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Unified Font Object

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Unified Font Object (UFO)
Filename extension
.ufo, .ufoz
Developed byTal Leming, Just van Rossum, Erik van Blokland, Ben Kiel, Frederik Berlaen
Initial releaseUFO 1
Latest release
UFO 3
Type of format macOS Package, XML, Property List
Free format?Yes
Websitehttp://unifiedfontobject.org

The Unified Font Object (UFO) is an XML-based source file format for digital fonts. It was created by Tal Leming, Just van Rossum and Erik van Blokland[1]. Contributors to the format also include Ben Kiel and Frederik Berlaen[1]. According to its creators, the UFO is a "future proof" open format that is designed to be "application independent", "human readable and human editable"[2].

History

The first UFO format ("UFO 1") was written by Tal Leming, Just van Rossum and Erik van Blokland in 2004[2], and presented to the public at the Robothon conference, held in The Hague in 2005. Since then there have been 2 revisions to the format, with version 3 ("UFO 3") being the most stable version, and version 4 ("UFO 4") in progress[2].

In 2012, Tal Leming was named “Benevolent Dictator for life” of the UFO format[3].

Technical Format

On macOS, the UFO appears as a package; a file system directory that presents as a single file. On Windows and other operating systems, it appears as a file system directory containing Property List files and XML files.

Use in Programming

The UFO file format translates easily to object-based representation[4] in code. Popular libraries for accessing UFO data include the following:

Python Libraries

  • RoboFab, the first python library written specifically to access UFO data. Introduced at the TypoTechnica conference in 2003 by Just van Rossum, Erik van Blokland, Tal Leming[5], et al.
  • FontParts, the successor to RoboFab, by Just van Rossum, Erik van Blokland, Tal Leming[6], et al.
  • FontTools, a library for accessing font data started in 1999 by Just van Rossum, maintained by Behdad Esfahbod, Cosimo Lupo, et al starting in 2013[7]. FontTools contains ufoLib, a library for reading and writing UFO files.

Libraries in Other Languages

  • ufoJS (JavaScript), by Lasse Fister[8].
  • Norad (Rust), by Nikolaus Waxweiler and Colin Rofls, et al.
  • UFOKit (Swift), by David Schweinsberg

Reception

The font editing program RoboFont uses UFO as its only source file format[3][9]. Other font editing programs, such as Glyphs[3][10], FontLab[11] and FontForge[12] can read and write the UFO format natively.

The UFO format is a popular choice among open source font projects because the XML-based format is compatible with version control systems like Git[13]. Open source font projects that have used UFO as their main format include Source Sans Pro, Source Code Pro, and Source Serif Pro by Adobe Originals, and the IBM Plex superfamily. Parts of the Noto fonts project are available in the UFO format[14].

A common criticism of the format is that its structure (of sometimes hundreds of files) does not work well with online file hosting services like Dropbox[15]. This criticism led to the proposal and adoption of the "UFOZ" format, which is a UFO (version 3 and up) compressed into a ZIP archive[16]. The first tool to use UFOZ as a format was the vfb2ufo conversion tool, created by FontLab Ltd in 2014[17]

See Also

References

  1. ^ a b "Contributors". unifiedfontobject.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  2. ^ a b c "Overview". unifiedfontobject.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  3. ^ a b c "Robothon 2012, RoboHint, and the Gerrit Noordzij Prize". Typographica. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  4. ^ Beckmann, Tom (2019). The font engineering platform collaborative font creation in a self-supporting programming environment. Justus Hildebrand, Corinna Jaschek, Eva Krebs, Alexander Löser, Marcel Taeumel, Tobias Pape. Potsdam. p. 72. ISBN 978-3-86956-464-7. OCLC 1169672607.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ "An Introduction to RoboFab". Typographica. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  6. ^ "History — FontParts 0.1 documentation". fontparts.robotools.dev. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  7. ^ "fontTools Developer Information — fontTools Documentation". fonttools.readthedocs.io. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  8. ^ "ufoJS". luc.devroye.org. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  9. ^ RoboFont. "Welcome to RoboFont!". robofont.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  10. ^ "Working with UFO | Glyphs". glyphsapp.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  11. ^ "Font Formats". help.fontlab.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  12. ^ "Technical Bulletin: UFO 3 Export". fontforge.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  13. ^ "LWN.net Weekly Edition for August 29, 2013 [LWN.net]". lwn.net. Archived from the original on 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-05.
  14. ^ Liputan6.com (2020-11-25). "Inisiatif Google Melestarikan Bahasa Terancam Punah Lewat Noto Font". liputan6.com (in Indonesian). Retrieved 2021-11-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ Simonson, Mark (2014-06-12). "I didn't quite realize until recently: .ufo + Dropbox kind of sucks". @marksimonson. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
  16. ^ "UFO 3". unifiedfontobject.org. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  17. ^ "FontLab Blog Free vfb2ufo font converter - FontLab Blog". web.archive.org. 2015-03-30. Retrieved 2022-01-20.

Category:XML-based standards Category:Font formats Category:Typography Category:Typography software

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