FontLab is a

font editor A font editor is a class of application software specifically designed to create or modify font files. Font editors differ greatly depending on if they are designed to edit bitmap fonts or outline fonts. Most modern font editors deal with the ou ...

developed by Fontlab Ltd. FontLab is available for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

History

The software was initially developed by the company SoftUnion Ltd. of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, under lead programmer Yuri Yarmola. In 1992, Pyrus North America Ltd. was formed in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to distribute and market FontLab 2.0 for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

which released in 1993. Pyrus North America eventually bought all the rights to FontLab, hired Yarmola, then restructured as Fontlab Ltd., Inc. The company is distributed, but programming is still done primarily by a Russian team, partly in St. Petersburg, while the company is incorporated in Panama. FontLab's first macOS product was FontLab 3 for Mac which released in 1998. FontLab Studio 5 was the first issued for both Mac and Windows. Although initially Windows versions always came first, the two versions have released simultaneously since the release of FontLab 6 (VI). Additionally, FontLab has developed spinoff font editors for specific markets. TypeTool, a simplified version of FontLab Studio, is designed as a budget, entry-level typeface editor, which serves simple features for small projects. In the past, AsiaFont Studio (or ''Fontlab Composer'') was a more sophisticated version of Fontlab, with features for editing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts. These functions are now included in FontLab Studio since version 5.1.

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...

features for complex scripts like

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

, and Thai are not directly supported but can be added throug
Microsoft’s Volt
FontLab also created a line of font creation and conversion utilities for its formerly decentralised font app system at the time. ScanFont, a tool for converting scans and bitmaps of glyphs into vector glyphs, was part of FontLab 2, but in the next version, it was split off and became a stand-alone application. With the release of FontLab VI, the ScanFont functionality was again integrated into the main application. Next came TransType, a font converter for moving fonts between

TrueType TrueType is an Computer font#Outline fonts, outline font standardization, standard developed by Apple Inc., Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe Inc., Adobe's PostScript fonts#Type 1, Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the ...

, and Type 1 formats and between Macintosh and Windows platforms. A few shorter-lived and more specialized font converters followed: FONmaker, for converting vector fonts into bitmaps; FontFlasher, for converting “normal” vector fonts into pixelated vector fonts for low-resolution display in Flash apps; and FogLamp, for converting native Fontographer files into modern formats. (Newer versions of FontLab Studio, FontLab VI, and FontLab 7 can now open recent Fontographer files directly.)

Fontographer Fontographer is a font editor for Windows and macOS; it is used to create digital fonts. It was originally developed by Altsys but is now owned by FontLab Ltd. History Altsys Corporation In December 1984, James R. Von Ehr II founded the Alt ...

by Altsys, another independent font development tool, ceased development after its acquisition by

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Adobe Flash, Flash and Adobe Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its riv ...

. During Macromedia's acquisition by

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

in 2005, Macromedia sold Fontographer's rights and code to FontLab Ltd.

Release history

* FontLab 8: 26 June 2022 (Mac and Windows) * FontLab 7: 30 November 2019 (Mac and Windows) * FontLab VI: 8 December 2017 (Mac and Windows) * TypeTool 3: 28 March 2007 (Mac and Windows) * FontLab Studio 5: 12 December 2005 (Mac), Nov 2005 (Windows) * FontLab 4: 3 December 2001 (Windows) * FontLab 3: 1 June 1998 (Windows), 1 April 1999 (Mac) * TypeTool: 8 August 1997 (Windows)

Deprecated and discontinued products

* AsiaFont Studio (formerly FontLab Composer) – font editor for professional typeface designers of CJK fonts, or other fonts with exceptionally large glyph counts. Its functions were rolled into FontLab Studio 5.1 and later. * Photofont – a technology/format for creating bitmap fonts with color, texture and transparency and using them in page layout and website design * SigMaker – a simple utility for adding a single character to a TrueType font * FONmaker – a font converter that makes bitmap fonts from TrueType fonts * FontFlasher – a font converter that optimizes fonts for display at small sizes and low resolution * FogLamp – a font converter that converts Fontographer .fog files into several different modern formats

External links

*
FontLab product page

References

{{Reflist Vector graphics editors Font editors

History

Release history

Deprecated and discontinued products

See also

Further reading

External links

References