agfa Compugraphic fonts, and can import/export fonts in a variety of formats including Windows TTF; Compugraphic Intellifont; IFF RFF outline; PFB PS1 Outline; AFM; PFM; PS level 3 among others.

[Marcuz]

yep my information was not complete, here i copy past what i've found on a board searching more:

I have a font that I use in Final Writer that I want to convert in Typesmith to use in pgs. Unfortunately not all SoftWood products came with their "free" utility called "SWdownload" to convert their NimbusQ fonts to pfa fonts for Typesmith.

As you may know SoftWood is no more and the new people don't answer emails. Can anyone help me with a copy of SWdownload?

Geoffrey A. Gass (ggass@teleport.com) of Foulecourt Press wrote:

There's another possibility: Make a short document in Final Writer using only the special font. Output it as PostScript to a file in RAM:. Delete all the file except the downloaded pfb or pfa font. Bring that into TypeSmith to create a matching afm file and export the pfb and afm files to the desired font directory in PageStream. After doing an update of that directory via the System Preferences/ Fonts requester, the font should be usable in PageStream.

A useful program for extracting downloaded PostScript fonts from PostScript files was Saxon Script's /GetFont/ utility. Unfortunately, it too is an orphan -- and suffers from being able to deal only with PostScript Level 1 files.

Bob Chappell (bobchap@enterprise.net) wrote:

Thanks for this suggestion.

I've just tried it (successfully).

Print a (one letter) document as a postscript file.

Load into MEMACs

Edit the file, deleting the beginning down to but not including) the line that begins

%!1-1.0: <name of font>

deleting down after the line cleartomark

Save the file as <fontname>.pfb

Import into Typesmith

Export as AFM

Also re-export the PFB (it wouldn't display in PGS with the first PFB I edited)

http://www.cucug.org/sr/sr0006.html
also:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet/bi...s202pch.readme

[Amiga1992]

Been looking for that program for ages, I guess I should try and score it again.

[LocalH]

If you want to convert an Amiga bitmap font to a Windows bitmap font, you can repixel it in a Windows bitmap font editor. Personally, I think converting Amiga bitmap fonts to Windows TTFs is the shite way to go about it =P

For example: AmigaDOS 1.x

I made this about a year ago, not all the sizes show up on my XP machine but they all worked fine on 98. Includes both pixel-exact and hires-aspect (double-height) sizes.

[Marcuz]

i had completely forgot this thread...
can someone point me to the amigaformat disk with typesmith 2.5?
[edit] should it be the 87, right?

[Galaxy]

yep, 87 it is

[Marcuz]

i cannot find it on planetemu, do you know if it is available around? or else, do you know which other tool can i use to convert fonts on amiga? after a search, i've tryed to use the .afm fonts whych should be converted using bitline or atap from abime, but i can't work them out.

[Galaxy]

I have the AFCD (no. 3) - however the Typesmith folder is 29MB in size (contains a heap of fonts). I can upload it if you really want it, but if someone has the floppies it might be better.