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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!-- Created with AOLpress/2.0 -->
<!-- AP: Created on: 27-Oct-2005 -->
<!-- AP: Last modified: 14-Jan-2006 -->
<TITLE>FontForge install procedures for macintosh</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1 ALIGN=Center>
FontForge install procedures<BR>
<SMALL>for the macintosh</SMALL>
</H1>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Installing">Installing from a pre-built mac package</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Before">Before you install</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Obtaining">Obtaining one of my pre-built packages</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#install">Installing</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Notes">Notes</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-mac">Before you build (on a mac)</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-source">Building and installing from source</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-distribution">Obtaining a source distribution</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-tarball">tarball</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-cvs">from the cvs tree</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-Building">Building & installing it</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#src-installs">More complicated installs</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Dependencies">Dependencies (external libraries/helper programs)</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#suggested-fonts">Suggested fonts</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Documentation">Installing documentation</A>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#doc-tar">Installing a documentation tarball</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="#PATH">Some notes on the PATH variable.</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#run-mac">Running FontForge</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="#Bugs">Reporting Bugs</A>
</UL>
<H2>
<A NAME="Installing">Installing</A> from a pre-built package
</H2>
<H3>
<A NAME="Before">Before</A> you install
</H3>
<P>
You must ensure that you have the the X11 server installed on your system.
<DL>
<DT>
10.5, 10.4
<DD>
<UL>
<LI>
Open the Install DVD that came with your system.
<LI>
Scroll down to "Optional Installs" and open it.
<LI>
Keep clicking <CODE>Continue</CODE> until you get to the pane "Custom Install
on "Macintosh HD""
<LI>
Press the arrow beside "Applications" so you get a list of them.
<LI>
Select X11
<LI>
Keep pressing <CODE>Continue</CODE>
<LI>
<TABLE BGCOLOR="#ffff00"><TR><TD>
Apple appears to have shipped a buggy version of X11 with 10.5. The problem
appears fixed in 10.5.6 (It may have been fixed earlier, but I don't have
a machine on which I can test).
<P>
The problem only affects fontforge it if uses pango or cairo.
<P>
This release of fontforge tries to check for a buggy system, and if it
thinks it is running on one, then it will refuse to use Pango and Cairo.
<P>
The problem does not affect Mac 10.4.*
<HR>
You may upgrade from 10.5 to 10.5.6 by going to the Apple Menu and selecting
the "Software Update" menu item, and then the "Mac OS X Update Combined".
<P>
You probably need to install X11 <STRONG>before</STRONG> you upgrade the
Operating System.
</TD></TR></TABLE>
</UL>
<DT>
10.3
<DD>
<UL>
<LI>
The X server lives in a package called X11User.pkg in the Packages folder
on the third install CD.
<LI>
Just double click on this file and follow its instructions to install X11
</UL>
</DL>
<P>
You may also want to install the
<A HREF="http://fink.sourceforge.net/">fink</A> package or the equivalent from
<A HREF="http://www.macports.org/">macports</A> which includes many
useful libraries (see the <A HREF="#Dependencies">dependencies</A> section
below for more info on this)
<H4>
<A NAME="Configuring-X11">Configuring</A> X11
</H4>
<P>
<CODE>X11->Preferences->Input</CODE>
<P>
FontForge is designed to make use of a three button mouse. It is also designed
to make use of modifier key modes on mouse clicks (so Control left click
can mean something different than left click). If you have a three (or two)
button mouse then use it (and turn off "<CODE>Emulate three button
mouse</CODE>" in the X11 preferences). If you have a standard one button
mouse then you have the option of having the mac simulate a three button
mouse (for instance Option mouse click behaves like clicking the middle mouse
button). Unfortunately this means you can no longer use the Option key to
change the behavior of the left (only) button click. So either choice means
you lose capabilities.
<P>
Normally X11 is configured so that the Command key (cloverleaf) is bound
to the X11 menu bar, and not to fontforge's. When fontforge starts it checks
this, and if X11 gets command then fontforge configures its menubar to use
Control rather than command. This isn't very mac-like. If you turn <B>off</B>
the "<CODE>Enable keyboard shortcuts under X11</CODE>" preference item then
fontforge will configure its menubar to make use of Command.
