Bitmap resurrection

If you have a specific bitmap font that you need to use for some reason a solution is to open the typeface in a font creation application such as Macromedia's Fontographer or Pyrus' FontLab and draw outlines which correspond to the bitmap shapes. This technique was used to produce an OS X-compatible version of Orchis, for example. One difficulty lies in the fact that Fontographer isn't Mac OS X-native (and only the 'NFPU' version will run in Classic), and FontLab doesn't import bitmap-only fonts. For the FontLab approach you will have to use a Classic application to get images of the bitmap type ready to draw over, either by installing into Classic and using a Classic application or by booting back into Mac OS 9 (if your Mac can) to use the font. Of course, if you add the ScanFont plug-in to FontLab you can perform this all much more easily, but it is worth knowing how to tackle the process as it applies to other font-production tasks as well as resurrecting old bitmap faces.

Once the rebuilding process is finished, do remember that regardless of the work you add to a font the copyright remains with the original designer. Distribution of the font, with or without your extras, must still comply with whatever restrictions that applied to the font in the first place.

1 First of all, use FreeHand or Illustrator (or another decent vector graphics applications capable of creating EPS files) to make vector drawings of the typeface characters. This can be simplified by setting up a grid which matches the pixel size of the bitmap design (this can be scaled up to make life simpler) and setting the drawing tools to snap to the grid as you work.

2 Using FontLab, make a new font document then open one of the glyph windows - double-click a character slot in the main font window. Now choose Import EPS from the Glyph menu and select the appropriate EPS graphic. Use the Transformation palette to scale things as necessary to get things looking as they should. If you've combined more than one character in the EPS choose Copy from the Edit menu before going any further, then delete all but the parts you want for this specific character.

3 Go to each glyph in turn, pasting or importing as necessary to get the items into the right glyph slots. Transform the shapes as necessary, using the same settings in the Transformation palette to keep things scaled to the same relative size. Go to the File menu and open the Font Info window to add in all the relevant details about this font, from the name and styling information to much more esoteric and format-specific details.

4 Now you can produce a complete working font by going to the File menu and choosing Generate Mac Suitcase (to make a regular PostScript or TrueType font) or by choosing Generate Font and picking PC TrueType or OpenType CFF. The other options can be useful for making fonts for different computer platforms but they aren't meant for use on Macs.