A meandering bibliography of font related things

A meandering bibliography of font related things

Font File Formats
Unicode
Other Encodings
Books
Font Related tools


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Font File Formats
Postscript Type1
Supplement (discussion of multiple master fonts & counter hints)
Format
Postscript unicode character names
PostScript Language Reference Manual
PostScript Multiple Master
Type1 MM format specification (in the Type1 Supplement)
Design considerations
Naming requirements
Type2 (In March of 2000, Adobe removed multiple master support from Type2 and CFF files)
Type2 MM format specification (In OBSOLETE type2 spec)
CFF MM format specification (In OBSOLETE CFF spec)
CID keyed fonts
PostSript Type2
Compact Font Format Specification (CFF)
For more information see under OpenType fonts
PostScript Type3
PostScript Language Reference Manual 3.0 (see section 5.7)
PostScript Type14 (Chameleon)
The PLRM (5.8.1) documents that this font format is undocumented.
PostScript Type42
AFM
PFM
I can't find microsoft's docs for pfm files any more, I think the format may be obsolete having been replaced by ntf.
Adobe's notes on PFM files for two byte fonts
NTF
This format is supposed to replace the pfm files above in windows >2000. I can't find any docs on it.
BDF
ABF -- Binary format
Extensions to BDF for greymap support
True Type Standard
(Sadly different sources have slightly different definitions of less important parts of the standard, be warned)
Apple (I find Apple's prose difficult, and sometimes misleading. I suggest using a different source when possible)
Microsoft
random useful site
TTC -- True Type Font Collection
Apple Advanced Typography extensions to TrueType
OpenType (postscript embedded in a truetype wrapper, or advanced typography tables in a truetype wrapper)
Postscript Type2
CFF
Adobe's version of file format
Microsoft's version
Possible source of script codes for scripts not specified by MS/Adobe: ISO 15924
Apple's sfnt wrapper around a PS type1 font
Postscript Type42 (the opposite of opentype, it's truetype embedded in postscript)
SVG 1.1 fonts
SVG 1.2 font hinting proposal
Macintosh font formats
Windows raster font formats
FNT -- Windows version 2
FNT -- Windows version 3
Some info on FON file format
X11 pcf format
Sadly there is no real standard for this. There's the source code used by X11.
So I wrote my own description...
TeX font formats
pk packed bitmap format
gf generic font (bitmap) format
tfm metrics format
To make these viewable you probably want to do something like:
$ weave pktype.web
$ pdftex pktype.tex
Palm pilot fonts (pdb? files)
I haven't found a good description
OpenDoc. Sadly Proprietary so I shan't support it.
Acorn RISC OS font format (these fonts are often zipped up with a non-standard zip).
Ikarus IK format is documented in Peter Karow's book Digital Formats for Typefaces, Appendices G&I. (copies may still be available from URW++)
Interestingly the exact format of a curve is up to the interpretation program.
sfd files (PfaEdit's internal spline font database format)
Other font links

Adobe's downloadable font spec
Adobe's technical notes
Adobe's Font Policies document
Postscript reference manual
(old reference manual)
Microsoft's downloadable fonts
Downloadable PS CID CJK fonts (this site also has cmap files)
others
Downloadable OTF CID CJK fonts (this site also has cmap files)
Most recent cid2code tables that I'm aware of
PANOSE
From AGFA
From MS
Panose font classification scheme
Unicode
Unicode consortium
Apple's corporate use extensions (0xF850-0xF8FE)
Adobe's corporate use extensions (0xF634-0F7FF) (also includes some of Apple's codes above)
PfaEdit's corporate use extensions (0xF500-0xF580)
A registry of code points in the private area (does not include any of Adobe's or Apple's codepoints)
MicroSoft uses 0xF000-0xF0FF in their "Symbol" encoding (3,0) when they want to an uninterpretted encoding vector (ie. a mapping from byte to glyph with no meaning attached to the mapping)
Pictures of the characters
Unicode script assignments
Postscript Unicode names
Glyph names for new fonts (these are the names PfaEdit automatically assigns to glyphs)
Adobe Glyph Names provides further synonyms
Glyph name limitations.
Linux issues
FAQ
HOWTO
Linux Unicode man page
Other Encodings
Microsoft's Codepages, and at the unicode site
Mac Encodings
MacRoman
IPA
GB 18030
TeX latin encodings (possibly also on your local machine in /usr/share/texmf/dvips/base)
TeX cyrillic encodings


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Books
Typography
Font editor concepts
Karow, Peter, 1994, Font Technology, Description and Tools

Karow, Peter, 1987, Digital Formats for Typefaces

TeX
Hoenig, Alan TeX Unbound: LaTeX and TeX Strategies for Fonts, Graphics & More

Knuth, Donald, 1979, TeX and METAFONT, New Directions in Typesetting