Technical Specifications ↩
- Operating system
- Font generation
- Supported formats
- Scripting language
- Scripting API
- Embedded libraries
Operating system
RoboFont requires macOS 10.11+, and is fully compatible with more recent versions of macOS.
Robofont actively tries to support the widest possible range of macOS versions from 10.10+ (Yosemite). Type design projects can span over a long time, and we know for a fact that many of our users are not willing to update very often.
Downloads for macOS 10.6 — 10.9 are still available from the Downloads page.
Font generation
RoboFont uses the Adobe FDK internally to generate OpenType fonts. The latest release of RoboFont (4.2) embeds version 2.5.65602 of the FDK. The latest beta release embeds version 2.5.65602.
It’s possible to use a locally installed version of the Adobe FDK instead of the embedded one. See Miscellaneous Preferences.
Supported formats
RoboFont 3 uses UFO3 as its native font format, and read/writes UFO2.
RoboFont can open OpenType fonts, with a few limitations (for example, OpenType features cannot be imported in editable format). WOFF fonts are also supported.
RoboFont can open FontLab’s .vfb files, provided the vfb2ufo library is installed.
Scripting language
RoboFont 3 is written entirely in Python 3.7.4, and uses it as its scripting language.
RoboFont comes with its own embedded Python interpreter, so you don’t need to install anything else. All modules from the Python Standard Library are also included.
Scripting API
RoboFont 3 uses the FontParts API (with a few extensions) to communicate to font objects programmatically.
Embedded libraries
RoboFont comes with batteries included.
The following libraries are embedded in RoboFont and available out of the box:
| embedded library | version |
|---|---|
| booleanOperations | 0.9.0 |
| compositor | 0.3b |
| cu2qu | 1.6.7.post1 |
| defcon | 0.10.1 |
| defconAppKit | 0.2 |
| dialogKit | |
| extractor | 0.5.1 |
| feaPyFoFum | 0.1 |
| fontmake | 3.3.0 |
| fontMath | 0.9.2 |
| fontParts | 0.10.4 |
| fontPens | 0.2.5 |
| fontTools | 4.32.0 |
| glyphConstruction | 0.0.4 |
| glyphNameFormatter | 0.7 |
| markdown | 3.2.1 |
| mutatorMath | 3.0.2 |
| ufoNormalizer | 0.6.1 |
| ufo2fdk | 0.2 |
| ufoNormalizer | 0.6.1 |
| vanilla | 0.2.3 |