<P>
If type the following into a terminal (or xterm) window
<BLOCKQUOTE id="shell">
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cat >~/.fonts.conf
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<!-- /etc/fonts/fonts.conf file to configure system font access -->
<fontconfig>
<!-- Font directory list -->
<!-- Add to system list -->
<dir>/System/Library/Fonts</dir>
<dir>/Library/Fonts</dir>
<dir>~/Library/Fonts</dir>
</fontconfig>
<b>^D</b>
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
then fontforge's UI will be able to use the fonts Apple supplies with the mac.
(You don't type the "$", and ^D means hold down the control key and press "D").
<H4>
Note:
</H4>
<P>
On the mac, the Option key is mapped to what fontforge calls "Alt" or "Meta".
<H3>
<A NAME="Obtaining">Obtaining</A> one of my pre-built packages
</H3>
<P>
I post mac install packages on
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103338&package_id=111040">sourceforge's
file release system</A>. There's a certain amount of pother involved in using
the file release system, but you get the file eventually.
<P>
I currently post builds for Mac 10.5 & 10.4 (I post different builds for the
two systems because they provide different python libraries).
<p>
<STRONG>Neither of
these builds will work on 10.3</STRONG>. If you wish a 10.3 you can build from
current source or find a build from 2006. If you wish a 10.2 or earlier build
the current sources will not work and you must delve more deeply into the past.
<UL>
<LI>
If you follow the
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103338&package_id=111040">link
above </A>you will end up on a page showing many releases of FontForge for
many systems<BR>
in most cases you will want the most recent release.
<LI>
Then click on the executable package you want to download:
<UL>
<LI>
The mac release will be called something like "FontForge-200xxxxx.pkg.sitx
</UL>
<LI>
Then you have the joy of choosing a mirror site (pick one that's on the same
continent you are) and click on the little icon in the download column
<LI>
Then you wait. After a bit you get another copy of this same page. After
an even longer time your browser notices that you've started a download.
</UL>
<H3>
<A NAME="install">Installing</A>
</H3>
<P>
Generally your browser will decompress the package after pulling it down,
and then start the install process itself.
<P>
If this doesn't happen, find the package (it's usually on the desktop) and
double-click on it.
<P>
The install will request your password (to make sure you have the right to
do an install on your machine, and then ask some innocuous questions, and
proceed to install.
<H3>
<A NAME="Notes">Notes</A>
</H3>
<P>
FontForge does not conform to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. FontForge
never will. Don't expect it to look like a normal Mac Application. It doesn't.
<P>
<HR>
<H2>
Before you build (on a <A NAME="src-mac">mac</A>)
</H2>
<P>
You must ensure that you have the both the X11 server and the Developer's toolchain
installed on your system. This process is slightly different on OS/X 10.3
& 10.4
<DL>
<DT>
10.5, 10.4
<DD>
<UL>
<LI>
Open the Install DVD that came with your system.
<LI>
Scroll down to "Optional Installs" and open it.
<LI>
Keep clicking <CODE>Continue</CODE> until you get to the pane "Custom Install
on "Macintosh HD""
<LI>
Press the arrow beside "Applications" so you get a list of them.
<LI>
Select X11
<LI>
Keep pressing <CODE>Continue</CODE>
<HR>
<LI>
The Developer's toolchain is optional software on the install DVD. Simply insert
the disk and click on the XCode install icon.
</UL>
<DT>
10.3
<DT>
<UL>
<LI>
The X server lives in a package called X11User on the third install CD.
<LI>
You must also install the X11SDK package on the XCode CD
<LI>
And you must install the Developer's (XCode) tools themselves.
</UL>
</DL>
<P>
You may also want to install the
<A HREF="http://fink.sourceforge.net/">fink</A> package or the equivalent from
<A HREF="http://www.macports.org/">macports</A> which includes many
useful libraries (see the <A HREF="#Dependencies">dependencies</A> section
below for more info on this)
<P>
You must then start up a Terminal window (the Terminal Application also lives
in the Utilities sub-folder of the Applications folder) and be prepared to
type commands in that window (I know, it's very un-mac-like).
<H2>
Building and installing from <A NAME="src-source">source</A>
</H2>
<H3>
Obtaining a source <A NAME="src-distribution">distribution</A>
</H3>
<P>
There are two basic ways to obtain a source distribution. One is by downloading
an entire source tree from the web, and the other is by using the cvs utility
to maintain a source tree on your machine which will be as up to date as
possible. The former solution provides more stability, the latter provides
access to cutting edge bugs.
<H4>
<A NAME="src-tarball">tarball</A>
</H4>
<P>
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103338&package_id=114328">Sourceforge's
file release system </A>will contain a tarball (a file with the extension
for .tar.bz2).
