Technical Specifications ↩

Operating system

RoboFont requires macOS 10.10+, and is fully compatible with more recent versions of macOS.

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 (3.4b) embeds version 2.5.65596 of the FDK. The latest beta release embeds version 2.5.65596.

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 -
compositor 0.3b
cu2qu 1.6.5
defcon 0.7.0
defconAppKit 0.2
dialogKit
extractor 0.3.1
feaPyFoFum -
fontmake 2.0.1
fontMath 0.5.3
fontParts 0.9.2
fontPens 0.2.5
fontTools 4.2.2
glyphConstruction -
glyphNameFormatter 0.4
markdown 3.1.1
mutatorMath 2.1.2
ufoNormalizer 0.3.7
ufo2fdk 0.2
ufo2svg -
ufoNormalizer 0.3.7
vanilla 0.1
woffTools -
Last edited on 12/12/2019