Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType

Welcome to the Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType (AFDKO).

The goal of the Adobe Font Development Kit for OpenType package is to share the tools used by Adobe font developers for wrapping up PostScript fonts as OpenType/CFF font files, and adding OpenType layout features. These tools are used for in-house development of new Adobe OpenType fonts. Use them at your own risk, and with no guarantee of support! We know that they work for the fonts Adobe makes, but have tested only part of what it is possible to express with OpenType. Note! Although the FDK directory tree contains a number of Python scripts, none of them can be used by double-clicking on them; they can only be successfully called as commands from a command-line window (the "Terminal" program on Mac, the "cmd" or "DOS" program on Windows).

Note also that the AFDKO is for adding OpenType data to existing fully-designed PostScript fonts, and for proofing them. It does not offer tools for designing or editing glyphs. The proofing tools work with TrueType-based source fonts, but the makeotf, checkOutlines, and autohint tools work only with PostScript source fonts or OpenType fonts with Postscript outlines.

There is a user forum for discussing issues with the FDK tools at "http://www.adobeforums.com", under the name OpenType Font Developers User Forum, and another at http://typophile.com/node/28277. Please send bug reports for the FDK to opentype-info@adobe.com. Questions of general interest should be asked on the OpenType Font Developers User Forum. Please do NOT ask AFDKO specific questions on the opentype list.

The latest version of the FDK, available via the download links, is now FDK 2.0 build 26. This release fixes important installation issues and a few important bugs from build 21. Build 21 has many changes since FDK version v1.6. The FDK 2.0 requires Mac OSX 10.3.x or later, or Windows XP or Windows 2000. The Mac download was compressed with Stuffit 10.1; if you cannot unpack it, make sure that you have the latest version of Stuffit.

Important Notes for users of FDK 1.6

• FDK 2.0 now supports OS/2 table v4. Please read the "MakeOTFUserGuide.pdf" about this.
• The project file format has changed.
• The default feature file script tag for makeotf is now the "DFLT" script rather than the "latn" script. This has several consequences.
  • To get the same script/language coverage as before, you need to explicitly specify "languagesystem latn dflt;". Please read "OT Feature File Syntax.html" on this.
  • If you used language tags without previously specifying the "latn" script explicitly, makeotf will report an error, as the "DFLT" script tag can only be used with the language tag "dflt".
  • FontLab 4 and 5 use the makeotf library from FDK1.6, so they will not support the script tag "DFLT".

Major changes in FDK v2.0 build 26, built April 27 2007, since build 21.

• FDK can now be installed on Windows without conflicting with a FontLab+different Python.
• The AutoHint and Check Outlines scripts for FontLab now work with Python2.4 and 2.3, and all required modules are supplied in the Windows version.
• FDK can now be installed on Windows without conflicting with a FontLab+different Python.
• More tests added to compareFamily.
• Added new tool, kernCheck. This will report collisions between kern pairs, and will report when kern rules in one subtable mask rules in another subtable.
• More bug fixes, including important changes to makeotf and autohint. See the file "FDKReleaseNotes.txt".

Major changes in FDK v2.0 build 21, built Aug 31 2006

All the tools are now command-line only. We dropped the GUI wrappers because there are now CJK users, and the various Python UI toolkits still do not offer full Unicode support, and because FontLab does a better job.

• Made the AFDKO a stand-alone package: download it, follow the instructions in the "Read_Me_First.html" file, and you are done. It is now independent of the version of Python that you may or may not have installed
• Added support for contextual positioning rules in the makeotf and spot tools. See "Feature File Syntax.html" and the program documentation for the details of what is supported and what is not.
• Added support for the "DFLT" script tag.
• Fixed MakeOTF so that the "size" feature is built correctly.
• Support anticipated change to the OpenType spec for the OS/2 table: allows setting the OS/2 table version to 4, and setting bits 7 and 8 in the fsSelection field.
• Finally ported to the FDK all the Adobe-developed tools used by the Adobe font developers. The new tools are:
  • autohint, stemHist: Adobe auto-hinting tools
  • checkOutlines: glyph outline validation
  • mergeFonts: merge fonts, rename glyphs
  • rotateFont: rotateand/or translate glyphs
  • charsetplot, digiplot, fontplot, fontsetplot, hintplot, waterfallplot:
    some standard outline proof formats, output to PDF.
• Most of the scripts now have an OpenSource license, so that you adapt them as you like.
• Many bug fixes: see the file "FDKReleaseNotes.txt" for details.