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TrueType Fonts under System 7

Garrett

Well-known member
Lately I've been wanting to install newer custom TrueType fonts on my Macintosh Classic under System 7.1. However, I'm not sure how to get the font files onto the computer or into a format the computer can install.

I thought it was as simple as dragging the TTF files into the Fonts folder in the System Folder, but I don't think the OS recognizes the files. (All of the other files have suitcase icons, like the font suitcases, besides the random font I tried to install as a test.)

Any ideas on how a more modern TrueType font can be installed in System 7.1?Screen Shot 2022-04-27 at 11.36.05 PM.png
 

Juror22

Well-known member
Did you drag it into the fonts folder or into the system folder? Dragging it into the system folder should allow it to be automatically put into the proper location (the fonts folder). I'm wondering if the ttf file has a certain resource normally associated with it that your file is lacking. Perhaps that is what needs to be identified and added, via ResEdit or similar, so that it is recognized and addressed by the system correctly. I don't know if this is accurate, but this page lists the resource type as 'tfil'.
 

volvo242gt

Well-known member
As @Juror22 says, you probably will need to do some hacking in ResEdit.

Find a loose System 7 TrueType font (or take one out of a suitcase), run ResEdit, then do a command-I to bring up the get file/folder info dialog. Choose the file, then take note of the creator and type shown for that file. Next, do the same with the new file, and paste that information into the creator and type fields on the new file's information dialog box. Close it, choosing Save when the alert pops up. The proper icon should appear and you should be able to delete the Windows/OS X .ttf extension.
 

Garrett

Well-known member
As @Juror22 says, you probably will need to do some hacking in ResEdit.

Find a loose System 7 TrueType font (or take one out of a suitcase), run ResEdit, then do a command-I to bring up the get file/folder info dialog. Choose the file, then take note of the creator and type shown for that file. Next, do the same with the new file, and paste that information into the creator and type fields on the new file's information dialog box. Close it, choosing Save when the alert pops up. The proper icon should appear and you should be able to delete the Windows/OS X .ttf extension.
That got me a little bit closer to what I want to do. It changed the thumbnail in the Finder to the font logo, but I wasn't able to use it, even after placing in the Fonts folder. It wouldn't show up in any of the programs I tried (Word 4.0 and MacWrite.)

Screen Shot 2022-04-28 at 1.59.17 AM.png
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Hey @Garrett, nice to hear from you. Hope you're doing OK.

Fonts—old Macs keep their font information in the resource fork. PC-style TrueType fonts keep it in the data fork, because PC and UNIX filesystems are conceptually impoverised ;-). Modern MacOS, as always, tries to do it all. So it goes.

You'll need to convert the TTF fonts to Mac fonts. Googling how to do this is difficult because most people want to go the other way and convert their old Mac fonts to TTF style fonts. Personally I'd suggest starting with this utility or one like it: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/metamorphosis-professional though I haven't done this myself...
 

Garrett

Well-known member
Hey @Garrett, nice to hear from you. Hope you're doing OK.

Fonts—old Macs keep their font information in the resource fork. PC-style TrueType fonts keep it in the data fork, because PC and UNIX filesystems are conceptually impoverised ;-). Modern MacOS, as always, tries to do it all. So it goes.

You'll need to convert the TTF fonts to Mac fonts. Googling how to do this is difficult because most people want to go the other way and convert their old Mac fonts to TTF style fonts. Personally I'd suggest starting with this utility or one like it: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/metamorphosis-professional though I haven't done this myself...
I've been OK, just got into another hobby and with work haven't had much time to tinker around with the old Macs except turn them on and use them for writing.

I was thinking it probably had something to do "deeper down" than the file info, and I know the resource forks can cause headaches anyways.
@Garrett Did you try using TTConverter? It's a utility for converting Windows TrueType Fonts into a format compatible with System 6 and 7.
I downloaded TTConverter but I forgot I won't be able to expand it. StuffIt Expander is still doing its thing where it refuses to expand .sit (or, in this case, .cpt) archives by giving me an error message. This has been happening for more than a year now and is so annoying because I can't run any of the apps I download from the internet.

Should I import into Mini vMac and try to expand using StuffIt Expander 5.5? StuffIt Expander under macOS used to work really well until about a year or so ago, when those errors started occurring. I know the disk images I would need for Mini vMac (or to load onto my FloppyEmu) would usually be contained within the archive?

