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Topic: Font hackery (Read 5092 times) previous topic - next topic

Font hackery

I'm fiddling with the Boxmarks font, adding some characters.  I'm using Corel Draw (version 8), which lets me manipulate characters, replacing or adding them to an existing font.  What I haven't figured out is how to change the name of the font (not the name of the .ttf file, but the name that shows up in font tables).  Can anyone enlighten me?

Cyril

Re: Font hackery

Reply #1 –
***WARNING: This advice is for experts only, who are willing to accept the risk that something may go wrong. A file that has been hex edited may fail to work. Only edit a duplicate of the desired file, so that you can use the original if your modification fails. Never edit a system file. Do not attempt to circumvent protection or encryption.***

Get the "frhed" free hex editor v.1.0.156 from

http://www.kibria.de/frhed.html

I haven't tried the more recent v.1.1.

Some privacy software (such as Pest Patrol) may warn you when you start frhed. That is because any hex editor is a dangerous tool, and may also be sometimes used by hackers. In this case, hacking is what you want to do!

Using a duplicate of the font:

(1) Replace all occurences of "Boxmarks" or "Boxmark2" with something such as "Myboxmod" [the internal name that you wish]. Be sure that you use the same number of letters, in this case 8.

(2) Look in the right-hand column of frhed, where the file is displayed in readable format. You will see several instances of "B.o.x.m.a.r.k.s" or "B.o.x.m.a.r.k.2" where the period actually means a non-visual character.

If you double-click a letter, it will blink. Type in a changed letter. So, the result would be "M.y.b.o.x.m.o.d" or whatever it is supposed to be.

If that doesn't work for you, get back to me.

Re: Font hackery

Reply #2 –
One more thing: After making the modifications, "Save as" a new file name before exiting frhed.

Re: Font hackery

Reply #3 –
Thanks, I'll try it with the hex editor.  I basically tried that using a text editor (EditPad), but either I missed an instance, or it munged some of the non-printing character (though I usually is pretty well behaved).

Cyril

Re: Font hackery

Reply #4 –
Did you look at the Free Font Tools web site? Did nothing they have work for you?

Re: Font hackery

Reply #5 –
Cyril: A text editor won't do the job. Must be a hex editor.

Adam: I believe that Cyril is just doing a "once" thing, for which obtaining and learning a new program (free or otherwise) would be a nuisance.

Re: Font hackery

Reply #6 –
Corel works fine but just make a 'new' font, add your new characters and any others you need and give it a name 'myfont' or whatever. Or as someone else said copy the font you want to change to another folder and call it 'font2' and then add to that.

Re: Font hackery

Reply #7 –
I could not find any free font editors at that site.
I've been using Softy, which is the least expensive one there, but it has many limitations, and has been causing me some weird problems.  I don't want to pay for anything else unless I know it's gonna work for me.  If I ever do finish this (set of) fonts, I hope to make them available to the NoteWorthy community, as payback for all they've done for me.
But it's not gonna happen unless I get a good font editor.
Any other suggestions?

Re: Font hackery

Reply #8 –
I use TypeTool. Not cheap. Works.

Re: Font hackery

Reply #9 –
Any other suggestions?

Well, if you were creating PostScript fonts rather than .ttf, I would. You could get t1utils. With that, you could convert your font to an ASCII file, so you could just edit the font name with a plain text editor (not a word processor, an editor), and then convert it back to a regular .pfb Type 1 PostScript font.