Making Newton OS Fonts

There are two ways that TrueType fonts for the Newton OS can be made using
tools available from Apple.

One is to use the Newton Font Tool. This is available for download from the
Newton developer site.

The Newton Font Tool is the simplest way to make a font for the Newton.
Unfortunately, it has a number of disadvantages:

  1. It is not a supported Apple font tool. No further bugs will be fixed in
     the Newton Font Tool.
  2. It only works on fonts which already have standard Mac OS bitmaps
     ('NFNT' resources).
  3. It only works on fonts which use the standard MacRoman character
     repertoire. In particular, it uses the pre-Mac OS 8.5 MacRoman
     character repertoire, which provides support for the Universal Currency
     Symbol but not the Euro Symbol.

Alternatively, there are a number of free tools provided by Apple intended
for use on TrueType fonts for the Mac OS. It is possible to create Newton
fonts using these tools. The main disadvantages are:

  1. It's necessary to use more than one tool.
  2. The tools are not currently intended for the creation of fonts for the
     Newton OS. This means that some hand-tweaking will be necessary. Future
     releases of these tools will provide more direct support for Newton OS
     fonts.

This document describes how to use these Mac OS font tools to make fonts for
the Newton. It is strongly recommended that people who use these techniques
familiarize themselves with TrueType fonts using Apple's on-line TrueType
font documentation and the Newton font specification.

The Newton and Unicode

The Newton provides, in theory, full support for the Unicode character set.
(For more information, you can visit The Unicode Consortium's Web site or
look over the Unicode code charts.)

In practice, without the ability to reliable input Unicode characters
outside of what the standard Newton keyboards provide or include them in
books, there will be a temptation to provide support for much of Unicode by
reusing the Roman code points. (For example, you may be tempted to provide
support for Zapf Dingbats that way, even though Unicode has a Zapf Dingbats
block separate from the Roman block.)

As a member of the Unicode Consortium, Apple strongly encourages Newton font
developers to provide proper support for the Unicode Standard in their
Newton fonts.

Note, however, that the Newton OS doesn't support Unicode's bidirectional
algorithm and doesn't provide for right-to-left text in general or glyph
reordering and other sophisticated layout mechanisms required by South Asian
scripts. Still, there's a lot of Unicode you cando on the Newton as is.

What tools you need

There are four tools which will be useful or needed to make Newton fonts.
This document doesn't detail how the individual tools are used; see the
documentation for the tools themselves for that information.

[Image] Fissioner. Fissioner can be used to generate bitmap fonts from
outlines. This tool will be needed if your font has only outlines and no
bitmaps ('NFNT' resources). Warning! Fissioner requires QuickDraw GX!

[Image] Fuser. Fuser embeds bitmaps in a TrueType font. It can accept either
standard 'NFNT' bitmaps or the output of Fissioner.

[Image] AATFontTool. This is a workhorse tool that examines a font and adds
all kinds of useful tables. The only one which is of interest to Newton font
developers is the Unicode cmap.

[Image] TrueEdit. TrueEdit is a general purpose TrueType table editor. It
lets you make virtually any change you want to a TrueType file. Like its
even more general-pupose cousin, ResEdit, it's very powerful and very
dangerous.

Some related tools you may also find useful

[Image] DumpCMAP. The DumpCMAP tool allows you to dump the contents of a
font's 'cmap' table into a text file, which you can then edit. The edited
file can subsequently be used as input to the FuseCMAP tool. (You can also
use DumpCMAP's cojoined twin, DumpCMAPPost.)

[Image] FuseCMAP. The FuseCMAP tool allows you to replace one of the mapping
tables in a font's 'cmap' table with new contents, which you specify via a
text file. To create this text file, you can use the DumpCMAP tool. Note
that FuseCMAP won't create a new 'cmap' in a font for you; you have to use
AATFontTool or TrueEdit to do that.

[Image] DumpPOST. The DumpPOST tool allows you to dump the set of names
defined in a font's 'post' table into a text file, which you can then edit.
The edited file can subsequently be used as input to the AAT Font Tool.

[Image] SbitEditor. SbitEditor is a tool for visually editing font sbit

data. It also handles 'NFNT' to sbit conversion. Warning! The current
version of SbitEditor can't edit fonts produced by the Newton Font Tool.
(This is strictly speaking a bug in the Newton Font Tool and its output, but
a future release of SbitEditor will include a workaround.)

