Accessibility

Font technical notes

This page offers an index of technical font documentation.

Note: For technical notes about Adobe® Acrobat® and Adobe PDF font topics, such as ToUnicode tables and Widths-only fonts, see Advanced Acrobat/PDF technical documentation.

Documentation is available in the following areas:

Specifications

Type 1 Font Format Supplement #5015 (PDF, 225k)


(supersedes #5047 and #5086)

Adobe Font Metrics File Format Specificationt #5004 (PDF, 238k)


Version 4.1

Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF) Specification #5005 (PDF, 84k)


Version 2.2

Adobe Binary Screen Font Files Specification #5006 (PDF, 41k)


Version 2.0

The Type 42 Font Format Specification #5012 (PDF, 159k)

Adobe Standard Cyrillic Font Specification #5013 (PDF, 336k)

Sonata® Font Design Specification #5045 (PDF, 40k)

The Compact Font Format Specification #5176 (PDF, 510k)

The Type 2 Charstring Format #5177 (PDF, 194k)

CID-Keyed sfnt Font File Format for the Macintosh, version 2.0 #5180 (PDF, 166k)

General Font Issues

Macintosh FOND Resources #0091 (PDF, 106k)

Supporting Downloadable PostScript® Language Fonts #5040 (PDF, 87k)

The StemSnap Hint Operator for Type 1 Font Programs #5049 (PDF, 32k)

Supporting Fonts in the PostScript Language Environment #5075 (PDF, 125k)

Font Naming Issues #5088 (PDF, 182k)

Glyph Naming #5098


Superseded - see Unicode and Glyph Names

Adobe Font Name Reference Table #5090 (PDF, 469k)

Designing Multiple Master Typefaces #5091 (PDF, 3.3M)

Bar Code Font Vendor List #5096 (PDF, 27k)

PostScript 3 Core Font Set Overview #5609 (PDF, 30k)

Font Embedding Guidelines (PDF, 262k)

CJK /CID-keyed fonts

Adobe CMap and CID Font Files Specification #5014 (PDF, 530k)


Version 1.0

Adobe-Japan1-6 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts #5078 (PDF, 10.3M)

Adobe-GB1-5 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts #5079 (PDF, 12.6M)

Describes the Adobe-GB1-5 character collection that supports the Chinese GB 2312-80, GB 1988-89, GB/T 12345-90, GB 13000.1-93, and GB 18030-2005 character set standards, along with the GB 18030-2005 "Yi" regional script. It is for Simplified Chinese implementations.

Adobe-CNS1-5 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts #5080 (PDF, 8.0M)

Describes the Adobe-CNS1-5 character collection that supports the Big Five, CNS 11643-1992 (Planes 1 and 2 only), and Hong Kong SCS-2004 character set standards. It is for Traditional Chinese implementations.

CID-Keyed Font Technology Overview #5092 (PDF, 111k)

Adobe-Korea1-2 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts #5093 (PDF, 6.0M)

Explains the character sets and encodings supported by the various Character Collections and CMap files provided by Adobe.

Adobe CJK Character Collections and CMaps for CID-Keyed Fonts #5094 (PDF, 579k)

Explains the character sets and encodings supported by the various Character Collections and CMap files provided by Adobe.

Adobe-Japan2-0 Character Collection for CID-Keyed Fonts #5097 (PDF, 2.7M)

Provides support for the JIS X 0212-1990 character set standard.

Building CMap Files for CID-Keyed Fonts #5099 (PDF, 276k)

CID-Keyed Font Installation for PostScript File Systems #5174 (PDF, 37k)

Describes how to install CID-keyed fonts and the CID Support Library (CSL) files into PostScript language file systems.

CID-Keyed Font Installation for ATM™ Software #5175 (PDF, 61k)

Describes how to install CID-keyed fonts for use with ATM software for both Macintosh and Windows.

Building PFM Files for PostScript-Language CJK Fonts #5178 (PDF, 140k)

Explains how to build Printer Font Metrics (PFM) files for PostScript language CJK fonts (both OCF and CID-keyed). This document is not a file format specification (which is available from Microsoft), and it does not specifically address building PFM files for Roman fonts.

CID-Keyed sfnt Font File Format for the Macintosh, version 2.0 #5180 (PDF, 166k)

Application Support for PostScript CJK Fonts #5640 (PDF, 172k)

Enabling PDF Font Embedding for CID-Keyed Fonts #5641 (PDF, 47k)

SING Glyphlet Production: Tips, Tricks & Techniques #5148 (PDF, 633k)

OpenType-CID/CFF CJK Fonts: 'name' Table Tutorial #5149 (PDF, 117k)

Building JIS2004-Savvy OpenType Fonts (TAR, 3MB)

PDF core font information

Font Metrics for PDF Core 14 Fonts

Mac (SIT/HQX: 175k)

Win (ZIP: 125k)

Unix (TAR: 640k)

CMaps for PDF CJK Fonts

Chinese Traditional (ZIP: 372k)

Japanese (ZIP: 228k)

Korean (ZIP: 252k)