TrueKeys v1.0 - v2.1 Copyright: Xiaolin Zhao, 1996-1997.
TrueKeys v3.0-v3.2 Copyright: UniDoc System LLC, 1998.
All rights reserved.

 Many find that overwhelmingly large amount of Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK) truetype fonts on the market are designed only for PC. A lot of those fonts do not have multiplatform character mapping support and therefore can not be converted to Mac font. A key to solve these problems is here now.

 TrueKeys is a Chinese, Japanese, Korean (CJK) 2-byte truetype font conversion utilities. What makes it different from other truetype conversion such as TTConvert 1.5 and TrueConvert 0.3b is that it generates its own cmap table for specified language encoding, and assemble the original font data into a new truetype. This strategy corrects some common PC font problems such as no Mac cmap table support, etc. When TTConvert or TrueConvert does not work for your font, you should seriously try TrueKeys.

 This utility will be most useful for the following users:

 a) Output centers where a collection of various truetype CJK fonts is necessary. The ability to convert any market available PC truetype into a decent Mac truetype font is definitely a must.

 b) Individuals who purchased PC format CJK truetype and found it unable to get converted into Mac format by TTConvert or TrueConvert. TrueKeys will be a key to your font treasure.

 c) Anyone who would like to preserve his CJK truetype fonts encoded in GB, Big5, Shift-JIS, Wansung code set in the upcoming unicode 2.0 based computing environment.

 The first time TrueKeys is launched, user will be prompted for inputting user information and registration.

Enter your name, company information and the registration code in the corresponding fields and click register button. Remember that the case is important for the registration. If you do not have the registration number and would like to try it out, you may use the demo mode where only half of the available CJK glyphs will be mapped. You will see the following copyright notice:
 

Click "Accept" button to continue, or quit the TrueKeys by clicking "Huh?". By continuing to use TrueKeys, you have agreed to honour the copyright of the converted fonts. As the dialog indicated, the converted font is only for personal/research use only.

A file open dialog will then appear for user to select the font to be converted. User may define the input file format using the popup menu in the file open dialog.
 

 Select the font file that you intend to convert and click "Open" button. The encoding selection dialog will be displayed.
 

Part 3: Converting between CJK Encoding

 TrueKeys supports truetype font conversion between different CJK encoding. The following is the supported language encoding:

 GB2312-1980
 Big5
 Shift-JIS
 Wansung
 Unicode 2.0
 Big5 <-> GB
 Unicode 2.0 <-> GB
 Unicode 2.0 <-> Big5
 Unicode 2.0 <-> Shift-JIS
 Unicode 2.0 <-> Wansung

 TrueKeys will try to detect the available font encoding as it opens the font file. A list of the available encoding in the original font will be listed under "Source Language Encoding" popup menu in the encoding selection dialog. The available encoding translation is listed under "Target Language Encoding" popup menu.
 

 In the above example, the Bitstream's Cyberbit Unicode font is opened. In the example given, the first popup menu (Source Language Encoding:) indicates that the original font is in the Windows Unicode encoding. The source language encoding is provided according to the truetype cmap information. The "Target Language Encoding" popup menu should be set according user's need. Only the list conversion is available for user to choose.

 Here are some pointers to select the target language encoding:

 1) If you intend to use the converted font on MacOS, you should select the language which the font is designed for. Newer font now all contain an Unicode encoding, it is possible to convert a font designed for Chinese into a Japanese font or reverse, but certain character may get lost in the encoding conversion.

 2) If you intend to use the converted font on a Chinese/Japanese/Korean Windows 3.x, 95, 98, you should avoid the Unicode 2.0 encoding. For a Traditional Chinese Windows, always use Big5; a Simplfied Chinese Windows, always use GB; a Japanese Windows, always use shift-JIS; and a Korean Windows, always use KS5601.

 3) If you intend to use the converted font on Windows NT 4.0, you may just maintain the language encoding. For example, you should maintain the Shift-JIS encoding if the original font is a Japanese font. Convert a font into Unicode encoding will enable NT 4.0 to use it for all CJK subsystem.

 After the encoding conversion is decided, user may click the "convert" button to continue. A file saving dialog will appear for user to enter the final font file name and the font platform format.

 If you select MacOS or non-Unicode encoding Windows as your target platform, the converted truetype will use format 2 cmap for the CJK encoding. If you select Unicode/Windows as your target platform, the converted truetype will use format 4 cmap for the CJK encoding. All converted fonts also contain an additional Apple Unicode encoding table (format 4 cmap) to enable the font to be used in the upcoming Unicode imaging from Apple.

 When all the information is ready, click "Save" to start the conversion. The progress information dialog will appear and conversion will start. Take a break for a coffee, the conversion will finish shortly.

 TrueKeys supports conversion from Windows truetype collection format (.ttc) to conventional truetype font (Mac or PC ttf format). The file name ending with ".TTC" or ".ttc" will trigger the TTC conversion. Taking the Mingli.TTC font which is part of traditional Chinese Windows 95 for an example, as TrueKeys opens the font, following dialog will be displayed:

 Only the selected truetype font will be converted into Mac or PC ttf format based on saving dialog options.

 The copyright of the converted font belongs to the original font designer. Please honour the copyright of the converted font, do not distribute or upload the converted font to others or online service. In another word, all the converted fonts are for registered user's personal/research use only. All converted truetype will contain a short copyright notice in the truetype name table for copyright identification.

 If you are the font designer and would like to sell TrueKeys converted font, you must obtain a worldwide license for TrueKeys from UniDoc System for distribution purpose. UniDoc System will provide a special version of TrueKeys which do not generate UniDoc copyright name tag.

 Any mac with system 7+, and 16MB RAM required. The TrueKeys will need
1.3 times font size allocated to it for font rendering. For system where RAM is limited, please use virtual memory. For best performance, a PowerMac with system7.5/16MB RAM or above is recommended. TrueKeys is a FAT binaries distribution, i.e., it contains both 68K and PPC native codes to run on both type CPU.

    If you can not convert a font, you should contact original author with the following files: your problematic truetype font, and the TrueKeys.log file. The contact e-mail address is info@unidocsys.com.