6. True Type to Type 1 Conversion

6.1. Why ?

or perhaps the right question to ask is ``why not ?'' The typical Linux user has experienced a migration from Windows, and probably has an enormous collection of TrueType fonts. Many of these fonts ( eg those that ship with MS Word and Corel's products ) are of fairly good quality. However, some Linux applications, such as Star Office and LaTeX do not support TrueType fonts, but do support Type 1 fonts. update: it looks like Star Office can handle TrueType fonts, but I'm still trying to work out the details. At best, it involves some fairly gruesome hacks. This is a pity, because with ghostscript support for TrueType, and TrueType font servers, Linux has the infrastructure it needs to handle TrueType.

6.2. How ?

To convert your TrueType fonts into Type 1 fonts, go to http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/ and get ttf2pt1. To convert a TrueType to a Type 1 font, use the following syntax:

ttf2pt1 -b file.ttf name

Where name is the name of the file corresponding to the new Type 1 font ( ie it's arbitrary. It's a good idea to make it the same as the ttf file. eg ttf2pt1 -b foo.ttf foo.

Well, that worked fine for one font. If we have a lot, we need a smarter way to do it. One can just just use a loop:

for X in *.ttf; do ttf2pt1 -b $X ${X%%.ttf}; done

Alternatively, you can download the ttfutils package and use ttf2type1 for the conversions.

ttf2type1 *.ttf