Portable Font Resource format

There is a font format called Portable Font Resource, also known as PFR.

The DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) system, details in the http://www.mhp.org webspace, has the facility to broadcast fonts in Portable Font Resource format as part of the system.

As I am interested in the DVB-MHP system I have a potential need to be able to produce fonts in Portable Font Resource format.

I have no experience of Portable Font Resource format and little knowledge about it at present. It does appear that it cannot do glyph substitution, but I am not entirely sure of that.

I would like to be able to produce fonts in PFR format so that they could, hopefully, be used in (some) DVB-MHP broadcasts.

I wonder if we could please discuss how Portable Font Resource format fonts can be produced and in particular whether Font Creator Program is likely to support producing fonts in that format in the future? Does anyone know whether adding Portable Font Resource format capability is a huge task or relatively straightforward please?

William Overington

10 November 2004

I’ve been able to locate the PFR specification:
http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/truedoc/pfrspec.html
And another page about PFR:
http://www.bitstream.com/font_rendering/products/dev_fonts/pfr.html

Bitstream has a utility that can create PFR fonts. The Font Creator Program is focussing on TrueType and OpenType fonts, so don’t expect support for PFR fonts.

Thank you for your reply.

William