Request for Quicksand font in RISC OS format

[Martin Hansen]

Dear All,
I'm after the following Open Type font in RISC OS format;

http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand

Any chance someone could email this to me ?

It's going to be the official font for the Raspberry Pi.
Regards,
Martin.

[Martin Hansen]

Dear All,
I've managed to convert the OpenType font at
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand
into a True Type font using the online font converter at
http://www.freefontconverter.com/index.php

I then used John-Mark Bell’s excellent software
TTF2F to convert it into RISC OS format.

Many thanks to Jon Robinson who's Iconbar
article at
http://www.iconbar.com/articles/Getting_Unicode_Working_With_RISC_OS_4_and_6/index1267.html
alerted to to John-Mark Bell's program.
The link there broken but should be...
http://jmb.drobe.co.uk/ttf2f-004.zip

I've only had a quick look at the resulting output in Draw but it
looks good to me.

I'll stick the font on the RISCOScode website tomorrow on the
Raspberry Pi page at;
http://www.riscoscode.com/Pages/Item0112.html

Quicksand is a very smart, modern typeface that won a 'best-of' award
in 2008.
Regards,
Martin.

[Andrew Conroy]

In article
<231343b5-77b0-4f36...@l19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,

Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
> Dear All,
> I've managed to convert the OpenType font at
> http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand
> into a True Type font using the online font converter at
> http://www.freefontconverter.com/index.php

> I then used John-Mark Bell's excellent software
> TTF2F to convert it into RISC OS format.

EFF's TrueType Translator will now cope with OpenType fonts too. I've
just tried it and it seems to cope happily with the Quicksand OTF. It
cuts out the middle step and so hopefully makes a better translation.

Andrew

--
+----------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| Andrew Conroy, Owl-Art Un-Ltd. | email: a.m.c...@argonet.co.uk |
| Coming to you on an Acorn RiscPC SA110 | |
+----------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
The impossible I can do at once, miracles take a little longer!!

[Jim Nagel]

Andrew Conroy wrote on 20 Nov:

> EFF's TrueType Translator will now cope with OpenType fonts too. I've
> just tried it and it seems to cope happily with the Quicksand OTF. It
> cuts out the middle step and so hopefully makes a better translation.

Having done the conversion, any chance you could make your result
available, please, Andrew?

(The author of the Quicksand font, Andrew Paglinawan, does makes clear
on the download page (www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand) that it is
licence-free and 100% free for use, including commercial use.)

--
Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk
>> "from" address is genuine but will change. website has current one.

[Andrew Conroy]

In article <b426293...@nails.abbeypress.net>,

Jim Nagel <jimne...@abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:
> Andrew Conroy wrote on 20 Nov:
> > EFF's TrueType Translator will now cope with OpenType fonts too. I've
> > just tried it and it seems to cope happily with the Quicksand OTF. It
> > cuts out the middle step and so hopefully makes a better translation.

> Having done the conversion, any chance you could make your result
> available, please, Andrew?

> (The author of the Quicksand font, Andrew Paglinawan, does makes clear
> on the download page (www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand) that it is
> licence-free and 100% free for use, including commercial use.)

Now uploaded to http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/Quicksand.zip

I've just noticed that the E in Quicksand.Bold seems to be offset
vertically for some reason.

[Martin Hansen]

My conversion of Quicksand is on the new piLEARN website.
Did all the font in the site graphics using it - really pleasing font
to work with.
Inspired choice by Raspberry Pi.
Regards,
Martin.

http://www. piLEARN.com

[Graham Pickles]

In message <b7489473-82e8-438f...@o5g2000yqa.googlegrou
ps.com>

Looks a very nice font. Read about the Quicksand font being used for
the RaspberryPi and thought I would like to try it out.

Downloaded the RISCOS version from www.pilearn.com After unzipping put
the directory into a !Font directory and clicking on !Boot and the
fonts icon clicked on install. Dropped !Fonts into the install fonts
menu and clicked on merge. Rebooted machine.

On the Iyonix (OS 5.16) no problem and !NetSurf (r12493) loaded as
usual.

On the Riscbook (VRPC OS 4.02) on rebooting I get the message 'The
Unicode font library could not be initialised. Please report to the
developers.' Message is from Netsurf which loads as part of my boot.
Quicksand directory is certainly in the !Boot.Resources.!Fonts
directory and several fonts prefixed by Quicksand are now listed in a
text file called 'Messages1'. Removal of these allows !NetSurf
(r13160) to start as normal after a re-boot.

