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| Utility - dfontifier | | Date Created: 01 Dec, 2004, 12:11 PM |
 Moving from OS 9 to OS X has been difficult for the design and prepress community. Ideally the conversion to OS X (from OS 9) would be accompanied by a complete suite of updated programs so that the designer would no longer need to either boot back into OS 9 or launch Classic. And at the same time, all of your customers and vendors would be doing the same thing. But that has not happened. There are still agencies, printers, and other graphic service providers who are still struggling with OS 9 as their primary Macintosh OS.
The font utility dfontifier from Mark Douma (who is also the author of Font Finagler & Font Book Helper) is a fairly specialized utility, but one that you may find extremely useful as you try to move between OS 9 & OS X while keeping your fonts consistent between the two.
Note: You will find reviews/articles of Font Finagler (also from Mark Douma) in the Resources section of Font Geek.
Before I explain what dfontifier does, I need to explain what a .dfont is. A .dfont is essentially a TrueType font that is used in OS X. In fact the system fonts provided by Apple are .dfonts. The way that they are different is in the way that they are constructed. Regular TrueType fonts are constructed with the data in the Resource Fork. We call these kinds of files regular Resource Fork - based files. Apple's idea for the .dfont is to keep the data in the Data Fork. We can then refer to the .dfont as a regular Data Fork - based file. This seems simple enough. |
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And either kind of file is not a problem for OS X. You can use either kind of file in OS X. The problem is when you try to use a .dfont (Data Fork - based) in Classic or in OS 9. It just won't work.
dfontifier is an application that can convert Mac OS X-style Datafork TrueType fonts (.dfonts) into ordinary Mac OS 9-style TrueType fonts and vice versa (for symmetry). This can be very useful if you are sharing or sending documents to others that are still using OS 9 and OS 9 native programs.
One of the things that Mark pointed out to me was that many of the font management programs on the market including Alsoft's MasterJuggler, Insider Software's FontAgent Pro, and Extensis's Suitcase or Font Reserve, have the ability to "bridge the gap" between the OS X native and Classic environments by making fonts you've activated in OS X available to both environments. The problem with this is that the .dfont format doesn't translate to the Classic environment. Converting .dfonts into regular TrueType fonts would allow the same font/styles to be used in both environments. |
 You can use dfontifier to convert TrueType fonts to .dfonts and vice versa (if you want to). Despite this symmetry, the most common reason to use dfontifier is to convert .dfonts to a normal TT font. Besides font compatibility this piece of donation-ware allows you to expand your OS 9 font library. Some of Apple's .dfonts are actually some very nice fonts. I've used dfontifier to convert some of these fonts so that some of my clients could use them in their OS 9 applications.
For a step by step instruction on using dfontifier, please refer to my "How to Use - dfontifier" article also located in the Resources section of Font Geek. |
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Software Developer......................................Mark Douma
Current Version.............................................v. 2.0.1
Type of Software...........................................donation-ware
System Requirements....................................OS 10.2 or higher
Type of Utility................................................TT Font Converter
Font Geek Rating...........................................4.5 out of 5 |
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Comparison: As usualy, Mark Douma has managed to create a utility that doesn't have a lot of competition on the market. The only other program that I've seen that can do this (among other font conversions) is TransType from FontLab, Ltd. for about $97.00 -- which is a good value if you have need for other font conversions. But to convert just .dfonts to TT fonts (or the other way around), this is the best utility around (especially for the price).
Additional Notes:
There is a very good "ReadMe.rtfd" document included with the software once it's downloaded. I strongly recommend that you read it prior to using the software.
Mark has a PayPal account registered at mdouma46@mac.com. If this has helped you, I encourage you to support this donation-ware.
For more information about font types and formats please check back in the Typography section of Font Geek in the near future to read my Font Type Primer article.
Coming Soon... We'll be posting an interview with Mark Douma where he'll be talking to us about dfontifer, Font Finagler, and other thoughts he has about fonts and the Mac OS. |
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