The Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType (AFDKO or simply FDK) is a set of command line tools that Adobe makes freely available for font developers to help with production and testing. If, like me, you’ve struggled with FontLab’s glitches only to end up with incompatible font names, duplicate encodings or extra features you didn’t write, FDK seems like a better way to do things. Unlike glyph-editing software like FontLab, Fontographer, Glyphs or DTL BezierMaster, the FDK’s strength is in directly wrangling your fonts’ behind-the-scenes properties, such as naming and compiling extensive font families (especially from multiple masters), scripting the OpenType code that FontLab can’t manage, and comparing stem widths to expedite hinting. Continue reading
Tag Archives: OpenType
Exploring Burmese
Last week Nance Cunningham joined us in the Department to talk about the Burmese script. Nance works as a lexicographer, working on English-Burmese dictionaries, so is familiar with the difficulties of Burmese fonts. She stayed a couple of nights, which meant she could give me quite a comprehensive understanding of the Burmese letters and how they should work together. Continue reading