ttf2pscid2

TTF to PostScript Type 2 CIDFont Converter

Description

This Ghostscript-run script converts TTF to Type 2 CIDFont with 2-byte Unicode CMap encoding, for embedding into PostScript directly as CMap and CIDFont PostScript dictionaries.

PostScript is an excellent language for parsing binary file formats efficiently. This is a pure PostScript program but uses Ghostscript switches for convenience to pass in parameters. Other and better TTF to PS converters exist, notably FontForge scripting, ttftotype42 (maintained) and ttftot42 (dead), but the simple solution here only requires Ghostscript to run, no compilation is involved. Being a Unicode CID-keyed font, rendered text strings are just 2 byte UTF-16 for which conversion from UTF-8 is included.

The TrueType font is wrapped in PostScript syntax as sfnts binary data as for Type 42 base fonts. The CIDMap is compacted to reduce file size and command line options offer further compression.

Subsetting is supported. OpenType/TTF is supported but not OpenType/CFF as yet nor TrueType Collections. Vertical writing mode is not supported.

Basic Multilingual Plane only; surrogate pairs for supplementary characters show as .notdef.
Depends on pslutils files string.ps, file.ps, sort.ps & math.ps.

Usage:

• gs -dQUIET -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE <options> ttf2pscid2.ps

or simply

• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY <options> ttf2pscid2.ps

or (recommended)

• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -- ttf2pscid2.ps '(JSON options)'

e.g.

• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arial.ttf ttf2pscid2.ps
  converts arial.ttf to arial.t42, the .t42 extension indicates Type 42 derived PostScript code

then insert the generated code into a PostScript file and use it as normal, e.g.:

• /ArialMT 10 selectfont to scale and select ArialMT as the font parameter in the graphics state.

Options may be set using Ghostscript parameter switches (-d for definitions and -s for strings):

• -sttf=file and -sttf=dir/ sets the TTF file(s) to convert
  a trailing slash enumerates all files with .ttf or .otf extensions in the specified directory
• -st42=file and -st42=dir/ sets the output filename or directory
  the default output directory is the TTF directory
• -dpsname sets the output basename to the PostScript font name contained in the TTF name table
• -doptimise remaps the glyph index numbering to produce a more compact CIDMap and hence smaller output file
• -ssubset=chars subsets the font to the given UTF-8 characters and sets -doptimise
• -ducs2 interprets the subset characters as 16 bit UCS-2 (UTF-16BE BMP) instead of UTF-8
• -dbinary saves sfnts as binary data instead of ASCII hexadecimal
• -dcompress saves long sfnts strings as zlib/deflate compressed binary data instead of uncompressed and sets -dbinary
• -dcomments comments the sfnts strings for debugging
• -sinc=dir sets the include path for the pslutils dependencies
• -dinfo outputs tab-separated font information to the gs output file specified by -sOutputFile= or -o (- for stdout)
  no conversion will be done if this option is given – it is for gathering font information only

Options may also be set by a JSON-encoded object of key/value pairs, passed as a PostScript string token (in parenthesis) after the script filename (Ghostscript must be called with the -- command line option). JSON-supplied options take precedence over parameter switch values. The advantage of JSON is that Unicode characters represented as ASCII-compatible escapes (like \u0142) transport reliably and PostScript can embed them in a string token if required. I have not tested this project on Windows but on macOS/Linux systems UTF-8 works perfectly both in Ghostscript parameters and unescaped UTF-8 JSON.

Note that PostScript string literals require the three special characters ( ) \ to be backslash-escaped (balanced pairs of parentheses need not be) and " converted to \042 octal escape (because GhostScript versions since 9.23 use double-quotes to protect argument whitespace so they get stripped out, which is arguably the shell’s job but I suppose this is non-standard usage).

This PostScript-escaping must be done on the JSON-encoded string and on any subset string containing ( ) \ or ". Final shell-escaping is also advisable.

The PHP utilities file utils.php shows how to do it in PHP.

