Related Tools

BDF editors
- gbdfed – bdf editor Formerly called xmbdfed
- gfe – GNU font editor. Eventually supposed to support other formats
- fstobdf – Part of the X distribution, reads a font from the server and generates a bdf file from it.
PostScript/ttf font editors
- Manutius – (only for windows, German UI, Type1 fonts)
- spif – under development (open source)
- gfonted – under development (open source)
- DoubleType – Java based open source truetype designer
- Luc Devroye’s page of links to font creation programs
- pfaedit – The old name for fontforge
- Fontographer – my favorite, has not been updated since1996 but has recently been purchased by FontLab who promise an update in 2006 (proprietary)
- FontLab – Said to have really good tools for hinting truetype. (proprietary)
  - AsiaFont Studio – FontLab for big fonts (proprietary)
- FontMaster (used to be Ikarus )– Top of the line font creation software. (proprietary)
- Font Creator– TrueType editor. (proprietary)
- CR8Type – TrueType font editor (proprietary)
  - TTHmachine – Hinting tool
MetaFont – Knuth’s font generation which produces bitmaps from a program based on splines (& other TeX utilities)
- (available with the TeX package)
- MetaPost, Uses the metafont language to produce PostScript pictures.
- MetaType1, Which attempts to generate a type1 font directly from the metafont splines (I think)
- MetaFog – Part of TrueTeX (proprietary) another mf->outline converter.
- TeXTrace, generates pfb fonts from TeX fonts by rasterizing at high res and then autotracing them
- mftops, similar
- mftrace, traces pk fonts (bitmap images) and creates pfb/pfa files. (formerly called pktrace)
PostScript utilities
- gfontview – displays a postscript/ttf font
- gglyph – another font displayer
- t1utils – Type 1 utility programs & multiple master utilities
- Type1inst – helps to install type 1 fonts under X and ghostscript
- ttf2pt1 – Converts truetype to type1 postscript fonts and generates hints
- ttftot42 – Converts truetype to type42 postscript fonts.
- type1fix – (part of the TeXtrace package). Used to make some Type1 fonts work with ATM.
- my stuff– Type 1 decoders and converters. True Type & open type decoder.
TrueType utilities
- Rogier C van Dalen has written a set of utilities for viewing and hinting truetype fonts
- Peter Baker has a programming language called xgridfit for hinting truetype fonts. It is also available bundled with his junicode font.
  
  Xgridfit aims to relieve some of the tedium of instructing fonts by providing such amenities as named points, control values, variables and functions, high-level programming structure, and automatic management of stack and reference points.
- TTX provides a way of editing all the strange tables in an opentype font (by converting them from/to XML)
- Microsoft provides a bunch of stuff (for Windows only of course)
  - Various tools
  - Font Properties Editor
  - Font instructors
  - Font signer (will produce a DSIG (digital signature) table for the font. You need to get a key from verisign first)
- And Adobe provides a Font Developer Kit (mostly for setting opentype tables I think)
- And Apple does too (mac only)
- And some OS/X tools (mac only)
Other font creation tools
- Palm pilot font converters
- pcf to windows fon converter
- bdf to windows fon converter (BDFtoFON)
- nafe – text based psf font utilities
Font manipulation libraries
- RoboFab – Font library for python
Rasterizers
- FreeType’s Rasterizer (used to be just truetype, handles almost anything now)
- t1lib – Type1 Rasterizer
Other font tools of mine
- fondu – Unwraps fonts from mac resource files (this includes dfonts). Produces ttf, pfb and bdf files for ‘sfnt’, ‘POST’ and ‘NFNT’ resources
- mensis – Allows the user much finer control over some truetype tables than is provided by FontForge.
- fonttools/showttf – Dumps the contents of a truetype/opentype font. Does some error checking too.
- fonttools/pcl2ttf – Reads a pcl file (to go to an HP printer) and extracts any truetype or bitmap fonts in it. (the bitmap fonts become bdf files, the truetype fonts become ttf files).
font organizers
- fontlinge
Unicode Font Guide for Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems
Other related links…

If you know of a tool you think should be on this list, please let me know (this is a public mailing list). I did my research a couple of years ago and expect it is out of date.