<P>
After you have downloaded one of these packages, either copy the tarball
to where you are, or move to the directory containing the tarball (I can't
provide explicit instructions here, because I don't know where your browser
put the file) and type (<SMALL>The "$" or "#" are example prompts from the
computer. Do not type them yourself</SMALL>):
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>bunzip2 fontforge*.tar.bz2
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>tar xf fontforge*.tar
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cd fontforge-*
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H4>
from the <A NAME="src-cvs">cvs</A> tree
</H4>
<P>
cvs is a nifty set of utilities which allows concurrent access to a source
tree by many users. To set up your own (local) copy of the cvs tree (including
documentation), create a new directory, cd into it and type the following
(when it asks for a password, just hit return):
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs1.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/fontforge login
CVS password:
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs1.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/fontforge checkout fontforge
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cd fontforge
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
Once you have established a directory you may update it to obtain the most
recent version of the source by typing:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cd fontforge
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs1.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/fontforge login
CVS password:
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs1.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/fontforge update
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
You can also
<A HREF="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/fontforge/fontforge/">browse
the CVS tree</A> online. Or see
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=103338">sourceforge's description
</A>for more information (their information is out of date, the correct server
is cvs1.sf.net not cvs.sf.net), or read the
<A HREF="http://www.cvshome.org/docs/manual/">CVS manual</A>.
<H3>
<A NAME="src-Building">Building</A> & installing it
</H3>
<P>
Now you have the source installed on your system and you should be positioned
at the top directory of that tree. You need to configure your package (this
is a little program that figures out how to use your system), and then build
it (do not type "$"):
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>./configure
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>make
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
<A NAME="su">Having</A> done this you will probably want to install what
you have built. This should be done as root:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>sudo make install
password: ******
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3>
More complicated <A NAME="src-installs">installs</A>
</H3>
<P>
The configure script allows you to turn off and on various features of fontforge
that might not be appropriate for your system. Type
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>configure --help
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
for a complete list of options. Some of the most useful are described below.
<H4>
Building fontforge without X
</H4>
<P>
If you don't want to install X11 on your system, you can use fontforge as
a command line tool which can execute scripts to manipulate fonts. FontForge
supports <A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/python.html">python scripting</A>
and a legacy scripting language unique to ff which is described in detail
<A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/scripting.html">in the section on
scripting.</A>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>configure --without-x
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H4>
Building fontforge to edit type3 fonts
</H4>
<P>
If you do want to edit PostScript type3 fonts, you can configure fontforge
to give you access to more drawing modes than are generally available in
fonts.
<P>
(This also lets you create more complex SVG fonts).
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>configure --enable-type3
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H4>
Building fontforge to edit device tables
</H4>
<P>
If you do want to create device tables (which allow you to fix up kerning
data at a specific pixel size) in OpenType fonts
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>configure --enable-devicetables
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H4>
Installing FontForge somewhere other than <CODE>/usr/local</CODE>
</H4>
<P>
If you want to install fontforge in a different directory (say in /usr/bin)
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>configure --prefix=/usr
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H4>
Installing <A NAME="installing-documentation-cvs">documentation</A> from
the cvs tree
</H4>
<P>
If you have a copy of the cvs tree on your system then you should be able
to type
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>sudo make install_docs
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H2>
<A NAME="Dependencies">Dependencies</A> (external libraries/helper programs)
</H2>
<P>
FontForge tries to avoid hard dependencies. If a library is missing then
fontforge will (in most cases) be able to continue to run, it will just lack
whatever functionality the library provides. So if you don't need to import
tiff images, you don't need libtiff. If you don't need to handle SVG fonts
you don't need libxml2, etc.
<P>
With the appropriate libraries, FontForge can import png, tiff, and gif images
to act as character backgrounds for tracing purposes (FontForge can import
bmp and xbm formats without external libraries). With libxml2 FontForge can
read SVG fonts. With the freetype library FontForge will do a better job
making bitmap characters for you. libuninameslist provides standard unicode
names and annotations for unicode characters (it has been localized into
English and French)
<P>
None is required for the proper compilation/execution of FontForge, if the
libraries are not present they will not be used. (If the machine on which
your executable was build didn't have them, then you must not only install
the libraries, but <A HREF="#source">rebuild fontforge from source</A>) If
your machine doesn't have them and you want them they are available from:
<UL>
<LI>
Image Libraries (to allow FontForge to import images in those formats)
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html">libpng</A> (and required
helper <A HREF="http://www.gzip.org/zlib/">zlib</A>)
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.libtiff.org/">libtiff</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libungif.htm">libungif</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.ijg.org/">libjpeg</A>
</UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://xmlsoft.org/">libxml2</A><BR>
To parse SVG files and fonts
<LI>
<A HREF="http://libuninameslist.sf.net">libuninameslist</A><BR>
To display unicode names and annotations.