Examples:

• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=times.ttf -st42=times.ps ttf2pscid2.ps
  converts times.ttf to times.ps
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=here/ttf/ -st42=there/t42/ ttf2pscid2.ps
  converts all TTFs in here/ttf/ to .t42 files in there/t42/ much faster than converting singly
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=/src/arial.ttf -st42=/dest/ -sinc=/bin/inc/ /bin/ttf2pscid2.ps
  converts /src/arial.ttf saving PostScript file in /dest/ setting include path to /bin/inc/
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arial.ttf -dpsname ttf2pscid2.ps
  converts arial.ttf to say ArialMT.t42 where ArialMT is the PostScript font name given in arial.ttf
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arial.ttf -doptimise -dcompress ttf2pscid2.ps
  compacts and compresses to produce the smallest output file
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arial.ttf -ssubset='Fee: €25 (£22)' ttf2pscid2.ps
  subsets arial.ttf to contain UTF-8 characters ' ():25Fe£€' only (10 CIDs)
• gs -q -o info.txt -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arialbd.ttf -dinfo ttf2pscid2.ps
  writes font information for arialbd.ttf to info.txt, e.g. (tabs shown as |):
  family|filename|fullname|issymbolfont|notice|psname|style|subfamily|trademark|uniqueid|version
Arial|arialbd.ttf|Arial Bold|false|© 2008 The Monotype Corporation.|Arial-BoldMT|Bold|Bold|Arial is a trademark…|Monotype:Arial Bold v5.06|5.06
• gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -- ttf2pscid2.ps '({"ttf":"arial.ttf","subset":"Fee: €25 \(£22\)","compress":true})'
  is the JSON equivalent of
  gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=arial.ttf -ssubset='Fee: €25 (£22)' -dcompress ttf2pscid2.ps
  but as noted above gs strips double-quotes from parameters, so do this (see also utils.php):

  json='{"ttf":"arial.ttf","subset":"Fee: €25 (£22)","compress":true}'
  args=`sed 's/\([()\\\\]\)/\\\\\1/g;s/"/\\\\042/g' <<< "$json"` # escape ( ) \ and "
  gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -- ttf2pscid2.ps "($args)"

Sample

gs -q -o- -dNOSAFER -dNODISPLAY -sttf=Marlborough.ttf -ssubset='Olá mundo' -dcomments ttf2pscid2.ps

produces…

%!PS-TrueTypeFont

/cidmap1 {exch string exch {dup 0 get exch dup length 1 sub 1 exch getinterval 0
3 1 roll {dup 0 lt {2 index 1 add exch neg 1 sub 3 index add}{dup} ifelse 4 -1
roll pop 3 1 roll 1 3 index {3 index exch 2 index exch put 1 add} for} forall
pop pop} forall} bind def

/CIDInit /ProcSet findresource begin
    10 dict begin
        begincmap
        /CMapType 1 def
        /CMapName /Identity-H def
        /CIDSystemInfo << /Registry (Adobe) /Ordering (Identity) /Supplement 0 >> def
        1 begincodespacerange
            <0000> <ffff>
        endcodespacerange
        0 usefont
        1 begincidrange
            <0000> <ffff> 0
        endcidrange
        endcmap
        currentdict CMapName exch /CMap defineresource pop
    end
end

/cidfont <<
    /CIDCount 226
    /CIDFontName /Marlborough
    /CIDFontType 2
    /CIDMap [] readonly
    /CIDSystemInfo <<
        /Ordering (Identity)
        /Registry (Adobe)
        /Supplement 0
    >> readonly
    /CharStrings <<
        /.notdef 0
    >> readonly
    /Encoding [] readonly
    /FontBBox [-111 -483 2179 1970] readonly
    /FontInfo <<
        /FamilyName (Marlborough)
        /FullName (Marlborough)
        /ItalicAngle 0.0
        /Notice ((c) 1989 iifonts)
        /UnderlinePosition -150
        /UnderlineThickness 100
        /Weight (Regular)
        /extra <<
            /Tascent 1481
            /isSymbolFont false
            /lineSpacing 2453
            /style (Regular)
            /unitsPerEm 2048
        >> readonly
        /isFixedPitch false
        /version (1.0)
    >> readonly
    /FontMatrix [1 0 0 1 0 0] readonly
    /FontType 42
    /GDBytes 1
    /PaintType 0
    /sfnts [] readonly
>> def

cidfont dup /CIDMap exch /CIDCount get [
    [32 3]
    [79 4]
    [100 5]
    [108 6 -4]
    [117 10]
    [225 11]
] cidmap1 readonly put

