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TransType 4 beta 2 for Mac: convert fonts to WOFF and EOT webfonts
Hello all,
I'm excited to let you know that we at Fontlab Ltd. have just released the 2nd beta of TransType 4 for Mac OS X. With this build, you can convert any font (OTF, TTF, plus a number of other formats) into WOFF and EOT webfonts.
TransType 4 beta 2 is available free of charge at http://bit.ly/trt4macbeta2
The current build 4762 will expire on February 28th, 2013. However, by the time that build expires, we will post another build with more features and bugfixes.
Enjoy!
Best regards,
Adam Twardoch
Fontlab Ltd.
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13 Feb 2013 — 5:34pm
We've just published the 3rd beta version of TransType 4 for Mac: http://bit.ly/trt4macbeta3
The "Webfont TT" export profile now includes the EOT compressed output format as well as some sample CSS and HTML documents and SVG output. We plan to improve the SVG output, but — anyone interested — please test the EOT output on Internet Explorer, and report your findings on http://forum.fontlab.com/index.php?topic=8704.msg28770
Other improvements that I've announced in this thread above are planned for future builds!
Best,
Adam
15 Feb 2013 — 3:05am
Hello Adam,
Thanks for TransType, I have tested it once and it was very fast, quite useful.
I still have a question/request:
Are you going to add a function to add meta-data for woff fonts?
Or is it already possible and I missed it? I must say the interface was a bit strange at first…
I could find "effects", but not this function that is more important IMHO.
Other thing: it would be nice to know what is actually happening in the box…
Obvisouly when one converts a PS font to EOT, what happens is that the file gets automatically converted to TrueType curves, before being packed in a EOT (or am I wrong here?).
It would be good that the program actually explains what is happening when something fundamental (such as converting PS to TT automatically) is being done.
From my experience, the results with this are pretty bad in terms of hinting.
Fonts that were carefully PS hinted (with links) looked better in PS WOFF than in EOT.
From our tests, it works better to convert to TrueType in FontForge, which also does a good job at keeping PS links and where the TT autohinter isn't doing a bad job.
Any plans in that area?
15 Feb 2013 — 6:10pm
Short: yes on all counts but gradually :)
TransType 4 is completely rewritten from scratch using our newest technology (codenamed Victoria). The technology will be used in the font editing products we're working on. TransType 4 is the first application based on this, so we want to cover base ground first, and make sure that the core functionalities work well.
The Webfont TT profile always converts to TT first. We'll likely add a Webfont PS profile, which will generate OTF, OTF-based WOFF and TrueType-based EOT (only TT outlines are supported in EOT).
We also have plans in the area of better autohinting, more flexible outline conversion control, and WOFF metadata (currently there is no such access).
I agree that the Effects functionality is not "core" for most font vendors. It's just a simple "extra fun" added on top.
Thanks for your feedback!
Best,
Adam
16 Feb 2013 — 4:00am
Thanks for your answer Adam!
A little clarification: what do you mean with TT profile?
Do you mean WOFFs are now also converted as TT first?
17 Feb 2013 — 9:42pm
xy,
I recommend reading what "profile" means in the TransType context -- in the preliminary TransType 4 manual.
TransType has a selector for export profiles in the top-right corner. Currently, the only webfont-related profile is "Webfont TT .woff+.eot+.svg (Optimized)".
The "TT" in the profile name indicates that it's TrueType-based. It means that any input font is converted into a .ttf and then converted into .woff, .eot and .svg.
The profile, in fact, generates a series of fonts: .ttf, .woff, .eot, .css, .html.
As I said, we're planning to add a Webfont PS profile, which will generate three PostScript-based files (.otf, .woff and .svg) plus one TrueType-based (.eot).
This means that the .eot will be identical regardless of whether you use the Webfont PS or the Webfont TT profile, since only TrueType-based EOTs are supported by Internet Explorer.
Hope this helps,
Adam
2 Mar 2013 — 10:02am
4th beta just published at http://www.fontlab.com/
2 Mar 2013 — 2:41pm
As I said, we're planning to add a Webfont PS profile, which will generate three PostScript-based files (.otf, .woff and .svg) plus one TrueType-based (.eot).
Whatever for?
4 Mar 2013 — 4:26am
Considering the quality of PS to TT conversion (at least in Fontlab), that is a necessity.
As said, you're better off with a PS font then a converted TT, at least that was the case in my experience.
14 Mar 2013 — 9:32pm
xy,
as to PS to TT quality, do you mean the way in which the curves are translated from cubic to quadratic, or do you perhaps mean the rendering resulting from FontLab's autohinting?
I'd greatly appreciate if you could elaborate on this. We'll be listening carefully.
Regards,
Adam
17 Apr 2013 — 5:40pm
Dear Adam,
Just saw you replied.
It's great to read that you are really interested.
To be honest, I cannot elaborate much because my knowledge and understanding of TT in general and TT hinting is very limited. It is my partner who has more experience with that. I'll ask him to elaborate when we get some time. So I cannot say if the problem lies in the quality of the curves conversion (although my partner was saying that FontLab was creating TT outlines with too many points) or with the hinting.
But for the moment what I can say is that our experience was that exporting our PS fonts (with PS hints placed manually) in .TTF and making webfonts out of them resulted in quite poor results. From what I remember of our tests, it was almost always looking worse than with .OTF (CFF).
That's why I'm quite surprised about the TT profile only. I don't really see the advantage of doing that. For sure TT are needed for EOTs, but other than that, I wouldn't want our fonts to be converted in TT, unless the curves and the hints were translated into something of at least equal quality than the PS versions.
Looking forward to a version of TransType with PS profile!