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/">libiconv</A><BR>
Only important for systems with no built-in iconv(). If not present FontForge
contains a minimal version of the library which allows it to work. But if
you want to use libiconv you must configure it with
<CODE>--enable-extra-encodings</CODE>, as FontForge requires Shift-JIS.
<LI>
<A HREF="http://freetype.sf.net/">freetype</A><BR>
To do a better job rasterizing bitmaps, and to enable the truetype debugger
<TABLE BORDER CELLPADDING="6" WIDTH="50%" ALIGN=CENTER>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#ffff00">Some of FontForge's commands depend on your compiling
freetype with the byte code interpreter enabled. This is disabled by default
because it infringes on certain
<A HREF="http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html">patents granted to
Apple</A>. If you have a license from Apple (or live in a country where these
patents do not apply) then you may enable the interpreter by setting the
appropriate macro in .../include/freetype/config/ftoption.h before you build
the library (see the README.UNX file on the top level of the freetype
distribution).
<P>
To enable the truetype debugger, FontForge needs to have the freetype source
directories available when it is built (there are some include files there
which it depends on)</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<LI>
libintl<BR>
Is standard on most unixes. It is part of the fink package on the mac. Handles
UI localization.
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.python.org/">libpython</A><BR>
If present when FontForge is compiled, allows the user to execute python
scripts within fontforge (and you can configure fontforge so that fontforge's
functionality can be imported into python -- that is fontforge both
<I>extends</I> and <I>embeds</I> python)
<P>
This is one library that fontforge does not try to load at run time.
<LI>
<A HREF="http://x.org/">libX</A><BR>
Normally FontForge depends on the X11 windowing system, but if you are just
interested in the scripting engines (with no user interface), it may be built
on systems without X (the configure script should figure this out).
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.cairographics.org/">libcairo</A><BR>
Cairo handles drawing anti-aliased splines in the outline glyph view. It
is dependent on libfontconfig, libXft and perhaps other libraries.
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.pango.org/">libpango</A><BR>
Pango draws text for complex scripts. It depends on glib-2.0, libfontconfig,
libfreetype, libXft, and perhaps other libraries.
<LI>
Under Mac OS/X these libraries are available from the
<A HREF="http://fink.sourceforge.net/">fink project</A> and from
<A HREF="http://www.macports.org/">macports</A>.
<HR>
<STRONG>Sadly one important library is missing from fink's distributions for
Mac X.5 (it is present in the X.4 distributions). I have bundled up all the
(fink) libraries used by fontforge and provide them in a
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103338&package_id=302003&release_id=645772">
package of my own</a>.</STRONG>
</UL>
<P>
If you want to do autotracing around character images you should also download
either
<UL>
<LI>
Peter Selinger's <A HREF="http://potrace.sf.net/">potrace</A>
<LI>
Martin Weber's <A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/projects/autotrace/">autotrace
program.</A>
</UL>
<P>
Normally FontForge depends on the X11 windowing system, but if you are just
interested in the scripting engine (with no user interface), it may be built
on systems without X (the configure script should figure this out).
<P>
<A NAME="suggested-fonts">Once</A> upon a time, fontforge only used X11 bitmap
fonts, on most systems in now uses fontconfig.
<P>
There seem plenty of good unicode outline fonts, so I shan't provide any
suggestions. To install them you simply create a subfolder called .fonts in
your home folder, and then copy the font file into that subdirectory.
<FONT COLOR="RED"><STRONG>Warning:</STRONG> pango uses opentype to
layout complex scripts. Most fonts on your macintosh are in a different
format -- glyphs from them will display fine (so they work for latin, greek
cyrillic, japanese, chinese, etc.) but more complex features will probably
not work (so Arabic and Indic scripts may not be displayed properly).</FONT>
<P>
In the old days there weren't
many bitmap fonts with good unicode coverage so I provided a list of suggested
fonts. That's not nearly as important now. If fontconfig isn't available for
you, you might want to pull down some old unicode bitmap fonts.
