I have to create a font with at least 60 unicode characters that fits in a TrueType .ttf file no larger than 60kB in file size. But with only one glyph, the minimum file size appears to be 63kB using all the default settings. How can I reduce the file size?
UPDATE: I first created a new font by copying all glyphs from an existing larg-ish font, and then delete characters I don’t need to make the file size smaller. The problem seems to be that there are some residual data that keeps the file size above 63kB. If I instead copy over only exactly the characters I need into a new font file, the size becomes much smaller.
So the questions are:
a) What is the residual information that is not deleted and is it possible to purge?
b) Since I’m really wanting 500+ glyphs, the file size is still around 62kB. What can I do to reduce a TrueType font file size?
There might be several optional (unsupported) tables that you can remove, but it all depends on the font.
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/manual/tables.html
All naming fields except English - United States can be removed.
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/manual/namingoverview.html
Also the Postscript names can be removed from the font.
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/manual/post.html
There are also several settings within FontCreator that can help reduces the file size, but the defaults are already set to optimize the file size. See:
http://www.high-logic.com/fontcreator/manual/options_font.html
Using composites wherever possible will also have a significant effect on file size.
Another very significant factor is character hinting. Just removing that can reduce file sizes by half, but hinting improves the on-screen appearance at small sizes.
New glyphs created with FontCreator or copied from other fonts contain no hinting data.