A note about copyrights

Fonts are copyrightable and copyrighted. It is illegal to distribute other
people's intellectual property without their permission. Do not use Apple's
tools to create Newton versions of fonts which you then distribute without
the permission of the original font designer.

What you need to do

The goal in making font for the Newton OS is to start with a Macintosh Font
suitcase containing a TrueType font and end with a ResEdit file containing a
TrueType font. You can then proceed to follow the steps outlined in the
documentation for the Newton Font Tool.

Step 1. Embed bitmaps in your TrueType font

If your font already has Macintosh bitmaps in the form of 'NFNT' resources,
you can use Fuser directly at this point to embed them in your TrueType
font. If not, you can use Fissioner to create bitmaps and Fuser to embed the
result in your font. (Reminder: Fissioner requires QuickDraw GX.)

Step 2. Add a Unicode cmap

If you've already got a Unicode cmap, you may want to skip this step. Or
not. Running the AATFontTool over your font may reveal some problems with
your Unicode cmap you didn't know about.

The best way to add a Unicode cmap is with the AATFontTool. This is a very
sophisticated font updating engine which will scan your font and, with a
fair amount of intelligence, determine what Unicode code points are covered
by your font, adding a Unicode cmap to cover them.

Alternatively, you can use TrueEdit to create a Unicode cmap. Just select
your Macintosh cmap and duplicate it. The result can be edited with TrueEdit
rather clumsily, or more easily by using DumpCMAP/FuseCMAP.

Step 3. Tweak your font

The Newton OS uses some fields in the 'bloc' table which the Mac OS doesn't.
The current versions of Fuser and SbitEditor are designed specifically for
Mac OS fonts and so do not set these fields. You'll have to do it by hand.

Open your font with TrueEdit. Double click on the 'bloc' table. You get a
large and ugly dialog:

                                   [Image]

The tweak needs to be made in the horizontal line metrics. Note that the
fields "maxBeforeBL" and "minAfterBL" have been set to 0. Copy the values of
the "ascender" and "descender" fields into "maxBeforeBL" and "minAfterBL",
respectively. Click on the "Save" button. If you have more than one point
size in your font, click on the "Bigger" button and repeat for every size in
your font.

                                   [Image]

If the font has a 'bhed' table, you'll have to convert it to an 'head'
table. The 'bhed' and 'head' tables are identical. The Macintosh OS uses the
'bhed' table to flag a TrueType font as having only bitmap data and no
outlines; the Newton OS doesn't follow this convention and requires an
'head' table. Double-click on the 'bhed' table to bring up TrueEdit's hex
editor. Select the entire contents of the table and copy them. Now create a
'head' table, and option double-click on it to bring up the hex editor
again. Replace its contents with what you've copied.

While you're using TrueEdit, you'll probably want to make your font smaller
by deleting any unnecessary tables. To delete a table, select it by clicking
on it and then hit the Delete key. Do this for every table except: the
'bdat' table, 'bloc' table, 'cmap' table, 'head' table, 'hhea' table, 'hmtx'
table, 'maxp' table, 'name' table, and 'post' table. You don't have to do
this if you don't want, but it's a good idea on a platform like the Newton
where memory can be at a premium.

Step 4. Turn your suitcase into a resource file

Open your font suitcase and drag the TrueType font out of it. You need to
change its file type to 'rsrc' and creator to 'RSED'. (You have to do this
because the Newton Toolkit only allows you to add text and resource files to
your project.) You can change its type and creator with ResEdit, MPW, or any
of a number of freely available tools.

Step 5. There is no step 5.

You're done. You can now proceed as you would if you had created the font
with the Newton Font Tool.

Printing

Fonts created with this procedure will display correctly on the Newton but
won't work correctly when the time comes to print. I haven't figured out why
yet.

Disclaimer

Apple Computer, Inc. has ceased all development work on the Newton OS.
Apple's Font Group is desirous to provide support for older and deprecated
font formats, such as fonts for the Newton OS, but it is not a part of our
formal charter and responsibilities. We do not and cannot guarantee that
these techniques will work to create Newton OS fonts. They've worked for us,
and we're reasonably confident that they'll work for you.

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Version 1.0.1

John H. Jenkins

Copyright © 1998 by Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.

Last update: 9/24/98 by John H. Jenkins.