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://khdd.net/kanou/fonts/ff/fontviewfont-en.html">Kanou's fontview
fonts</A>
<A HREF="http://khdd.net/kanou/fonts/ff/fontviewfont.html"><IMG SRC="flags/Nisshoki-Japan.png"
WIDTH="39" HEIGHT="26" ALIGN="Middle"></A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://czyborra.com/unifont/">The unifont</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://clr.nmsu.edu/~mleisher/cu.html">ClearlyU's font</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.nongnu.org/freefont/">The FreeFont project</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html">X fixed</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://canopus.iacp.dvo.ru/~panov/cm-unicode/">Computer Modern Unicode
fonts</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu/unicode/fontguide/">Unicode
Font Guide for Free/Libre Open Source Operating Systems</A>
<HR>
<LI>
<A HREF="nonBMP/index.html">FontForge's conventions for non-BMP unicode bitmap
fonts</A>
</UL>
<P>
To install these, put them in a directory, and in that directory type:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE> <FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>mkfontdir
<FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>xset fp+ `pwd`
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
You should make sure that the xset line happens whenever X is started on
your machine (put it in your .xsession file).
<H2>
<A NAME="Documentation">Documentation</A>
</H2>
<P>
<A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/overview.html">The complete fontforge manual
is available online.</A>
<UL>
<LI>
There is a shorter tutorial which
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/editexample.html">Is available online</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/fontforge-tutorial.pdf">Can be downloaded
as pdf</A>
<LI>
<A HREF="http://fontforge.sf.net/tutorial.tgz">example files </A>(to work
through the tutorial yourself)
</UL>
<LI>
A documentation tarball can be retrieved from the
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103338&package_id=114329">file
release system</A>
<LI>
The cvs tree contains a sub-directory called htdocs containing the manual
<UL>
<LI>
The cvs tree contains a sub-sub-directory called htdocs/ja containing the
Japanese translation of the manual
</UL>
<LI>
See the general comments on the <A HREF="#src-cvs">cvs tree </A>to see how
to access this.<BR>
See the section on <A HREF="#installing-documentation-cvs">installing cvs
documentation </A>to see how to install the docs from the cvs tree
</UL>
<H3>
<A NAME="doc-tar">Installing a documentation tarball</A>
</H3>
<P>
Once you have downloaded the documentation tarball as described above, you
should move to the directory containing it, and type:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>sudo sh
password: ******
# mkdir -p /usr/local/share/doc/fontforge
# mv fontforge_htdocs*.tgz /usr/local/share/doc/fontforge
# tar xfz fontforge_htdocs*.tgz
# rm fontforge_htdocs*.tgz
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
After doing this fontforge will be able to find the docs on your system when
you press the [F1] (or [Help]) key. If you don't do this fontforge will attempt
to find documentation online.
<P>
<HR>
<H2>
Starting FontForge
</H2>
<H3>
On the <A NAME="run-mac">mac</A>
</H3>
FontForge now installs itself as a mac application in the Applications folder.
You can start FontForge the way you start any other application, double clicking
on it, dragging files to it, etc.
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>Caveat: </STRONG></FONT><CODE>FontForge</CODE>
and <CODE>Font Book</CODE> may fight over which will open standard fonts
if you double click on the font file. Both claim they can open these files,
neither claims to be the prefered application for them. If an .otf file shows
a fontforge
icon
it will be opened by fontforge, if a font book icon it will be opened by
font book. Dragging a font file to the desired application will always
work. Or you
can select the font, and invoke <CODE>File->Get Info</CODE> (in the Finder's
menu) and use the "Open with" control to select an application.
<P>
On the mac the Option key is used to invoke the functionality that fontforge's
docs call "Alt" or "Meta". (See the section on
<A HREF=#Configuring-X11">X11 configuration</A> for notes
on three button mice and the command key).
<HR>
<P>
You can also start fontforge using traditional unix methods
<P>
Before you start fontforge on the mac you must start the X11 server. You
can do this by opening the Applications folder, and then opening the Utilities
folder, and then double-clicking on "X11". (If you don't have X11 there then
refer back to the <A HREF="#Before">instructions for installing it</A>)
<P>
Having done that there should be a menubar with a menu labeled "Applications".
Click on this. There should be a "FontForge" entry in it. Selection FontForge
will start fontforge and bring up a dialog allowing you to open a font or
create a new one.
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>Caveat: </STRONG></FONT>FontForge does not normally
show mac resource fonts in this dialog -- however it can still open one even
it it isn't displayed. Simply type in the name of the file containing it.
(or change the Filter field to "All Files").