Before I raise this formally with the NetSurf developers can anyone
suggest what is the problem - It's quite possible I've done something
silly. On the other hand has anyone else had a problem.

Regards,

--
Graham Pickles
www.whitbymuseum.org.uk Whitby Museum
Being healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can
die.

[Chris Johnson]

In article <c76cc535...@durain.demon.co.uk>,

Graham Pickles <gra...@durain.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Before I raise this formally with the NetSurf developers can anyone
> suggest what is the problem - It's quite possible I've done something
> silly. On the other hand has anyone else had a problem.

Do you have the Unicode stuff installed on RISC OS 4?

--
Chris Johnson

[JV]

In message <c76cc535...@durain.demon.co.uk>

Works ok for me on VA Adjust 4.39 and also no problems with !NetSurf
v2.8 running VA on windows7.

> Before I raise this formally with the NetSurf developers can anyone
> suggest what is the problem - It's quite possible I've done something
> silly. On the other hand has anyone else had a problem.

JV

[Graham Pickles]

In message <5235c805fbchr...@spamcop.net>

Not quite sure what you are referring to, here. However when all else
fails read the documentation (which goes against my religion) and
looking at that for NetSurf it says TTF2f (used I believe to make
Quicksand for Risc OS) 'currently produces fonts suitable for RISC OS
5 only' - so this may indicate the problem.

Anyway I have decided to contact the netsurf list.

[David Pitt]

In message <acd80436...@durain.demon.co.uk>

Graham Pickles <gra...@durain.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <5235c805fbchr...@spamcop.net>
> Chris Johnson <chrisjoh...@spamcop.net> wrote:

>> In article <c76cc535...@durain.demon.co.uk>,
>> Graham Pickles <gra...@durain.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Before I raise this formally with the NetSurf developers can anyone
>>> suggest what is the problem - It's quite possible I've done something
>>> silly. On the other hand has anyone else had a problem.

I got the 'Unicode' error too on OS4.04 initially.

>> Do you have the Unicode stuff installed on RISC OS 4?

> Not quite sure what you are referring to, here. However when all else
> fails read the documentation (which goes against my religion) and
> looking at that for NetSurf it says TTF2f (used I believe to make
> Quicksand for Risc OS) 'currently produces fonts suitable for RISC OS
> 5 only' - so this may indicate the problem.

The OS5 FontManager is required. How to do the necessary is at :-

http://www.iconbar.com/articles/Getting_Unicode_Working_With_RISC_OS_4_and_6/index1267.html

Works a treat.

Note the bit in the comments about loading the modules in PreDesk from
a sub-directory with a !Run.


--
David Pitt

MessengerPro 6 on an ARMini running RISC OS 5

[Graham Pickles]

In message <4d7609365...@iyonix.home>

Thanks - that looks to be very helpful.

[Graham Pickles]

In message <4d7609365...@iyonix.home>
David Pitt <pit...@pittdj.co.uk> wrote:

Got it working now - as you say it works a treat. Many thanks.

[Martin Wuerthner]

In message <acd80436...@durain.demon.co.uk>
Graham Pickles <gra...@durain.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <5235c805fbchr...@spamcop.net>
> Chris Johnson <chrisjoh...@spamcop.net> wrote:

>> In article <c76cc535...@durain.demon.co.uk>,
>> Graham Pickles <gra...@durain.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Before I raise this formally with the NetSurf developers can anyone
>>> suggest what is the problem - It's quite possible I've done something
>>> silly. On the other hand has anyone else had a problem.

>> Do you have the Unicode stuff installed on RISC OS 4?

> Not quite sure what you are referring to, here. However when all else
> fails read the documentation (which goes against my religion) and
> looking at that for NetSurf it says TTF2f (used I believe to make
> Quicksand for Risc OS) 'currently produces fonts suitable for RISC OS
> 5 only' - so this may indicate the problem.

That depends on which of the two conversions you choose. The one done
by Andrew Conroy using the EFF font translator does not require the
Unicode FontManager, the one from www.pilearn.com does, since it was
produced by ttf2f.

The ttf2f conversion causes FontEd to crash, which makes me wonder
whether it can be trusted. The one via the EFF font translator
displays correctly in FontEd.

--
Martin
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Wuerthner MW Software http://www.mw-software.com/
RISC OS Software for Design, Printing and Publishing
---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Martin Wuerthner]

In message <0bfb1d36...@bach.planiverse.com>
Martin Wuerthner <spam...@mw-software.com> wrote:

> [...]

