Fontforge Alternatives For Mac

Istok is a new sans serif typeface. At present it has the four fonts with support for Latin and Cyrillic. The font includes oldstyle figure variants and small capitals (Regular only). Most glyphs are manually instructed using xgridfit, but other ones are autoinstructed in fontforge. Truetype instructions are specifically intended for rendering on LCD displays.

Are you looking for Recuva to recover deleted or lost files on a Mac? Be aware that there is NOT a macOS version for Recuva, yet.

Websites and advertisements that claim to provide Recuva downloads for macOS are either false or misleading.

I love Recuva and I appreciate the Piriform team (also the maker of the world’s famous PC cleaning tool called CCleaner) for providing this free excellent utility. With Recuva, I managed to help a photographer friend recover tons of “deleted” pictures.

Unfortunately, Recuva, like many other data recovery software we tested, is only available to download and use on a Windows PC.

However, several free Mac file recovery apps are good enough to be alternatives of Recuva. In this article, I’m going to share them with you. I’ll also show you how to use them step by step.

My goal is simple: to help you get back those lost files quick — without wasting time or money on software offered by “unethical” vendors that provide false information.

Note: I’m not against paid programs, I just dislike their marketing tactics. In fact, there are quite a few good commercial apps. See our best Mac data recovery software review.

What is Recuva?

For those of you who are new to the program, Recuva (like the name indicates) is a free recovery tool that runs on Windows-based computers to help users undelete files accidentally erased from a computer or storage media such as digital camera, sd card, USB flash drive, external hard drive, and so on.

The program is designed and developed by a company called Piriform, a privately owned software company based in London, UK. You can get Recuva for free here.

New update: Piriform was acquired by Avast in 2017, learn more from this press release.

Recuva for Mac?

As I said, Recuva is ONLY available for Windows operating system. Piriform claims it’s compatible with Windows 10, 8.1, 7, Vista and XP (both 32-bit and 64-bit). Here’s how its main interface looks like on a PC.

Note: there isn’t a macOS version yet, so you can’t run Recuva on a Mac machine.

Many advertisers claim they offer Recuva for macOS. I tried a few and found that none of them have anything to do with Piriform Recuva — they all turned out to be commercial software that requires pay to activate the recovery function. Worse yet, some even are not compatible with the latest macOS.

Free Alternatives to Recuva on Mac

Please note: The recovery apps listed below are all 100% free to download and use — meaning you can use them without any restrictions. If they didn’t work out, you may turn to commercial recovery software if the lost files are really important to you. Consider some paid apps like Stellar Mac Data Recovery, Disk Warrior, and several other Mac data recovery apps here.

1. Time Machine

Ah, Time Machine — saved my life several times. If you are new to the Mac world, Time Machine is a backup app built into macOS by default. It works with Apple Time Capsule or an external hard drive to save copies of all the data stored on your Mac computer.

Best to use for: restoring deleted or lost files on Mac, provided that you have a least one timely backup before your files got deleted.

Pros:

• Easy and quick to set up.
• Reliable. You recover almost any files as long as you have proper backups.

Cons:​

• Does not support recovering lost data from an external storage device.​

Tutorial:

Apple has a thorough step-by-step instruction on how to use Time Machine to backup and restore data. As long as you have backed up your Mac before, it’s almost guaranteed that you can restore any individual files or the whole Mac. If you prefer a video tutorial, check out this 2-minute clip:

2. Exif Untrasher

Another great alternative to Recuva for Mac users. Exif Untrasher is an app that is able to locate deleted photos (JPEG format only) on any external storage media such as SD/CF cards, memory sticks, USB drives, external hard drives, etc. and retrieve the pictures back to your Mac. Exif Untrasher performs read-only operations and does not alter your removable drive. Thus it’s pretty safe to use. The app is compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 or higher.

Best to use for: recovering JPEG pictures lost due to accidental deletion, disk formatting, memory card crash, etc.