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>Caveat: </STRONG></FONT>Normally FontForge will
never see the command key shortcuts. X11 intercepts these and uses them itself.
If you would like to be able to use Command-Q to quit FontForge then
<UL>
<LI>
Make sure the X11 menu bar is visible
<LI>
Select the menu item <CODE>X11->Preferences->Input</CODE>
<LI>
turn off (uncheck) <CODE>[] Enable keyboard shortcuts under X11</CODE>
</UL>
<P>
<FONT COLOR="Red"><STRONG>Caveat: </STRONG></FONT>FontForge was written assuming
the availability of a three button mouse. Under 10.4 X11 simulates this by
creating a virtual three button mouse where the middle button is invoked
by Option-Mouse click and the right button by Command-Mouse click. (You can
also control this from X11->Preferences).
<P>
If the Applications menu does not contain a "FontForge" entry, you can add
one yourself:
<UL>
<LI>
Select Applications->Customize Menu
<LI>
Then press the (Add) button in the dialog that appears
<LI>
Double click in the left-most section of the blank line which just appeared
and then type "FontForge"
<LI>
Press the [Tab] key and type "/usr/local/bin/fontforge"
<LI>
Press the [Tab] key again and type "f"
<LI>
Then press (Done)
</UL>
<P>
(You may also start fontforge from the command line here. Go to the Applications
menu and select Terminal or xterm, and look at <A HREF="README-Mac.html#Starting">the
section after the next</A>.
<H3>
Notes on the <A NAME="PATH">PATH</A> variable
</H3>
<P>
On most systems fontforge will install itself into <KBD>/usr/local/bin</KBD>
(that's the standard place for optional software), and this is not always
in the default search path for commands (grrrr). Which means you might have
everything properly installed, but nothing actually works from the command
line. If you see messages like <KBD>"fontforge: command not found."</KBD>
this has (probably) happened to you.
<P>
So what do you do?
<P>
You need to set the PATH environment variable so that it includes /usr/local/bin.
The value of the PATH variable is a set of directories separated by colons.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>echo $PATH
/home/gww/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/sbin
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
Unfortunately there are several ways of doing this because there are two different
conventions used by unix shells. And the mac has yet a third way which only works
sometimes. Type:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
If the name of your shell is <KBD>bash</KBD> (as above), <KBD>ksh</KBD> or
<KBD>sh</KBD> then you want to type
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ; export PATH
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
If the name of your shell is <KBD>tcsh</KBD> or <KBD>csh</KBD> then you say
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
But you'd have to do that every time you logged in. Instead you want this
included in the shell's initialization. Again there are two cases, for the
<KBD>bash</KBD> family of shells you want to edit the file
<KBD>~/.bashrc</KBD> while for the <KBD>csh</KBD> family you want to edit
the file <KBD>~/.cshrc</KBD>. On a bash system the following command is generally
sufficient:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cat >>~/.bashrc
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ; export PATH
^D
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
(where <KBD>^D</KBD> represents control-D, obtained by holding down the control
key while depressing <KBD>d</KBD>. <BR>
And for the csh family you would type:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>cat >>~/.cshrc
setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH
^D
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
On the mac you may also want to download the <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/environmentvariablepreferencepane.html">environment
preference plugin</a> and install the environment variable there. Note if you
ssh into your mac this setting will not be noticed.
<H3>
<A NAME="Starting">Starting</A> fontforge from the command line
</H3>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<KBD><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>fontforge font.pfa font2.sfd font3.ttf font4.otf
</KBD>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
will start fontforge looking at the fonts you specify on the command line.
It can read either pfb or pfa fonts, and some ps fonts (type 0 fonts based
on a type 1 dictionary) as well as truetype fonts, open type fonts and many
other formats.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<KBD><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>fontforge -new</KBD>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
will cause fontforge to create a new font (in iso-8859-1 encoding)
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<KBD><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>fontforge</KBD>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
will open up a file picker dialog and allow you to browse till you've found
a font file (or have created a new one).
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<KBD><FONT COLOR="Gray">$ </FONT>fontforge -script script.pe fonts...</KBD>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
This will invoke fontforge in a non-interactive mode, and have it run the
named script. Any further arguments on the command line will be passed as
arguments to the script and processed (or not) by it.
<P>
<HR>
<H2>
Reporting <A NAME="Bugs">Bugs</A>
</H2>
<P>
Please report bugs by sending an e-mail to
<A HREF="mailto:fontforge-devel@lists.sourceforge.net">fontforge-devel@lists.sourceforge.net</A>
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