I've been doing some searching on how to create my own fonts. If
possible, I would like to be able to write my own program to
at least draw glyphs, even if I have to resort to other tools
to describe hinting, kerning and ligatures.
My current knowledge is this. I read that OpenType fonts are
actually Type 1 fonts embedded in an archive. So I used this
't1disasm' tool I found after wikipedia article on postscript
fonts and used it to decode one of ConTeXt minimal distribution
font file into a nice to read text file that looks like the
transcript below, and it seems to be something I could easily
understand if I find a reference.
I would like to ask you if I'm in the proper direction. There
are some issues I can't understand, like how can I make OpenType
fonts out of Type 1 fonts when the later are supposed to only
contain 256 characters (aren't they?). Or how to understand
this text file format so I can write my own glyphs.
Do you think I'm in the right direction. Do you think there's
an easier or better way if I want to create fonts without
using existing graphical tools?
Thanks,
Maurício
%%%%
Converted file excerpt:
(...)
/char03 {
-25 625 hsbw
-64 21 hstem
564 -20 hstem
0 175 vstem
150 -64 rmoveto
14 11 12 13 hvcurveto
246 vlineto
462 -267 rlineto
4 -2 4 -2 5 0 rrcurveto
9 0 8 5 5 8 rrcurveto
2 3 1 5 0 4 rrcurveto
578 vlineto
0 4 -1 4 -2 4 rrcurveto
-5 8 -8 5 -9 0 rrcurveto
-5 0 -4 -2 -3 -2 rrcurveto
-463 -267 rlineto
246 vlineto
13 -11 12 -14 vhcurveto
-125 hlineto
-14 -11 -12 -13 hvcurveto
-578 vlineto
-13 11 -12 14 vhcurveto
closepath
endchar
} ND
/char04 {
(...)