Author Topic: Dina in TTF format? (Read 26990 times)

b0nyb0y · « **on:** November 28, 2007, 09:20 PM »

I've been quite a big fan of Dina font. I've used it extensively on my Eclipse IDE for my Java development. But it just bugs me when I have to move to swing-based IDE and there's no Dina to select, since Java doesn't support FON format.

Is there any chance that someone has the same issue and convert it to TTF already? And if not, what is the best way to do it? So far I've tried FontForge, but due to limited skill, my attempts so far has failed miserably...

Ralf Maximus · « **Reply #1 on:** November 29, 2007, 12:59 AM »

From my experience, there's not enough data in a .FON file to do an automatic conversion. The font converters I have (TransType, CrossFont) won't even try.

There's plenty of monospaced .TTF fonts out there, many similar in weight and appearance to Dina. Could you live with one of those?

UPDATE: Figured I'd toss in a reference to my favorite programmer's font comparison chart:
http://www.darinhigg...ProgrammingFont.aspx

tinjaw · « **Reply #2 on:** November 29, 2007, 05:02 AM »

Don't forget that Dina is based off of Proggy, which is available as a TTF. I used to use Proggy exclusively until Jeff Atwood turned me on to Consolas.

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** November 29, 2007, 05:10 AM »

I think Dina is "inspired by" and not "based off" Proggy

Poor support for .FON files on linux is one more thing that keeps me on Windows I guess, I'd hate to have to use another font than Dina

tinjaw · « **Reply #4 on:** November 29, 2007, 05:14 AM »

The closest to perfect I found was the Proggy font, which the author kindly allows you to modify. So I started building this font using Proggy as the base, and with inspiration from Tobi, Fixedsys and some old DOS fonts I used to love.

https://www.donation...Jibz/Dina/index.html

f0dder · « **Reply #5 on:** November 29, 2007, 05:42 AM »

Well then, I stand (or cringe?) corrected

Ralf Maximus · « **Reply #6 on:** November 29, 2007, 08:57 AM »

Poor support for .FON files on linux is one more thing that keeps me on Windows I guess, I'd hate to have to use another font than Dina
-f0dder (November 29, 2007, 05:10 AM)

Not to be dense, but what is the big appeal of raster fonts? They don't scale, they look like crap at anything but their designed resolution... so, why?

f0dder · « **Reply #7 on:** November 29, 2007, 09:04 AM »

Poor support for .FON files on linux is one more thing that keeps me on Windows I guess, I'd hate to have to use another font than Dina
-f0dder (November 29, 2007, 05:10 AM)

Not to be dense, but what is the big appeal of raster fonts? They don't scale, they look like crap at anything but their designed resolution... so, why?
-Ralf Maximus (November 29, 2007, 08:57 AM)

Because it loks perfect at the designed resolution, which is what I used it at.

Haven't found a truetype font that's as appealing as Dina.

tinjaw · « **Reply #8 on:** November 29, 2007, 09:08 AM »

They don't scale, they look like crap at anything but their designed resolution... so, why?
-Ralf Maximus (November 29, 2007, 08:57 AM)

They were used originally because that was all their was. TrueType fonts and such didn't exist. Now they are generally used because they allow you to produce fonts that look better at their native size than a font designed for a different size and scaled.

b0nyb0y · « **Reply #9 on:** November 29, 2007, 09:13 AM »

I actually tried to used Proggy Clean (Slashed Zero) for quite a while, but it just didn't look as good as Dina for some reason.

At the moment I'm using Bitstream Vera Sans Mono for my NetBeans. Looking good and easy on the eyes on my LCD screen at home. But I'm still stuck with CRT at work, so TTF with ClearType is blurry at best...

Deozaan · « **Reply #10 on:** August 01, 2008, 02:53 AM »

I would really like to have Dina in TTF format as well.

lanux128 · « **Reply #11 on:** August 01, 2008, 10:27 AM »

like tinjaw mentions above, Consolas is a good alternative. which i am using of course.

Deozaan · « **Reply #12 on:** August 01, 2008, 04:33 PM »

Jeff Atwood says Consolas doesn't even look good without ClearType enabled at standard programming font sizes.

The main reason I would like Dina in TTF is because some programs don't recognize the .fon filetype. I admit my own ignorance in the difference between TTF and FON, but as an uneducated end-user (

) the only difference I know is that some programs won't let me use Dina.

f0dder · « **Reply #13 on:** August 01, 2008, 06:38 PM »

TTF is a vector format, meaning the fonts scale to pretty much any size (as long as it's not too small, of course), whereas FON is a bitmapped format and scales extremely horribly

Deozaan · « **Reply #14 on:** August 01, 2008, 06:41 PM »

So why not import the font into a program like Flash or Illustrator and convert the characters to vectors then build a TTF for Dina?

Sounds simple enough for the ignorant!

f0dder · « **Reply #15 on:** August 01, 2008, 06:46 PM »

I'm sure there's a good explanation why it's not going to work out, but I don't really know enough about font creation to know. I can imagine it's hard vectoring it correctly, though.

Deozaan · « **Reply #16 on:** August 01, 2008, 08:40 PM »

You're probably right, f0dder.

Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I put Dina in the Scanahand Template $:-\$

tomos · « **Reply #17 on:** August 02, 2008, 03:24 AM »

So why not import the font into a program like Flash or Illustrator and convert the characters to vectors then build a TTF for Dina?

Sounds simple enough for the ignorant!
-Deozaan (August 01, 2008, 06:41 PM)

I'm fairly ignorant of these things myself, but I believe to do it properly is a massive amount of work -
lots of things have to be adjusted for different scales/point sizes

It would be interesting to add it to the scanahand template! - does that have to be given in as a jpeg?
You'd lose (a lot of) quality that way..

lanux128 · « **Reply #18 on:** August 02, 2008, 04:45 AM »

Jeff Atwood says Consolas doesn't even look good without ClearType enabled at standard programming font sizes.
-Deozaan (August 01, 2008, 04:33 PM)

i think that's an advantage since i'm using LCD screen and normally ClearType messes up fixed-width fonts. remember recently i was looking for a tool to quickly toggle ClearType, whenever i need to work with bit-mapped fonts? now it's not necessary.

Nathaniel Sabanski · « **Reply #19 on:** October 07, 2008, 03:15 AM »

I just wanted to pop in here and say that i've converted Dina to truetype. You can find it along with my blog post about Dina here.

Enjoy!

Deozaan · « **Reply #20 on:** October 07, 2008, 11:08 AM »

I just wanted to pop in here and say that i've converted Dina to truetype.
-Nathaniel Sabanski (October 07, 2008, 03:15 AM)

Awesome! Now I can import the font into TGB!

housetier · « **Reply #21 on:** October 07, 2008, 03:26 PM »

oh wow this is awesome news!

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** October 07, 2008, 05:14 PM »

That is *extremely* cool.
Screenshot - 10_7_2008 , 5_12_59 PM.png

Just testing out and from 6 to 12 point look terrific. Very cool. At 14 point and beyond there are some strange artifacts (see lowercase "a" but i'm not sure why anyone would want to use Dina at 14 point or higher so i dont think it matters).

Really great work -- people ask for this regularly.

Nathaniel's website in case you missed it: http://www.geenat.com/?p=66

Jibz · « **Reply #23 on:** October 10, 2008, 02:27 AM »

Thanks for your work on converting Dina to TTF format

.. I have posted a link in this thread.