BitFonter 2, from Fontlab Ltd., is said to allow creative professionals, software developers and hardware manufacturers "to fully unleash the power and flexibility of bitmap fonts". A Macintosh OS X version is available now, with a Windows version under development.
While fonts are more typically thought of as being outline in nature, bitmap fonts in recent years have attracted increasing attention, typically in situations where maximum legibility at small screen sizes is important. The major new addition to BitFonter 2 is the support of pixel fonts, which allow crisp font quality in Macromedia Flash animations, although one of FontLab's outline font editors is also necessary to create these.
BitFonter 2 users can also create and modify monochrome, grayscale or full-color bitmap fonts that can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as print publications, Web pages, animations, computer games, printers and imaging devices, mobile electronic devices, phones and electronic displays. Fonts created with BitFonter 2 can be used on all desktop operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS and Linux, as well as on a variety of mobile operating systems.
BitFonter 2 includes improved support for the XML-based Photofont technology that allows designers to create full-color fonts with transparency for use on Web pages and in Adobe Photoshop. However, displaying Photofonts in Web browsers will require a free plugin, which will be automatically invoked and downloaded when a Web page using Photofonts is loaded.
To display Photofonts in Photoshop you'll need to purchase a plugin from Fontlab. Spokesman Ted Harrison told Graphics.com that: "We have plugins for Photoshop and Illustrator (and more coming for InDesign and XPress) which allow the user to use Photofonts in those applications just as if they were regular TrueType or Type 1 fonts. These will probably cost in the US $25-75 range. We're hoping to have the complete suite of plugins ready by early next year."
Other new features in version 2 include kerning support for the industry-standard BDF format, a new metrics and kerning editor and improved image import, so scanned alphabets can be quickly converted into fully-functional fonts.
BitFonter 2 for Mac OS X retails for $499.00, with upgrades from version 1 available for $99.00. The program can be purchased directly from the Fontlab site at www.fontlab.com . |