> The ttf2f conversion causes FontEd to crash, which makes me wonder
> whether it can be trusted. The one via the EFF font translator
> displays correctly in FontEd.

Except of course that the latter has this vertical shift problem with
the capital "E" in the Bold.Oblique variant, which makes it
unsuitable, too. It is not a good idea to have two different
conversions floating around anyway, so maybe someone can come up with
a proper conversion that can replace both of them, preferably one that
does not require the Unicode FontManager?

[Martin Hansen]

RE : Font issues

I think ttf2f is by John-Mark Bell.
Is he part of the Netsurf team ?
It would be a good idea to let him know that there is an issue.
He's previously fixed tt2f very quickly once someone actually told
him there was a problem.
(I don't have his email but I think I saw him at the London show)

I've tested the Quicksand font from piLEARN extensively on
the Iyonix with ArtWorks and Draw without any hint of a problem.
( When I did the graphics for the piLEARN website )

Regards,
Martin.

http://www.piLEARN.com

[Jim Nagel]

Martin Wuerthner wrote on 22 Nov:

> In message <0bfb1d36...@bach.planiverse.com>
> Martin Wuerthner <spam...@mw-software.com> wrote:

>> [...]
>> The ttf2f conversion causes FontEd to crash, which makes me wonder
>> whether it can be trusted. The one via the EFF font translator
>> displays correctly in FontEd.

> Except of course that the latter has this vertical shift problem with
> the capital "E" in the Bold.Oblique variant, which makes it
> unsuitable, too. It is not a good idea to have two different
> conversions floating around anyway, so maybe someone can come up with
> a proper conversion that can replace both of them, preferably one that
> does not require the Unicode FontManager?

I spoke to Edward Detyna of EFF by email yesterdsy, and he's looking
into why the E is vertically shifted. Stand by.

--
Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk
>> "from" address is genuine but will change. website has current one.

See you at London show? www.riscoslondonshow.co.uk Oct 29 Saturday

[EFF Fonts]

Hi everybody,

I have trucked the problem with some characters getting a vertical
offset when translated from OpenType with effTTT .

I have uploaded a new !effShared application whch solves the problem
Please go to

http::/thefonts.com/AcornSoft/

read the info about !effShared and download its zipped version.
Installation procedure is on that page.

I hope that solves the problem.

Edward Detyna
Electronic Font Foundry

> Now uploaded tohttp://www.owlart.co.uk/public/Quicksand.zip

>
> I've just noticed that the E in Quicksand.Bold seems to be offset
> vertically for some reason.
>
> Andrew
>
> --
> +----------------------------------------+---------------------------------+

> | Andrew Conroy, Owl-Art Un-Ltd.         | email: a.m.con...@argonet.co.uk |

[Alan Calder]

In article
<7da0e25c-c507-4bfd...@p9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, EFF

Fonts <eff....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,

> I have trucked the problem with some characters getting a vertical
> offset when translated from OpenType with effTTT .

> I have uploaded a new !effShared application whch solves the problem
> Please go to

> http::/thefonts.com/AcornSoft/

> read the info about !effShared and download its zipped version.
> Installation procedure is on that page.

[Snip]

Many thanks, Edward! Great to see somebody still willing to put effort
into supporting the platform. Must see if I can find some reason to buy
some more fonts from you!

Cheers

Alan

--
Alan Calder, Milton Keynes, UK.

[Andrew Conroy]

In article
<7da0e25c-c507-4bfd...@p9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
EFF Fonts <eff....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody,

> I have trucked the problem with some characters getting a vertical
> offset when translated from OpenType with effTTT .

> I have uploaded a new !effShared application whch solves the problem
> Please go to

> http::/thefonts.com/AcornSoft/

> read the info about !effShared and download its zipped version.
> Installation procedure is on that page.

> I hope that solves the problem.

> Edward Detyna
> Electronic Font Foundry

Thanks Edward. I can confirm that this does now work correctly with
Quicksand. I've uploaded a new version to my website for people to try at
http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/Quicksand.zip

This version of the font will work happily on all versions of RISC OS, I
believe.

Andrew

--
+----------------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| Andrew Conroy, Owl-Art Un-Ltd. | email: a.m.c...@argonet.co.uk |

[Brian Carroll]

In article <5236c44a0a...@owlart.co.uk>, Andrew Conroy

<a.m.c...@owlart.co.uk> wrote:
> <7da0e25c-c507-4bfd...@p9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
> EFF Fonts <eff....@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]

> > I have uploaded a new !effShared application whch solves the
> > problem Please go to

> > http://thefonts.com/AcornSoft/

> > read the info about !effShared and download its zipped
> > version. Installation procedure is on that page.