Screen Shot 2022-04-28 at 10.14.13 AM.png
 

Garrett

Well-known member
Grab 'The Unarchiver' instead of using Stuffit Expander on any modern Mac.
That worked! I've never heard of it before, but I'm happy to find something that works like a charm expanding the .sit and .hqx/hex archives.

Now that I've expanded the archive, another problem. I see the image I need to load into Mini vMac, but Mini vMac will not open it? (I drag it onto the Mini vMac window but nothing happens.) Am I missing something here? It's been a while.

Screen Shot 2022-04-28 at 10.44.32 AM.png
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Ah, that isn't a disc image. OK. Then ignore me, use ImportFl or something into mini vmac with the stuffit archive and unstuffit it in the emulator.
 

Garrett

Well-known member
Since the original installer came in a .hqx file, should I import that and expand using BinHex? I tried to expand the .cpt file I expanded out of the .hqx file, but StuffIt Lite 3.5 wasn't doing the job. (StuffIt Expander 5.5 might, but I'd need to upgrade to System 7.1.1.)
 

olePigeon

Well-known member
@Garrett Attached is TTConverter in BinHex self extracting Stuffit, regular Zip, and DiskCopy 4.2 image.
 

Attachments

  • TTConverter1.5.sea.hqx
    188.6 KB · Views: 0
  • TTConverter1.zip
    25.9 KB · Views: 1
  • TTConverter1.5.image.zip
    38.5 KB · Views: 1

Garrett

Well-known member
@Garrett Attached is TTConverter in BinHex self extracting Stuffit, regular Zip, and DiskCopy 4.2 image.
Much farther, but still not perfect. Did you open the archive with BinHex or some other way?

When I try to load your disk image (from the regular ZIP archive) it says the disk is unrecognizable and asks me if I want to initialize it?
 

olePigeon

Well-known member
Stuffit Expander should be able to decode the BinHexed file. Or BinHex 4.0. Or just use the built in archive utility in OS X.

I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble. Attached is a raw DSK file. Should be able to just drag it onto Mini vMac after you've booted into System 7.
 

Attachments

  • TTConverter1.5.dsk.zip
    39.6 KB · Views: 1

Garrett

Well-known member
Stuffit Expander should be able to decode the BinHexed file. Or BinHex 4.0. Or just use the built in archive utility in OS X.

I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble. Attached is a raw DSK file. Should be able to just drag it onto Mini vMac after you've booted into System 7.
Finally! Got the converter up and running, and after that it was smooth sailing (finally.) Now I got to try it out on actual hardware, but it's cool seeing my favorite modern/unusual fonts (outside of the standard system fonts) in System 7.

Screen Shot 2022-04-28 at 11.11.23 PM.png
 

joshc

Well-known member
Glad you got it working.

This stuff can be very frustrating and it takes some practice before you find what works. Also depends on different software versions and whatnot too.

For example, the latest Stuffit Expander versions available for modern OSes seems to struggle with old archives.

But conversely, perhaps even more annoyingly so, really old versions of Stuffit struggle with archives made with later versions, and most of them were. Can't remember the versions off the top of my head but I think for best compatibility you want to be using Stuffit Expander 5.5 if you can get it to run.

I believe Stuffit Expander will open a BinHex archive too.
 

rplacd

Well-known member
Off-hand question: I'm not sure whether this is even the right question, but would it also be possible to convert TTF -> PostScript, and then use the Adobe Type Manager to convert PostScript to bitmap, and also have the PostScript font available for use in System whatever?
 

Garrett

Well-known member
I not only got it working in Mini vMac, but on my Classic as well. In fact, the Classic did a bulk of the work on converting the TTF files. Doing it on the Classic probably didn't take considerably longer than converting everything in Mini vMac, all things considered.

I've noticed some TrueType fonts really bog the system down. The effect probably isn't as noticeable on an '030 or '040-equipped Mac, but some fonts (especially a custom baseball-theme font I decided to test out) render very slowly on the Classic, especially with larger font sizes.

This is probably the biggest "accomplishment" with my attempts to merge the new with the old. After the kinks got worked out, much smoother...

Edit: PhotoIMG_0025.jpg
 
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olePigeon

Well-known member
@Garrett I suspect that @rplacd is on the right track. If you are able to create a pre-rendered display bitmap font, then the computer own't have to attempt to interpolate one from PostScript. That would likely explain the slow-down with some of the fonts.
 
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