Bitmap / Raster Fonts for Print

Wei Huang
Wei Huang Posts: 98
in Font Technology
Is it possible to make bitmap/raster fonts with high enough resolution for print? (e.g. 800–1200px high letters)? I wasn't sure how high resolution sbix apple fonts can go.
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  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    I'm curious, what software can reliably deploy bitmap fonts these days?
  • Rob Barba
    Rob Barba Posts: 86
    edited March 2019
    Hrant H. Papazian said:
    I'm curious, what software can reliably deploy bitmap fonts these days?

    The one I've seen used most by indie game devs is Pentacom's BitFontMaker.  There's also Font Generator (though that's really more of a converter).  On the more professional (i.e. non-indie) side, there's BitFontCreator.

    Of course, these are all meant for software, so my guess (since I've never used it) is only the last one may be print-capable.

  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    edited March 2019
    It's good to know about those, but I meant "regular" software that people can use to design documents.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,011
    edited March 2019
    In the absence of other suggestions, I would have assumed that the bitmap glyphs are intended to be inserted into one of the more recent OpenType variants that supports such things—OpenType-SVG or OpenType-SBIX, most likely. OpenType-SBIX works in many Mac apps, and OpenType-SVG works quite a lot of places.

    This chart is a few months outdated (I just updated it, but it will need to get republished), but gives you a good sense of the support out there: https://help.fontlab.com/fontlab-vi/Color-Font-Formats/

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