> Thanks Edward. I can confirm that this does now work correctly
> with Quicksand. I've uploaded a new version to my website for
> people to try at http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/Quicksand.zip

> This version of the font will work happily on all versions of
> RISC OS, I believe.

A very nice font. It installs[1] very nicely into
FontDirectoryPro on my RiscPC (RISC OS v4.39). Thank you to all
involved in fetching it, and also for publicising Font Squirrel.


Brian.

[1] For anyone who has forgotten how: Open the FDir filer
application; drag Quicksand from inside !Fonts to a suitable
division (I've used Body); compile; check; quit the FDir filer;
restart RISC OS.

--
______________________________________________________________

Brian Carroll, Ripon, North Yorkshire, UK
______________________________________________________________

[Russell Hafter News]

In article <5236cb30ef...@argonet.co.uk>, Brian

Carroll <bric-...@argonet.co.uk> wrote:

> In article <5236c44a0a...@owlart.co.uk>, Andrew
> Conroy <a.m.c...@owlart.co.uk> wrote:

> > <7da0e25c-c507-4bfd...@p9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
> > EFF Fonts <eff....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Snip]

> > > http://thefonts.com/AcornSoft/

> > > read the info about !effShared and download its
> > > zipped version. Installation procedure is on that
> > > page.

> > Thanks Edward. I can confirm that this does now work
> > correctly with Quicksand. I've uploaded a new version
> > to my website for people to try at
> > http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/Quicksand.zip

> > This version of the font will work happily on all
> > versions of RISC OS, I believe.

> A very nice font.

Clearly a matter of opinion, but I do not like it at all and
cannot see that I would ever use it.

The standard book weight is, IMHO, far too faint, and the
light version is bearly visible at all. The bold version
goes totally OTT the other direction

There are a lot of gaps in the font, no ¤ (though it does
have ¥), no §, no þ in light and bold.

Plus it is significantly wider than Trinity, so documents
will take up more space.

It seems to be about the most serif free typeface I have
seen, making it not something that I would ever want to have
to read in any quantity.

--
Russell
http://www.russell-hafter-holidays.co.uk
Russell Hafter Holidays E-mail to enquiries at our domain
Need a hotel? <http://www.hrs.com/?client=en__blue&customerId=416873103>

[Jim Nagel]

Brian Carroll wrote on 23 Nov:

> A very nice font. It installs[1] very nicely into
> FontDirectoryPro on my RiscPC (RISC OS v4.39). Thank you to all
> involved in fetching it, and also for publicising Font Squirrel.

> [1] For anyone who has forgotten how: Open the FDir filer
> application; drag Quicksand from inside !Fonts to a suitable
> division (I've used Body); compile; check; quit the FDir filer;
> restart RISC OS.

I too use Font Directory Professional (3.10) on my RiscPC (OS 4.39).

My setup has fonts filed in folders mostly according to source (e.g.,
Acorn, Artworks, EFF, EFF free, Monotype, ISV, Jarman, HarDecker, PD,
unknown), so now I have a new folder for Fsquirrel.

Brian's steps accord with what I do, except that I don't find it
necessary to reboot. However, I have learned the hard way not to
leave any work unsaved before the operation.

Impression often crashes when it finds the font setup has changed,
even when I merely switch a font on or off. It did not do so in the
past (meaning up until five or more years ago), and I have never
managed to work out what other change on my machine might have caused
Impression to get upset. Workaround is simply to quit Impression
before messing in the font system and relaunch after.

No other apps seem fazed by the process, which is the basic intention
of Font Dir Pro.

--
Jim Nagel www.archivemag.co.uk
>> "from" address is genuine but will change. website has current one.

[Harriet Bazley]

On 24 Nov 2011 as I do recall,

Jim Nagel wrote:


> I too use Font Directory Professional (3.10) on my RiscPC (OS 4.39).

[snip]

> Impression often crashes when it finds the font setup has changed,
> even when I merely switch a font on or off. It did not do so in the
> past (meaning up until five or more years ago), and I have never
> managed to work out what other change on my machine might have caused
> Impression to get upset. Workaround is simply to quit Impression
> before messing in the font system and relaunch after.
>
> No other apps seem fazed by the process, which is the basic intention
> of Font Dir Pro.
>

Do you use DrawPlus?

