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djsound

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 4, 2006
791
17
I want to design my own font...is there some good mac soft are for that?? thanks
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
There are several font editors for the Mac, but there are only two that matter:
  1. FontLab Studio—This is the whole nine yards. If you are a professional type designer, then this is your font editor.
  2. Fontographer—This editor was originated by Altsys, the developer of such venerable Mac applications as PageMaker and Freehand. Fontographer was the font editor for Macs running System 6 and System 7. It languished under Macromedia after it bought-out Altsys. Fontographer languished but was not forgotten. Adobe agreed to license the editor for sale by FontLab. Despite the fact that FontLab already had FontLab Studio, it acquired Fontographer and has resumed development including the first MacOS X version.
 

tubular

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2011
1,289
3,107
fontforge

Fontforge is a great program, but it is five flavors of grizzly bear to get it to install on OS X.
 

MisterMe

macrumors G4
Jul 17, 2002
10,709
69
USA
The OP asked for font editors for the Mac. Among the editors suggested:
  1. gbdfed is primarily a Linux application. It is a bitmap font editor for X Windows.
  2. Private Character Editor is Microsoft's built-in font utility for Windows.
  3. FontForge is an opensource editor that is downloadable as source code. It handles a variety of font formats.
  4. Softy Font Editor is a Windows application.
  5. FontCreator is a Windows font editor.
  6. CR8type is a Windows font editor.
The OP did not ask for Windows and Linux applications.
 

Moonjumper

macrumors 68030
Jun 20, 2009
2,740
2,908
Lincoln, UK
I've been using FontForge. It is a bit clunky, and is has quite a few bugs that cause it to crash, but they are consistent bugs. It is not random bugs. One you know something will cause a crash, you don't do it again.

It isn't perfect, but if it being free is important, then it does the job.
 

lucasberg

macrumors member
Mar 6, 2011
31
0
Stockholm
I use Illustrator, mainly because I am most used to it, and prefer its tools. The great thing about Fontographer is that you can drag and drop your Illustrator-made letters directly in to the program and do the kerning and export there, if you prefer drawing in Illustrator.
 
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