UPDATE: Windows users, you now have a version too. More details on the new project page.
This post is no longer up-to-date. Please go to the DfontSplitter project page.
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Mac OS X does some weird things sometimes. One of these is that some fonts are packaged in a format with a .dfont extension. This format allows multiple files to be contained within one dfont file, but doesn’t really make an awful lot of sense to me (why not just use a standard bundle?).
But anyway, there’s a BSD-licensed program called Fondu, designed to split these dfont files so you can get at the goodies inside. That’s all very well and good, but it’s a command line program, so not everyone will be comfortable using it.
As a sort of messing about with AppleScript project, I’ve put together an AppleScript based application that wraps around Fondu and allows you to pick a dfont file, pick a destination folder and it will do the rest.
Here’s a video of it in action. It’s simple enough not to need one, but if you want to see how it works before downloading…
Download now (120 KB)
Enjoy.
UPDATE: Please note that DfontSplitter is only tested on Mac OS X Leopard, 10.5. It should work on both Tiger (10.4) and Leopard (10.5), but is known not to work on Panther. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to fix it for Panther, as I only have an Intel Mac.
It looked all very promising. Just what I wanted. But the result was just a message that louded (in Dutch ‘Het woordenboek van het programma of de uitbreiding kan niet worden geopend omdat het niet scriptgeschikt is.’ The Sherlock tranlation is more or less: The dictionary of the program or the extension cannot be opened
because it’s not the script-suitable.
Activated in Scriptmaker it a panel shows this:
sh: line 1: /Applications/AppleScript/dFontSplitter.app/Contents/Resources/fondu: No such file or directory
And on the same moment Scriptmaker selects the last rule:
do shell script “cd \”” & posixDestFolder & “\”;\”” & posixFonduLocation & “\” \”” & posixDfontFile & “\””
Maybe do you know what went wrong?
I hope this description will be a help.
This looks like an issue with the, admittedly rather hacky, detection of the current folder and therefore the location of the fondu script.
A few questions:
If those steps don’t throw something up, then please zip up your copy of the program in /Applications/AppleScript and email it to me and I’ll see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary.
I have a feeling this could be due to me failing to make the Universal Binary properly (as you’re on PPC, and I only have an Intel Mac, that’s the only place I can test).
Anyway, if you get back to me with these things, I’ll see where I can go from there to try and get it working for you.
When I open dfontsplitter.dmg it shows: The Applications alias, dFontSplitter (Info shows under name en extension dFontSplitter.app) and Readme. I put dFontSplitter in The Applications folder and changed nothing.
Cliccking on fondu file activates Terminal with this: Last login: Mon Apr 21 15:56:14 on ttyp2
/Applications/dFontSplitter.app/Contents/Resources/fondu; exit
Welcome to Darwin!
Computer-van-Cyriel-van-Doren:~ office1$ /Applications/dFontSplitter.app/Contents/Resources/fondu; exit
dyld: /Applications/dFontSplitter.app/Contents/Resources/fondu Undefined symbols:
/Applications/dFontSplitter.app/Contents/Resources/fondu undefined reference to ___stderrp expected to be defined in /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
Trace/BPT trap
logout
[Proces voltooid] (Means: proces accomplished)
My OSX version is 10.3.9
Here the system info:
Computermodel: Power Mac G4 (AGP-video)
Processortype: PowerPC G4 (2.9)
Aantal processors: 1
Processorsnelheid: 400 MHz
L2-cache (per processor): 1 MB
Geheugen: 704 MB
Bussnelheid: 100 MHz
Opstart-ROM-versie: 4.2.8f1
Serienummer: CK0123WVHSE
Thank you for your efforts.
By email you’ll receive the programs I found in my AppleScript map.
Thanks Peter! This is exactly what I needed. Easy.
@Cyriel van Doren
I’ve identified that dFontSplitter is incompatible with Panther, and I’ve emailed you about it.
Thanks for this. Just what I needed for sIFR.
I downloaded dfontsplitter, clicked the icon, was asked to select a file, which I did….then nothing happened….
@pamela – Which stage did it ask you for a file? The first time (when it asks you for the source file) or the destination folder?