(Impression seems quite happy with alterations to Font$Path on my
system, but some programs pre-scan the font menu on start-up and don't
acknowledge any changes without a restart - D+ not being the only
offender, but the first one that comes to mind. But that is via a
different system of font switching.)

--
Harriet Bazley == Loyaulte me lie ==

Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

[Martin Wuerthner]

In message <db8d293...@nails.abbeypress.net>

Jim Nagel <jimne...@abbeypress.co.uk> wrote:

> Impression often crashes when it finds the font setup has changed,
> even when I merely switch a font on or off. It did not do so in the
> past (meaning up until five or more years ago), and I have never
> managed to work out what other change on my machine might have caused
> Impression to get upset.

One thing to watch out for are fonts with long names. If the length of
the complete dotted font name exceeds 39 characters, Impression has
problems. There are a few fonts around that exceed this limit.

[Felicity S.]

Martin wrote:

> Jim Nagel wrote:

>> Impression often crashes when it finds the font setup has changed,
>> even when I merely switch a font on or off. It did not do so in the
>> past (meaning up until five or more years ago), and I have never
>> managed to work out what other change on my machine might have caused
>> Impression to get upset.

> One thing to watch out for are fonts with long names. If the length of
> the complete dotted font name exceeds 39 characters, Impression has
> problems. There are a few fonts around that exceed this limit.

What exactly is the complete dotted font name? For example,

ADFS::Felicity.$.!Boot.Resources.!Fonts.Garamond.Bold.Italic.IntMetrics

is 71 characters, and even going just as far as the name...

ADFS::Felicity.$.!Boot.Resources.!Fonts.Garamond

is still 48 characters. Or is it just !Fonts.Garamond at 15 characters?


Fliss

--
She said: If it weren't for you I would still be the
Queen of Portugal. And now, what am I?
He said: You are drunk and you are foolish!

[druck]

On 28 Nov 2011 "Felicity S." <Fliss@orpheusnet> wrote:
> What exactly is the complete dotted font name? For example,

It's the name which appears in any list of fonts, consisting of the
base name and the style variants separated by dots.

> ADFS::Felicity.$.!Boot.Resources.!Fonts.Garamond.Bold.Italic.IntMetrics

> is 71 characters,

In that case the name is: Garamond.Bold.Italic

Garamond being the font names, with the Bold and Italic variants.

However font name isn't always the same as the directory names, as
it's embedded in the font files to allow longer names than the filing
system may support.

For example the font could actually be:
"ClaudeGaramond.Emboldened.Italicised"

---druck

--
The ARM Club Free Software - http://www.armclub.org.uk/free/
32 bit Conversions Page - http://www.armclub.org.uk/32bit/

[Theo Markettos]

Martin Hansen <m...@shrewsbury.org.uk> wrote:
> Dear All,

> I'm after the following Open Type font in RISC OS format;
>
> http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/Quicksand
>
> Any chance someone could email this to me ?

On the subject... does anyone feel like having a go at converting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_UCS_Outline_Fonts
to RISC OS? Currently the Unicode font most people use with NetSurf
(Cyberbit) isn't free, which means it can't be distributed in converted
form. It would be good to have something we can ship with Raspberry Pi,
especially if you can test it on some foreign language websites.

The TTF files are here:
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/

If you're feeling keen there are other free Unicode typefaces here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_Unicode_typefaces

Thanks,
Theo

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <N+f*1d...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>

on 29 Nov 2011 Theo Markettos wrote:

> On the subject... does anyone feel like having a go at converting:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_UCS_Outline_Fonts to RISC OS? Currently
> the Unicode font most people use with NetSurf (Cyberbit) isn't free, which
> means it can't be distributed in converted form. It would be good to have
> something we can ship with Raspberry Pi, especially if you can test it on
> some foreign language websites.
>
> The TTF files are here:
> http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/

I've just downloaded it and I could have a go this evening. I have TTF2f
version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately see a later
version on the web. I assume it's OK to use this rather than the EFF tool,
as we're assuming the Unicode Font Manager will be available.

> If you're feeling keen there are other free Unicode typefaces here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_Unicode_typefaces

I did a conversion of Charis SIL a while back, which I could send you.
It's good for Roman alphabet based stuff: lots of weird accents, plus
International Phonetic Alphabet which I find quite useful. Where would you
like me to e-mail these things?

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Felicity S.]

Druck wrote:

> Felicity S. wrote:

>> What exactly is the complete dotted font name? For example,

> It's the name which appears in any list of fonts, consisting of the
> base name and the style variants separated by dots.