cidfont /sfnts [
% table directory
<000100000006004000020020676C796690ECC5F50000006C000002B868656164
67254ACD0000032400000036686865610FC80B6C0000035C00000024686D7478
2AC8032400000380000000306C6F6361034C0270000003B00000001A6D617870
002D02A6000003CC0000002000>
% glyf table
%   gid=4 cid=79 (O)
<00020054FFE3038505E500090016000005220210122012100223112202111012
3332121110022301ECCACECE0193D0D0C980787682807777801D018702F70184
FE7BFD0AFE790579FEE0FECCFE9FFEC8012C014A0148012F00>
%   gid=5 cid=100 (d)
<0002004CFFE702CB05C90011001F00002123350E012322021110123332161711
331127112E012322061514163332363702CB8E306A368D94948A386A318E8E2B
593059515159305B29623C3F011D0110010D011E3C3C0202FA37F002524443CB
DDEACF444400002400>
%   gid=6 cid=108 (l)
<0001007B0000010A05C90004000033113311237B8F8F05C9FA37002700>
%   gid=7 cid=109 (m)
<0001007F0000049E044200220000331133153E013216173E0133321615112311
34262322060711231134262322060711237F8D40788960204979426865903440
34622F8F354034632E8D04276F484245494C42888BFCD1030070554547FCC703
0070554547FCC70100>
%   gid=8 cid=110 (n)
<0001007F000002D5044200140000331133153E01333216151123113426232206
0711237F8D40784468658D35423667288D04276F4842888BFCD1030070554943
FCC7008200>
%   gid=9 cid=111 (o)
<00020048FFE502C7043F000B0017000013141633323610262322061523101233
3212100223220211D9515F595151595F51919EA59F9D9D9FA59E0212EAC4CC01
C4CFC6EB011E010FFEECFDCFFEEB0110011D005F00>
%   gid=10 cid=117 (u)
<0001007BFFE502D1042700140000011123350E01232226351133111416333236
37113302D18D40784468658D35423666298D0427FBD96F4842868B0331FD0070
55494303390000FE00>
%   gid=11 cid=225 (\000\341) <00E1>
<00030048FFF602DF060C000A0029002E0000010E011514163332363719010E01
232226353424373D01342623220607273E013332161511141617232701133301
23023DABBD503D317139357A44788A0100F54A554950138A199D7EA091090991
11FEEAD1B2FEE76A023B26A66F3E513B370158FE253436907C9CE73E182B6558
5D6C16939AA6BCFE1B407A3C60044E015EFEA2D700>
% head table
<0001000000000000CAF8C0B25F0F3CF500000800000000000000000000000000
00000000FF91FE1D088307B200000009000000000000000000>
% hhea table
<0001000007B201E3000009D7FF91FFA508830001000000000000000000000000
0000000C00>
% hmtx table
%   hMetrics
<04CD000004CD000004CD000001B2000003D900540348004C0185007B0517007F
034E007F030E0048034E007B0348004800>
%   leftSideBearing
% loca table
<00000000000000000000002C0060006E00A200C400EE0112015C000000>
% maxp table
<00010000000C02A4002000000000000100000000000000000000000000000001
00>
] readonly put

cidfont dup /CIDFontName get exch /CIDFont defineresource
/CIDFontName get /Identity-H [2 index] composefont pop

then emit UTF-16 text for ‘Olá mundo’ like this:

/Marlborough 100 selectfont
100 100 moveto
(\0O\0l\0\341\0 \0m\0u\0n\0d\0o) show
showpage

or emit UTF-8 text for ‘Olá mundo’ like this:

% include the code for utf8toutf16be and int2str16 from file string.ps in repository pslutils,
% or include this krunch:
/utf8toutf16be {[exch 0 exch {exch dup 0 eq {pop dup 16#C0 lt {16#7F and 0}{dup
16#E0 lt {16#1F and 1}{dup 16#F0 lt {16#0F and 2}{16#07 and 13} ifelse} ifelse}
ifelse}{1 sub 3 1 roll 8#77 and exch 6 bitshift or exch dup 10 eq {pop pop
16#FFFD 0} if} ifelse} forall pop] dup length 1 bitshift string exch 0 exch {3
copy -8 bitshift 16#FF and put exch 1 add exch 3 copy 16#FF and put pop 1 add}
forall pop} bind def

/Marlborough 100 selectfont
100 100 moveto
(Ol\303\241 mundo) utf8toutf16be show
showpage

Easy! Tested with Microsoft YaHei TTF with 29425 glyphs in Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Turkish, Chinese (微软雅黑) on GhostScript v8.7 to v9.55.