Macronizing Fonts

This document explains how to macronize fonts using Fontographer font editing software on a Macintosh computer. Macronized vowels are required to print Japanese using the Hepburn style of romanization. However, few digital font foundries make such a typeface. That's why I decided to edit an existing font, namely Times, and create a new font called TimesMacron.

TimesMacron Sample

Rather than redraw each vowel I deleted the circumflex from existing vowels and replaced it with a macron. A macron symbol is already available in the Times font at decimal position 248. A down side to simply removing the circumflexes is that the font can no longer be used for French, Esperanto, Norwegian, Portuguese, Maltese, Romanian, Turkish, etc. If this is a problem, I suggest that you edit other characters. Of course, if you apply the macron font only to individual characters, you can still use the circumflexes in your main text font.

Be sure to read your font license agreement before proceeding. You may be able to edit a font for your own personal use. Distribution is probably forbidden.

Software

Procedure

1. Choose Open from Fontographer's File menu and select a PostScript printer font.

2. Choose Import Kerning from the File menu and select the corresponding PostScript bitmap file.

3. Choose Font Attributes from the Edit menu.

4. In the Font Attributes dialog box, enter the Family name.

    Use a family name that describes the font, and include the style at the end of the font name. For example:

If you use Adobe Type Reunion, be sure to name the individual fonts as shown above (hyphen then style name with a capital). Otherwise, Adobe Type Reunion won't group the fonts into a submenu.

5. Save the font.

6. Open the macron character.

7. Choose Get Part from the Edit menu.

8. Close the macron window.

9. Open a vowel circumflex character.

10. Paste the macron.

Don't delete the circumflex just yet; it serves as a useful position reference.

11. Position the macron.

The following table lists the macron positions I used for the TimesMacron font. You may want to fine-tune them further.

Original Circumflex

Roman

Italic

Bold

BoldItalic
Horz. Vert. Horz. Vert. Horz. Vert. Horz. Vert.
â 56 0 72 0 78 0 72 0
ê 56 0 44 0 63 0 44 0
î 27 0 68 0 34 0 53 0
ô 84 0 62 0 85 0 73 0
û 84 0 62 0 106 0 101 0
 195 212 133 212 189 212 176 212
Ê 139 212 158 212 175 212 176 212
Î 0 212 28 212 28 212 42 212
Ô 195 212 219 212 244 212 219 212
Û 195 212 204 212 222 212 219 212

12. If you haven't already, delete the circumflex.

13. Repeat these steps for each vowel character.

For the TimesMacron font I macronized all capital and lower case vowels.

14. Save the font.

15. Choose Generate Fonts from the File menu.

16. In the Generate Font dialog box, select Changed Only and enter the bitmap sizes you require.

Typical bitmap sizes are: 9, 10, 12, 14, 18, 24, and 36 .

After repeating this procedure for Roman, Italic, Bold, and BoldItalic you should have four suitcases, each containing several bitmap files. You can use the Style Merger application (included with Fontographer 3.5.1) to make a new suitcase with all the bitmaps in it. For some reason, however, Style Merger changes the names of the bitmaps as it makes the suitcase. So to use the fonts with Adobe Type Reunion you'll have to delete all the bitmaps in the new suitcase, and then copy the original bitmap files into the suitcase by hand.

Installing the finished typeface

Drag and drop the new suitcase and PostScript printer files onto the System Folder. A few dialog boxes appear and the fonts are installed in the Fonts folder. You must restart open applications before they can use the new fonts (you don't have to restart your Mac).

Using the macronized typeface

Use the following keystrokes to enter macron characters, and then apply the MacronTimes font. As MacronTimes is virtually identical to the Times font, you could apply it to entire paragraphs as a style.
 â  Option-i a
 ê  Option-i e
î  Option-i i
ô  Option-i o
û  Option-i u
 Â  Option-i Shift-a
Ê  Option-i Shift-e
Î  Option-i Shift-i
 Ô  Option-i Shift-o
 Û  Option-i Shift-u

Note: I have successfully tested the MacronTimes font with a 400 dpi laser printer. If you intend to output your work at higher resolutions (i.e., on an imagesetter), I suggest that you print out several test pages beforehand.

That's it! Happy macronizing.

Macron resources

Created: 26 May 1997. Modified: 29 March 1999.
Copyright (c) 1999 Paul Findon. All rights reserved.