Manual for Char2eps v1.0

Char2eps relies heavily on the fixed Postscript output format, as produced by FontForge. So you need to install this program too, and convert your TTF fonts (or any other format supported by FontForge) to Postcript "Type 3" with it.

Right at the start, an important note:

Please, do not violate copyrights! Respect your local laws when using characters of a font in your artwork, and give proper credits to the original author and copyright holder, respectively.

Starting Char2eps is as simple as saying

char2eps Strenuous3D.pt3 Strenuous3D.ced

where the file "Strenuous3D.pt3" is a Postscript font in "Type 3" format. Please note that no other font types are supported as input to Char2eps!

The second file "Strenuous3D.ced" is a special font definition file, containing infos about how big the resulting EPS files should get in size. Its complete syntax is explained in more detail in the section "Font Definition File" below.

The call of Char2eps will convert all glyphs/characters in the font and writes the resulting EPS files to the current directory.

So it's a good idea to create a separate folder, copy the .pt3 and .ced file there, and then call Char2eps from inside this directory.

Start the program FontForge and select a font to open.

After the import you should see the overview of defined glyphs for your current font.

Now, choose the entry "Generate Fonts" from the "File" menu. In the appearing dialog, ensure that "Postscript Type 3" is selected as output format.

Ignore the warnings about a too large encoding

and proceed with "Yes". That's it!

An FED file has to start with the lines

%Char2eps Postscript font definition file
%Version: 1.0
%BEGIN FontInfo

Then the single values follow, where each key has the form

%BEGIN key
value
%END key

The values are read as strings and can span multiple lines, for texts like the "FontDescription". Three different types of values are supported:

Text

Normal text, which may span several lines.

Double

A floating point number like "2.4", "1.3e2" or "4".

Length

A Double (see above), which is interpreted as a length given in Postscript units. You can also append a unit specifier "cm", "mm" or "in" to the number, e.g. "2.7in".

The available keys are:

FontName

Text, name of the font.

FontVersion

Text, version of the font.

FontAuthor

Text, the author/copyright holder of the font.

SquareWidth

Double, width of the design square for the font.

SquareHeight

Double, height of the design square for the font.

SquareDepth

Double, depth of the design square for the font.

EpsScalingFactor

Double, if specified, the single chars are scaled in size by this factor.

EpsCharHeight

Length, if specified, the single chars are scaled such that they have the given final size.

EpsDefaultLineWidth

Length, the Postscript line width, used for the strokes.

EpsLeftMargin

Length, adds a left margin.

EpsRightMargin

Length, adds a right margin.

EpsTopMargin

Length, adds a Top margin.

EpsBottomMargin

Length, adds a Bottom margin.