Fontographer

With Fontographer 5, it's easy to design new typefaces and to customize existing fonts, and the result will be high-quality fonts that can reliably work across different operating systems.

· Create new fonts

·Customize existing fonts, add extra characters

·Fine-tune spacing and kerning

·Fix problems in bad fonts

·Convert old fonts to a new format

Main Features

·Open and generate Type 1, TrueType, OpenType, Type 3 and Multiple Master fonts

·Exchange working files with FontLab Studio, TypeTool or ScanFont using the FontLab VFB format

·Copy-paste or import outline artwork or bitmap images (with customizable autotracing)

·View all of your font's characters in the Font Window

·Examine or modify the font encoding

·Design or change any character in the Glyph Window

·Edit metrics and kerning in the Metrics Window

·Easily set up and modify technical font parameters, font naming and linespacing settings in a comprehensive Font Info dialog

·Automatically improve the font's screen quality using sophisticated autohinting algorithms

Created with the designers in mind
Unlike any other font editor on the market, Fontographer 5 combines an easy, intuitive and very efficient user interface with our mature, state-of-the-art font creation technology, making it a perfect font editor for graphic designers, DTP professionals, calligraphers and type designers who do not with to dive into the technical details of font creation.

Ease of use
Originally developed by the same team that stood behind Freehand's success, Fontographer (or "FOG" as some call it) was the first software product on the Mac ever to include BŽzier drawing tools, and has been famous for its clean, robust and easy-to-use user interface ever since.

Professional Font Software
Thanks to the completely restored font generation engine, Fontographer builds PostScript Type 1, TrueType and OpenType fonts of the same quality as the high-end FontLab Studio product (it also supports less-popular formats such as Type 3 or Multiple Master).

In version 5 (available for both Mac OS X and Windows), Fontographer is even easier to use: without specialized knowledge about font formats and font technology, any FOG user is able to create professional-quality fonts.
The secret behind this is the unparalleled font technology know-how. The mature FontLab Studio engine, combined with brand-new sophisticated algorithms, provide the technical underpinnings for the new Fontographer 5. In fact, FOG 5 is even able to read and export FontLab VFB files, so exchanging documents between different font editors is easy!

Looks smooth, rocks hard
While FontLab Fontographer 4.7 was a small improvement over version 4.1, the new version 5 is truly a major overhaul of the product. We've remained close to the Fontographer spirit yet brought the improvements necessary for a modern font creator in the 21st century.
Our work on Fontographer 5 was like a restoration of a classic car. We've kept the familiar, elegant body that users love, giving it just a subtle facelift. And then we've replaced the old inefficient engine by modern cutting-edge technology.
Seasoned users of Fontographer 3 and 4 will quickly find themselves at home, and new users will find the product very easy to learn.

New Features in Version 5
The highlights of the new Fontographer 5 version include:
User interface

· NEW! Glyph antialiasing (smoothing) in all application windows

· IMPROVED! Glyph window zoom level up to 1600%

· IMPROVED! Radically redesigned and updated, easy-to-use Font Info dialog for editing the relevant technical parameters for all font formats, including OpenType, with updated, intelligent, automatic generation of OpenType-compatible font family naming and of cross-plattform linespacing values

· NEW! Powerful Spotlight-like glyph search feature that allows you to quickly highlight or select glyphs based on the Unicode codepoint, glyph name or Unicode character name (including wildcards)

· NEW! Easy access to the unencoded glyphs (OpenType alternates) using the FontLab prefix convention

· IMPROVED! Metrics and kerning editing in the Metrics Window

· IMPROVED! Manual editing of Type 1 hints

Font formats and international support

· NEW! Font generator and reader for OpenType fonts (both PS/.otf and TT/.ttf flavor) with 20,000+ glyphs

· NEW! Reads Mac Type 1 font suitcases (FFIL), Mac datafork suitcases (.dfont) and TrueType Collections (.ttc)

· IMPROVED! Opening and generation of Type 1 fonts, using cutting-edge FontLab technology

· IMPROVED! Full Unicode compatibility (fonts and user interface), including support for the Unicode Standard version 5.2

· NEW! OpenType Layout features can be defined using the most recent Adobe FDK for OpenType (AFDKO) version 2.5 syntax

· NEW! Modern OpenType-compatible encodings and a full set of international encodings

· NEW! Support for OpenType digital signatures (DSIG)

· NEW! Reads and exports the FontLab VFB format for easy integration into a FontLab-based workflow

· NEW! Great screen font quality thanks to the integrated Adobe PostScript autohinter and the excellent FontLab TrueType autohinter

· NEW! Integrated Adobe Type 1 and Microsoft TrueType rasterizers for high-quality bitmap generation from hinted outlines, and the ability to export the bitmaps in BDF format

Operating system and application support

· IMPROVED! Runs natively on Mac OS X (universal binary), Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7

· IMPROVED! Copy-paste and import-export of Illustrator and Freehand outline artwork

· IMPROVED! Copy-paste and import bitmap images for autotracing
Éplus countless additional improvements and bug fixes.
This is the release that the font software community has been waiting for more than a decade!

Manufacturer: FontLab Ltd.