Easy Font Conversion
What are Symbol Fonts?
Symbol fonts are specially crafted collections of graphics suitable for the web and for publishing in general. Each font contains a collection of artwork representing logos, symbols, and iconic images.
A selection of free symbol fonts are included with Font Pestle.
Symbol fonts try to solve a couple of problems for web designers. Fonts theoretically offer a single file that can be downloaded and used on a web site. The symbols embedded within the font can be displayed on the site’s web pages at any size with different styles applied by Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) transformations.
Offering a single font file that encompassed multiple resolutions could speed up web pages and reduce the workload for designers. One font could deal seemlessly with desktop and mobile users.
Problems with Symbol Fonts
In an ideal world, symbol fonts would just work. We would have a great way to package resolution independent artwork in a quick to download format.
The promise of symbol fonts has not matched reality. The real world is complex. The problems of varied web browsers, less-than-current clients, and the need to serve multiple forms of the same font file depending on platform, have all made symbol fonts tricky to get right.
How Font Pestle Helps
Font Pestle offers a pragmatic approach.
Create the graphics you need today from the symbol font and use those files directly. It is a tried and tested path that works.
Sometimes you just need a handful of symbols from a font at a particular size. Font Pestle lets you get these symbols in the format you want. Font Pestle can export both bitmap and vector graphics from a symbol font. Bitmaps are great for the web and vectors for printing.
Open
Font Pestle can open fonts in these formats:
- TrueType (.ttf);
- OpenType (.otf).
Font Pestle works with its own file type:
- Font Pestle (.font-pestle).
A Font Pestle file includes the original font, name tables, and customisations all in one.
Customise
Fonts can be customised to meet your project’s requirements:
- Change the size;
- Change the fill colour;
- Change the stroke colour;
- Change the stroke width;
- Change the background colour.
Individual symbols can be named ready for use in a style sheet or as the graphic’s filename.
Save
With the symbols customised to your needs. Export the font to a wide range of formats:
- Portable Document Format (.pdf);
- Portable Network Graphics (.png);
- Tagged Image File Format (.tiff);
- Graphics Interchange Format (.gif).
Font Pestle can also create supporting files for your symbols:
- Cascading Style Sheet (.css);
- Syntactically Awesome Style Sheet (.sass);
- Name table mapping codes to names (.tsv).
Share
With your symbol font customised and ready, you can share it with the world. Font Pestle provides built-in sharing to your favourite social networks.
Fonts Included in Font Pestle
Font Pestle comes with a selection of high quality free and open symbol fonts. Between them are hundreds of beautiful symbols ready to use in your print and web projects:
- Elusive
- Entypo
- Font Awesome
- Fontelico
- Heydings Icons
- Iconic
- Linecons
- Meteocons
- MFG Labs
- Modern Pictograms
- Symbol Signs
- Typicons
- Web Symbols
You can also open TrueType and OpenType symbol fonts downloaded from the web or from your favourite type foundry.
Font Pestle is no longer available through Apple’s Mac App Store.
Latest Changes
v1.5.0
- New: Added batch export to aid bulk font conversion.
- Change: Updated UpdateKit library.
- Change: Updated LicenceKit library.