>> ADFS::Felicity.$.!Boot.Resources.!Fonts.Garamond.Bold.Italic.IntMetrics

>> is 71 characters,

> In that case the name is: Garamond.Bold.Italic

> Garamond being the font names, with the Bold and Italic variants.

> However font name isn't always the same as the directory names, as
> it's embedded in the font files to allow longer names than the filing
> system may support.

> For example the font could actually be:
> "ClaudeGaramond.Emboldened.Italicised"

Thanks, you've made that clear for me. :)


Fliss

--
She said: So, fighting all those aliens is okay with
you, but a bit of skateboarding, and whoa.
She said: I know, shame on me, I've gone all Mumsy!

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>

on 29 Nov 2011 Matthew Phillips wrote:

> I've just downloaded it and I could have a go this evening. I have TTF2f
> version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately see a later
> version on the web. I assume it's OK to use this rather than the EFF tool,
> as we're assuming the Unicode Font Manager will be available.

Right, I've converted FreeSans, FreeMono and FreeSerif each in four variants.
Didn't take too long. I don't have any way of viewing the complete set
of font glyphs: FontEd crashed before it got to the end. There isn't any
CJK in it: don't know what you were expecting. But some Indian scripts are
covered and lots of things I don't recognise.

The n-acute which appears in Latin-7 doesn't seem right when viewed in
XChars. And the character next to it. But most of it looks fine.

Strangely in EasiWriter 9.00 the fonts I have converted using TTF2f don't
work. I cannot remember whether I tested Charis SIL and OldStandard (a
Greek font from SIL) when I first converted them a few months ago. They
certainly work fine in NetSurf and the parts of the Unicode table that you
can glimpse in XChars seem OK.

Is there a bug in EasiWriter? The example text in the font selection
dialogue (which is "The quick brown fox..." just looks like gobbledigook:

Qeb nrf h _oltk clu

Actually, it's not gobbledigook: it's all offset by three letters!

Happens in EasiWriter 8.92 also. You get the same effect in Draw and Edit as
well.

Is there a more recent TTF2f that I should have used?!

It must be some sort of problem with the Encoding file, which in each case
starts off with a load of /.notdef (32 in all) and in the case of FreeMono
then has three "./NotDef" lines before the /space.

I expect if I remove these three, the font will work OK in EasiWriter, but it
then may not function in NetSurf. I don't really know what I am doing with
these!

If someone more knowledgeable fancies taking a look, let me know and I can
e-mail what I've converted. Or you can try converting from the sources as
pointed out by Theo.

Strange that XChars and NetSurf have no problem with these fonts, but
anything else I have tried does.....

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Tony Moore]

On 29 Nov 2011, Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <N+f*1d...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> on 29 Nov 2011 Theo Markettos wrote:

[snip]

> > The TTF files are here: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/
>
> I've just downloaded it and I could have a go this evening. I have
> TTF2f version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately see
> a later version on the web.

0.04 is at http://jmb.drobe.co.uk/ttf2f-004.zip

Tony

[Steve Fryatt]

On 29 Nov, Matthew Phillips wrote in message
<6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>:

> I have TTF2f version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately
> see a later version on the web.

0.04 is at http://jmb.drobe.co.uk/ttf2f-004.zip -- although ISTR there's
some 'magic' required to download it due to Drobe's content protection.

--
Steve Fryatt - Leeds, England Wakefield Acorn & RISC OS Show
Saturday 28 April 2012
http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/ http://www.wakefieldshow.org.uk/

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <mpro.lvfyff02...@stevefryatt.org.uk>

on 29 Nov 2011 Steve Fryatt wrote:

> On 29 Nov, Matthew Phillips wrote in message
> <6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>:
>
> > I have TTF2f version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately
> > see a later version on the web.
>
> 0.04 is at http://jmb.drobe.co.uk/ttf2f-004.zip -- although ISTR there's
> some 'magic' required to download it due to Drobe's content protection.

I got this fine, and from the History file it looks like this version will
solve the problem I was experiencing with EasiWriter, Draw, etc. It seems
they don't specify an encoding when finding the font, so got what they were
given!

I'll have another go at converting them all, but perhaps tomorrow night.

Assuming I'm successful, Theo, would you like me to e-mail you them for
testing or packaging? If so, send me the address.

