Here is the list of 5 free font editor software.
These software are handy to edit True Type fonts, OpenType fonts, OpenType PS fonts, etc. So when you want to customize a font to use on your project or somewhere else, these software are helpful. Most of these software also let you preview fonts. Apart from this, you can also edit installed fonts (or system fonts), but you first need to copy those fonts and paste them to your desktop or any other location. Edited fonts can be saved to PC as TrueType or OpenType. After this, you can install those fonts and use in any text editor. Let’s have a look at the free font editor software below.
FontForge
FontForge is the best font editor software in this list. It lets you edit installed fonts, downloaded fonts, convert fonts, and create new fonts. Apart from this, it supports a lot of font types which none of the software in this list do. It supports TrueType, PostScript, Bitmap fonts, OpenType, Type1, Type2, Type3, Outline fonts, etc. Feature to extract a font from PDF is also available, but it didn’t work for me.
After adding a font, you can preview all the letters of that font. To edit a font, you can double-click on that particular letter. It opens a separate window to edit your fonts. Multiple handy tools are available to edit your font, such as draw a freehand curve, add corner point, tangent point, flip selection, rotate selected part in 3D, zoom in/out, move to next glyph (or you can say character) to edit, etc.
When you have edited a font, you can save it as OpenType, TrueType, PostScript, and any other supported format. It also lets you export the edited letter as BMP, PNG, PDF, EPS, Glif, etc. So, this feature rich software is quite useful to edit fonts or create new fonts.
Type light
Type light is another great font editor in this list. You can open *.ttf and *.otf fonts and edit every single letter of those fonts. Apart from this, it also lets you create your own custom fonts. So, this software is handy to show your creativity in order to create new fonts, as well as edit existing fonts.
Another interesting feature is that you can also preview full font to see all the characters and symbols of that particular font. This will help you to check which letter you want to edit. There are multiple tools provided to edit the fonts: smooth curve, rectangle, use nodes to change the font shape, on curve, off curve, line, ellipse, etc.
Full review is here.
BirdFont
BirdFont is also a useful font editor that comes with multiple tools. It provides drawing tools (to add new points, freehand drawing, move control points, etc.), background tools to set background image size, contrast, threshold, etc. You can also preview the whole font before saving to PC. It can also automatically generate *.ttf file, SVG file for font, and can save font to its native format (*.bf).
You can also create new fonts by generating stylish letters using available tools. This could be a good choice to edit fonts, but sometimes it failed to export font and froze during my testing. It is around 41 MB in size.
Here is the full review.
Allegro Font Editor
Allegro Font Editor is another good font editor in this list. You can open Bitmap fonts, Windows fonts (*.fnt and *.fon), TrueType fonts, CFF fonts, and more. After opening a font, you can remove any block (say pixel) from a particular letter, or can fill the blocks with desired color. You won’t find advanced tools to edit your font, but it is good to perform basic editing.
Another interesting feature is that you can add custom text to preview any font after editing. So this can be used as font viewer as well as font editor. It is a portable software and only 700 KB in size.
TTFEdit
TTFEdit is the last software in this list which is a very simple font editor. As its name suggests, you can open and edit TrueType fonts only. It also lets you create a new font which is a good thing. Before editing any glyph of your font, you can also preview it. To edit a glyph, double-click on it. This software provides only basic tools for editing. You can move nodes to change the shape of a letter and can add new points.
This font editor can also be used to check the details of a font. For example, you can check the full name of a font, PostScript name, font family, subfamily, URL of the font designer, font vendor etc.
It is a portable software and provides executable jar file to open its interface. It is very lightweight also (less than an MB).
Conclusion:
If I have to choose a single software from this list, my answer will be ‘FontForge’. This software provides many features and is an all in one solution to create fonts, and edit fonts. You can use any software that fits your need.
