problems using ttf fonts, os x 10.4

[jugalkalita]

I am trying to install several Windows ttf fonts on my Mac OS X 10.4 machine. I am using Font Book to do so. Here are some of the fonts I am trying to install: http://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/bengalifonts.html . I am unable to install any although many Web pges I have looked at says I should be able to use them easily. In some cases, when I try to intstall a font, it says "Missing OpenType Data". In some cases, it installs the font without complaining, but shows only English characters, not the characters in Assamese/Bengali that I want. I would really appreciate some help in getting the fonts installed.

[Raven]

Directly from the bottom of the page you linked us to:

Rendering issues: Mac vs. PC The fonts recommended on this page have been tested for functionality on PCs running Windows XP/2000/2003/NT. They are unsuitable for use with Macintosh computers, because they make use of OpenType technology, developed jointly by Microsoft and Adobe, for displaying vowel signs (matras) and ligatures appropriately. While OS X also recognizes OpenType layout tables, it uses a different rendering engine (ATSUI), and these fonts are written for Microsoft's engine (called Uniscribe).

[jugalkalita]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. But, I checked several Web sites that talk about Mac fonts, and they all seem to say Microsoft OpenType fonts should work with Mac OS X 10.4. So, I thought these fonts will work.

Now, that I know they won't work, is there a tool I can download or buy which can create Mac compatible fonts out of them?

Thanks!

Jugal

[jbc]

You could try the free FontForge (http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/) to see if it will work to convert the fonts. You'll need to have X11 installed to run FontForge. It's probably easiest to use a precompiled binary or to install with fink or darwinports.

[jugalkalita]

Hi jbc,

Thanks for your reply above. I downloaded FontForge and installed it. There was no problem installing it. However, after installing FontForge, I tried to run X. Now, X won't come up. It gives me a small error/warning window saying
---------
The application X11 quite unexpectedly.

Mac OSX and other applications are not affected.

Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more details or send a report to Apple.

Close Report Reopen
---------

I am not sure what happened. Do I have to reinstall X? Did it get corrupted somehow?

Thanks!

Jugal

[jbc]

To be honest, I've never had X11 quit unexpectedly on me before, so I'm not sure what to make of your error.

My darwinports-installed FontForge runs just fine; did you by chance try the precompiled binaries available at the link I gave you? If so, it may be that some of the dependency requirements are not met on your system, and they've not include all the necessary binaries for you to run FontForge.

These dependencies apparently include: libpng, libungif, libtiff, libjpeg, XFree86, and freetype, and optionally autotrace or potrace, libxml2, and libuninameslist, based on the port file.

If you are missing these, you can again use fink or darwinports to install them, but frankly I'm surprised that X11 did not give you a more informative error message. Without more detail, it's hard to know what the cause of your unexpected quit might be. Did you use Console to see if Crashreporter provided any useful information?