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Andrew Conroy]

In article <0e91ec395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>,

Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>
> on 29 Nov 2011 Matthew Phillips wrote:

> > I've just downloaded it and I could have a go this evening. I have
> > TTF2f version 0.03 -- is that the latest? I couldn't immediately see
> > a later version on the web. I assume it's OK to use this rather than
> > the EFF tool, as we're assuming the Unicode Font Manager will be
> > available.

> Right, I've converted FreeSans, FreeMono and FreeSerif each in four
> variants. Didn't take too long. I don't have any way of viewing the
> complete set of font glyphs: FontEd crashed before it got to the end.
> There isn't any CJK in it: don't know what you were expecting. But
> some Indian scripts are covered and lots of things I don't recognise.

I've just tried EFF TrueType Translator with them, and it errors on the
regular weights of FreeSans & FreeSerif, but converted the others ok. I
tried it with both the TTF & OTF versions. They look ok in XChars. I've
uploaded them to http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/freefonts.zip if you want
to compare them against your versions, and try them in EasiWriter etc.

[Theo Markettos]

Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Assuming I'm successful, Theo, would you like me to e-mail you them for
> testing or packaging? If so, send me the address.

If you could that would be good... theo at markettos dot org dot uk

Though the Easiwriter thing was one reason I was a bit worried it wasn't
quite so simple...

Thanks
Theo

[Martin Wuerthner]

In message <0e91ec395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>

Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Strangely in EasiWriter 9.00 the fonts I have converted using TTF2f don't

> work. [...]

> Is there a bug in EasiWriter? The example text in the font selection
> dialogue (which is "The quick brown fox..." just looks like gobbledigook:

> Qeb nrf h _oltk clu

> Actually, it's not gobbledigook: it's all offset by three letters!

> Happens in EasiWriter 8.92 also. You get the same effect in Draw and Edit as
> well.

Well, that answers your question above, doesn't it? If it happens in
Draw as well, then it cannot be an EasiWriter bug. It appears that
these fonts do not work when used via an 8-bit encoding. NetSurf uses
them in Unicode mode, which is very different.

You wrote that the fonts work in XChars, but that cannot really be the
case. Are you sure that the fonts display their glyphs in the expected
places when viewed with "(Default)" encoding in XChars?

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <5bd3413a...@bach.planiverse.com>

on 30 Nov 2011 Martin Wuerthner wrote:

> In message <0e91ec395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>
> Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Is there a bug in EasiWriter? The example text in the font selection
> > dialogue (which is "The quick brown fox..." just looks like gobbledigook:
>
> > Qeb nrf h _oltk clu
>
> > Actually, it's not gobbledigook: it's all offset by three letters!
>
> > Happens in EasiWriter 8.92 also. You get the same effect in Draw and
> > Edit as well.
>
> Well, that answers your question above, doesn't it? If it happens in
> Draw as well, then it cannot be an EasiWriter bug.

Sorry, Martin, I should have re-worded my message, which was somewhat a
stream-of-consciousness offering: I thought to test in other applications
rather then leaving it at EasiWriter alone, but then failed to go back to
remove any imputation of bugginess.

> It appears that these fonts do not work when used via an 8-bit encoding.

...

> You wrote that the fonts work in XChars, but that cannot really be the
> case. Are you sure that the fonts display their glyphs in the expected
> places when viewed with "(Default)" encoding in XChars?

I was unaware of the "(Default)" encoding option when I was testing: I think
our copy of XChars starts in Latin1 by default and I had simply looked at
other Latin-N options to check that they were all complete.

I've now re-checked. You are right, that in the (Default) setting, the same
weird offset effect is observable.

It's all cured by using TTF2f version 0.4 (which, incidentally, does a
quicker job of the conversions too). To quote an excerpt from the History:

---------------

0.04 (05-Mar-2011)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Output the first 256 glyphs in Acorn Latin1 order so converted fonts
are useful in applications that don't ask for a specific font encoding.

Fix handling of fonts that map multiple codepoints to a single glyph.

Ensure that any MessagesNN files are updated with details of converted fonts.

Many bug fixes and general improvements.

---------------

So any of you still with v 0.03 on your hard drive, do upgrade!

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <5239f889ed...@owlart.co.uk>

on 29 Nov 2011 Andrew Conroy wrote:

> In article <0e91ec395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>,
> Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > In message <6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>
> > on 29 Nov 2011 Matthew Phillips wrote:
>
> > Right, I've converted FreeSans, FreeMono and FreeSerif each in four
> > variants. Didn't take too long. I don't have any way of viewing the
> > complete set of font glyphs: FontEd crashed before it got to the end.
> > There isn't any CJK in it: don't know what you were expecting. But some
> > Indian scripts are covered and lots of things I don't recognise.
>
> I've just tried EFF TrueType Translator with them, and it errors on the
> regular weights of FreeSans & FreeSerif, but converted the others ok. I
> tried it with both the TTF & OTF versions. They look ok in XChars. I've
> uploaded them to http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/freefonts.zip if you want
> to compare them against your versions, and try them in EasiWriter etc.