If it’s the latter, DfontSplitter does its work automatically, and doesn’t provide notification that it has done.
Check the destination folder you specified in the last step for the TTF files.
If it’s not that, and nothing comes up at the first stage (asking you for the source file) let me know here or by email and I’ll try and work with you to track the issue down.
Awesome man! Thanks, It Helped a ton! Exactly what I needed!
Thanks, thanks, thanks! 🙂
This is an anwser to 40mins of searching in google for just this. Thank you heaps. Great job! 😀
Kudos! Found via a quick Google, and worked as advertised without difficulty. The UI could be happier, but really, what’s to complain about? Thanks!
Excellent! Works perfectly! THANK YOU : )
Thank you thank you thank you! I am grateful for generous and savvy people like you. Keep up the good work!
Tried to run this on Intel Mac Mini running Tiger 10.4.11 but the script aborted on
“The command exited with a non-zero status”.
Any ideas?
kim,
Can you email me, including any relevant output from Console.app in /Applications/Utilities so I can see exactly what went wrong?
Relevant lines should be at the bottom of the log marked ‘applet’.
Sweet! Thanks for this. We use .ttfs embedded in Flex applications and linking .dfont files does NOT work. 🙂
Fantastic job! Outstanding! Just the thing I needed and did it quickly and directly too. Its great to know that there are people out there who are every bit as thoughtful and gererous as they are clever.
Thanks again
Hi,
guess it is a very nice programm:) Unfortunatly I got the same error like kim. Is there any (standart) solution yet?
best
regards
1. I opened Applications
2. I clicked on FONT BOOK (it does not open further to allow me to pick a particular font)
3. So I copied the Zapfino.dfont file and put into my applications folder.
4. Clicked on dfontSplitter and it asks me to choose a font first
5. I clicked on the Zapfino.dfont
6. Then asks me to choose a destination folder which I did (folder on desktop called Font Splitter)
7. then I got the following message: “The command exited with a non-zero status”
As you can probably tell from my “computer language” here that I am not a super savy computer type. I am trying to get this font ttf file so I can transfer it to my PC side and do a wedding invitation up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Marilyn B Edmonton Alberta Canada
very good! thank you for sharing this.
Wow. Thanks! That was really easy. I actually downloaded, installed, and ran the app before you even finished talking about it. Now THAT’S a well made app, sir!
Thanks again! =)
Works beautifully…thanks so much for putting time into this and sharing. I looked all over the web for something like this and yours works perfect. Thank you!
KUDOS! Great work. Lil question, how can I convert Zipfino.dfont to bold? I need this for a button for a website.
Robin,
Unfortunately this isn’t possible. The authors of the font simply didn’t include a bold version of the typeface in the file.
Some applications may emulate a bold effect in absence of a real bold version of the font, but I’m not aware of a way to ‘extract’ that into a separate file.
Thankyou! Exactly what I was looking for and worked like a charm
Love that you’ve done this but can’t get usable .ttf files; it splits but when trying to install the fonts on Windows Vista, I get an error message stating that the font is not a valid True Type Font.
Any suggestions?
Apryl,
Have you tried the steps with FontForge as detailed in this post?
Works like a charm! Great to simple enter “convert dfont to ttf” in Google and this was the first hit! Thanks so much, Peter! (Of course, I then had to donate! It’s worth it.)
Thank you very much for this. It’s a very useful tool, and it’s enabled me to finally get the fonts I want into the PHP PDF-generating class FPDF. This in turn enables me to get PHP to generate PDF documents that look the way I want them. And all because of your script! Thanks again,
Tom
Hi – this looks like a lifesaver solution. Trouble is that when I click Convert for the .dfont file and select to open the destination folder upon completion, there’s nothing there. Well, my pre-existing TTF files are there, but the new one’s simply nonexistant. I’ve retried a few times. This is in Windows Vista.
Fantastic! Just what I needed to get Helvetica and some of the other .dfont fonts from /System/Library/Fonts working in Inkscape. Thank you!
That’s great! Thank you for the utility.
Thank for your script. For me it works very well!