How do you convert a font file with the extension ".scr" to TTF?

August 27, 2008 8:26 AM

How do you convert a font file with the extension ".scr" to TTF?

I have a font file sent to me from a client with the extension ".scr". I'm assuming it's a Mac font. I have both a PC and Mac and I can't read it on either one. It doesn't show up as a font on the Mac.

I've never seen a font with this extension before so i don't know what to do with it. Is there a way to convert it to a True Type Font?

posted by bingwah to computers & internet (9 comments total)

The file could conceivably be a locoscript font file, or possibly an old screen font. Or it's just possible the client accidentally sent you a Windows screensaver file...
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 8:41 AM on August 27, 2008

It's a screen font, and there's no way to convert it to a vector truetype font. The client will have to provide a vector file or go with another font.
posted by rikschell at 8:53 AM on August 27, 2008

Thirding old screen font. And if so, rikschell is correct... you're not going to be able to convert a bitmap font to a vector font.

Out of curiosity, what is the name of the font?
posted by thinman at 9:43 AM on August 27, 2008

The name of the font is Gotham.scr

So basically there's nothing I can do with this font. Can someone please explain what a screen font is?
posted by bingwah at 10:04 AM on August 27, 2008

Way I understand it, a screen font is like a bitmap font, or a pixel font that was so popular with designers a few years back. It's basically just a font that's defined by where each pixel is, so it's limited entirely to one size (or a handful of pre-defined sizes) to be displayed on a monitor using that amount of pixels. You can't scale it up or down to any point size you like which makes it nasty for printing.

But if it's like a pixel font, I figure you could set a normal point size, say 10 or 12, and have the screen font map to that so that it looks the same. It'll just look strange and uneven if you try to set it at any other point size. I have no idea how font conversion works or even if there's an easy way of doing this. But people have made vector-based TTF files that basically behave like, or is meant to be used as screen fonts, so...
posted by lou at 10:16 AM on August 27, 2008

But people have made vector-based TTF files that basically behave like, or is meant to be used as screen fonts, so...

The purpose behind the invention of Truetype was to obviate the need for separate screen and print fonts. So when you see Truetype fonts that work well on-screen as well as in print, that's the whole point. wiki link

But if it's like a pixel font, I figure you could set a normal point size, say 10 or 12, and have the screen font map to that so that it looks the same.

This is true for doing work that is only meant to be shown on-screen. If you tried to print this hypothetical work, though, it would look jaggy and bad or default to Courier.

You have one piece of all the files necessary to use this font in a regular way. Some programs won't recognize an incomplete font set at all, and will simply ignore the font. I bet it's not worth too much more effort trying to figure out what you can do with just the .scr file. Ask for a Truetype version if you're in the position to ask somebody for something, buy the font, or choose some other face.
posted by dammitjim at 11:03 AM on August 27, 2008

To answer the question in your headline directly, I don't think it's possible to convert an .scr to a .ttf. There's just too little information in the .scr to make a complete character glyph set for printing.
posted by dammitjim at 11:04 AM on August 27, 2008

To expand on what lou and dammitjim have said, what you have is one half of a font. Some fonts are are actually a folder that contains two files: the screen font (a bitmap image of the letters to be used for on-screen rendering) and a printer font (a vector image of the letters to be output to printers). One without the other is pretty useless, unfortunately.

Some utilities, like Fontaographer or FontDoctor can occasionally extrapolate a screen font from a printer font, but I doubt that the reverse is true. Its similar to automating bitmap image-to-vector in Illustrator or Freehand. The user always needs to guide the process a little or you end up with something truly peculiar looking.

A little googling suggests that this is a LocoScript font convention; I'd always assumed that it was a PostScript thing.
posted by lekvar at 1:23 PM on August 27, 2008

Maybe search for a similar font in your library or see if the client would be willing to buy one (Is it this one? It looks nice.).

Otherwise, just tell them that you won't be able to reproduce it and that they need to choose a different one to replace it with.
posted by PixelatorOfTime at 2:25 PM on August 27, 2008