It seems that your conversions have hardly any characters outside the Roman
alphabet (and accented variants). Compare the Encodings file and the TTF2f
conversion of FreeSerif.Bold has about 2940 different glyphs, whereas your
conversion has fewer than 500.

Your conversion seems to be OK in Latin 7, however. The TTF2f
conversion has faults with the characters at positions 209 and 241, which
should appear as N-acute and n-acute, and the characters at 210 and 242. In
my convrsion using TTF2f they come out as very peculiar shapes which look a
bit like a capital gamma enclosing things such as a capital delta and a
capital eta. Not sure what they might be.

As I said, as FontEd will not load the whole font, and XChars only displays
fonts from encodings it knows about and not the whole UTF-8 range, I have no
easy way of knowing whether the more unusual scripts have their characters in
the right places! I think I have FontFiend and DrFonty on the RISC PC, but I
don't know whether they cope with fonts containing 2940 glyphs.

I have put a copy up at

http://sinenomine.co.uk/software/freefonts.zip

I used a different set of font names from you, so as it happens they can
co-exist on one machine which makes comparison easier.

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Matthew Phillips]

In message <M+f*D9...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>

on 30 Nov 2011 Theo Markettos wrote:

> Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > Assuming I'm successful, Theo, would you like me to e-mail you them for
> > testing or packaging? If so, send me the address.
>
> If you could that would be good... theo at markettos dot org dot uk

I've just tried that but it didn't work. I got a message from
smtp.metronet.co.uk to say that the domain has no delivery address (DNS MX
record).

Just e-mail me on this address from yours if that's easier: the messages to
my newsgroup address do reach me.

--
Matthew Phillips
Durham

[Chris Johnson]

In article <1c22793a5...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>,

Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I've just tried that but it didn't work. I got a message from
> smtp.metronet.co.uk to say that the domain has no delivery address
> (DNS MX record).

I believe Metronet is now part of PlusNet. If so, they have very
recently been doing things with their backend hardware, including
moving MX records to a different machine. They said it might take 48
hours or more for the new details to propagate.

--
Chris Johnson

[Martin Wuerthner]

In message <7474763a5...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>

Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <5239f889ed...@owlart.co.uk>
> on 29 Nov 2011 Andrew Conroy wrote:

>> In article <0e91ec395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>,
>> Matthew Phillips <spam...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In message <6b16e4395...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk>
>>> on 29 Nov 2011 Matthew Phillips wrote:
>>
>>> Right, I've converted FreeSans, FreeMono and FreeSerif each in four
>>> variants. Didn't take too long. I don't have any way of viewing the
>>> complete set of font glyphs: FontEd crashed before it got to the end.
>>> There isn't any CJK in it: don't know what you were expecting. But some
>>> Indian scripts are covered and lots of things I don't recognise.
>>
>> I've just tried EFF TrueType Translator with them, and it errors on the
>> regular weights of FreeSans & FreeSerif, but converted the others ok. I
>> tried it with both the TTF & OTF versions. They look ok in XChars. I've
>> uploaded them to http://www.owlart.co.uk/public/freefonts.zip if you want
>> to compare them against your versions, and try them in EasiWriter etc.

> It seems that your conversions have hardly any characters outside the Roman
> alphabet (and accented variants).

That is not surprising. The EFF converter produces fonts for all
versions of the FontManager, so what you get from the EFF converter
only contains the character range you can also find in the ROM fonts,
technically called "Base0", which comprises most ISO Latin encodings,
but that is it.

So, if the point of the excercise was to convert a Unicode font with
support for various different scripts (Latin+Greek+Cyrillic, etc.),
then the EFF converter is the wrong tool for the job and ttf2f should
be used instead. When converting Latin fonts, it is better to use the
EFF tool because its fonts are compatible with a much wider range of
RISC OS systems.

[wpb]

As reported on the R-Pi forum thread at ROOL, I've converted a couple
of CJK-oriented (no pun intended, honest!) fonts at http://riscos.willowroom.co.uk

They load okay into FontEd, and seem to work fine with RUfl. Let me
know if you encounter any problems.