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Hi Technical Support Team,

Embedded Wizard Studio can support OpenType font(*.otf)?

There is a mention of OTF file extension, but I’d like to make sure of it.

https://doc.embedded-wizard.de/font-resource-member?v=11.00

Best Regards,

Kangmin

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Hello Kangmin,

as explained in our documentation, if there is an OTF file installed in your Windows system or existing in the Embedded Wizard project folder, the font can be used. Nevertheless, we can't guarantee that every font file will work. There are in fact many sloppily developed OTF and TTFs files available for free download in Internet. If you have doubts concerning the correct function of your particular OTF, the simplest would be to test it in Embedded Wizard.

Please note: Embedded Wizard expects the font files to contain the glyph data as vector information. The old Windows bitmap font format or fonts containing the glyphs as embedded bitmaps are not supported.

Best regards

Paul Banach
by

Hi Paul

Thank you for your information.
Actually, we have a problem with some OTF file we want to use.
As you can see below, if font height is 15 pixel, some characters are shown in irregular shapes.

However, if font height is 32 pixel, it looks fine.

Do you think this was due to our OTF file?

Best Regards,
Kangmin
 

by

Hello Kangmin,

I think, there is something wrong with the used OTF file. Or, the designer of the font has intentionally created the glyphs with different sizes. Is that a common known font? What is the name of the font?

Anyway, Embedded Wizard does not process the OTF or TTF files by itself. It uses the Windows API to raster the fonts. The results depend thus on whatever Windows does with the OTF file. Possibly you will get similar results (incorrectly sized glyphs) when displaying the text in another Windows application.

If you are working with EW 11.00 you can try to switch the font conversion to the FreeType engine instead of Windows own engine. This may eventually produce different results. See the attribute FontConversion in our documentation.

I hope it helps you further.

Best regards

Paul Banach

by
Hi Paul

Thank you for your insight.
It helped us a lot. I will check with my team.

Best Regards,
Kangmin
by

Hi Paul,

We tried to switch font conversion to the FreeType font engine, but it isn't working properly.

Could you please check the error message?

'Meiryo UI' is for Japanese font that is pre-installed on Windows OS.

When the Windows own font engine is used, it is working properly.

[13.12.2021 11:09:58] Welcome : Embedded Wizard Studio Pro 

Version 11.00 (build 4954) 

Copyright © TARA Systems GmbH 

Written by Paul Banach and Manfred Schweyer 

・・・

[13.12.2021 11:41:32] Fatal error Application::FontEtcFree : Could not convert the language variant 'Default' of the font resource 'Application::FontEtcFree'. Font conversion failed. The font 'Meiryo UI' is not available. Possibly, the font is not installed on your Windows workstation. 

[13.12.2021 11:41:32] Fatal error Application::FontEtcFree : Can not create a new resource object. The conversion of the resource 'Application::FontEtcFree' is failed. 

Best Regards,

Kangmin

 

by

Hello Kangmin,

unfortunately on my Windows 10 OS there is no Meiryo UI font installed. I was thus not able to analyze the issue. Generally I see two possible causes:

Cause 1. Embedded Wizard can't find the corresponding TTF/OTF file. When using FreeType engine, the engine needs to directly access the TTF or OTF files. For this purpose Embedded Wizard scans the known Windows Font directories and collects the TTF/OTF files found there. If the Meiryo UI TTF/OTF file was not found during this scan for whatever reason, you can try following:

Copy the Meiryo UI TTF file directly into the directory containing your Embedded Wizard project files (the directory with your EWP and EWU files). Next time when you open the project in Embedded Wizard Studio, the TTF file will be loaded explicitly and the font installed temporarily. Are you now able to use the Meiryo UI font?

Cause 2: The font name Meiryo UI is confound. From technical point of view, one and the same TTF/OTF file can expose multiple different font names. This is usually the case to allow localization of the fonts. On Japanese Windows, for example, the font may appear named 'Meiryo UI' while on the English Windows version it can appear 'ABC XYZ'. The FreeType engine has no knowledge about the language selected on your Windows OS. It does not take the individual localization in account. We limit to use the name localized for Unicode English version.

Maybe in English the font has another name? To answer this question, however, it would be necessary to analyze the TTF/OTF file. If you provide me the file I can try it. 

Does it help you further?

Best regards

Paul Banach

by

Hi Paul

It looks like it's due to some combination of causes you mentioned.

I found the way to install Japanese supplemental fonts in Windows 10.

You can get these fonts if you go to "Settings > App & features > Optional features" on your Windows 10.

Please let me know if you could get Meiryo UI font.

Best Regards,

Kangmin

by

Hello Kangmin,

thanks for pointing out how to add Japanese support. I didn't know it before. This was very helpful.

I found the cause for the problem with the not working Meiryo UI font. This font is stored in the TTC format (TrueType collection). As long as the font is installed on Windows OS the Windows own font engine can use this font without any problems. The FreeType, in turn, does not find the font file because it ends on *.TTC.

The file name, however, is not the unique problem. I patched Embedded Wizard to also include all TTC files. Nevertheless, FreeType engine refuses to work with this font. It is a more complex aspect. Officially Embedded Wizard supports TTF and OTF files only. We have to analyze the reason why FreeType ignores the TTC font and hopefully add the support for TTC in the next version.

For the moment I see following possibilities for your application case:

Option 1: Select back the Windows font engine for the font conversion. Don't use the FreeType engine.

Option 2: Convert the TTC file in TTF file. You will need a dedicated font editor/converter (e.g. Fontforge). In Internet there are diverse descriptions how to achieve this.

Option 3: Use another font which is provided originally in TTF or OTF file.

I hope one of the options can help you further.

Best regards

Paul Banach

by
Hi Paul,

Thank you for your help.

Let me have a discussion with my team.

I hope Embedded wizard can be improved in the next version.

Best Regards,

Kangmin

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