Pros:

• It’s free.
• Easy to set up, and the app interface is intuitive.
• Quality of recovered photos is high.​

Cons:​

• Does not support scanning internal Mac hard drive.
• Only JPEG format is supported, no camera RAW images or other video formats.
• Disk scanning process is slow. It took me an hour to scan a 32GB Lexar drive.​

Tutorial:

Step 1: Connect your device (e.g. a memory card) to your Mac. I’m here to use a Lexar flash drive as an example.

Step 2: Go to Exif Untrasher’s official website. Download and install the app on your Mac.

Step 3: Launch Exif Untrasher. Choose the Source (the disk volume for the scan) and Destination folder (to save recovered items).

Step 4: Once I click the Choose Source button, it asks me to choose the volume that represents the storage medium I want to scan. The app recognizes my Lexar flash drive. Notice the “Macintosh HD” is grayed out? Because it does not support the internal Mac hard drive.

Step 5: After I select my Lexar drive and click OK. It will create a disk image (named “Lexar (Copy).dmg”).

Step 6: Now the disk image is being created.

Step 7: Soon I can click the “Start data recovery” button on the main window.

Step 8: Now it’s the time-consuming part. Since my Lexar USB key has 32GB volume, it seems too large for Exif Untrasher to scan. It took me about an hour or so to finish the process.

Step 9: When Exif Untrasher completes restoration, it will inform you and automatically open the destination folder you selected in Step 3. Now take a closer look at the folder to see if your lost pictures are there.

3. PhotoRec

Don’t be fooled by the name. PhotoRec is actually a powerful data recovery software that is capable of retrieving a variety of file formats including photos, videos, documents, archives, and more. It’s an open-source program available to download and use on multiple operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux. Together with its companion program called TestDisk which can be used to fix disk partition issues, the software has a very good word of mouth among computer geeks.

Best to use for: those who are comfortable with operating via Terminal (yes, it’s a command-line tool) to rescue deleted or lost files.

Pros:

• It’s open-source, totally free.
• Support recovering various types of files from both Mac hard drive and external storage devices.
• The scanning and recovery process is relatively quick.​

Cons:​

• It’s a command-line tool (without graphic interfaces), not suitable for computer novice users.​

How-to Tutorial: Sony dcr trv19e usb driver for mac.

Fortunately, CGSecurity has a detailed step-by-step guide assisting you throughout the whole process. You should have no problem using the software if you follow the instructions.

Those of you who prefer watching video tutorials, here is a nice one made by AJ Reissig:

Other Good Paid Software

In case the above alternatives didn’t work out, here’s a list of commercial Mac data rescue tools worth giving a try. Note: they all require to pay in the end, it is advised that you use them only when the lost data are extremely important to you.

• Stellar Mac Data Recovery – Stellar has been in the data recovery market for a long time, offering both software and services. The price of the program starts from $99 for a regular license, there’s also a platinum edition that costs $125.
• Remo Recover Mac – Similar to Recuva, Remo also supports retrieving data from both internal Mac hard drive and external media. Remo claims the program is also able to rescue data from application errors and problematic volumes. The price goes all the way up to a whopping $180.
• Prosoft Data Rescue for Mac – A professional data recovery program developed by Prosoft Engineering, a team from the United States. It supports recovering many file types, all starts with a one-click scan.
• Disk Warrior 5 – Alsoft boasts the app as the world’s most advanced repair and data recovery tool for Mac. It includes a range of utilities to help keep your Mac disk secure and healthy.

One More Thing

Due to the complex nature of data loss, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to retrieve all your lost files, nor professional data recovery service companies do. The best way to prevent data disaster is by making solid backups, or “backup of backups” as they say.

Time Machine and Apple Time Capsule are the easiest solutions. You may also consider a cheaper backup software like Prosoft Data Backup for Mac, or cloud backup services like McAfee LiveSafe.

Or, if you are like me who’s been used to backing up data the traditional way — using an external drive. Seagate Backup Plus and WD My Passport are both great options. I prefer Seagate because it offers a Seagate Rescue service – 3-year data recovery plan for its external hard drives.

Conclusion

It can be really scaring if you have accidentally deleted some important files out of your Mac, digital camera, or a removable disk. I have personally experienced that several times and witnessed friends suffering from data disasters too.

Recuva, a nice free data recovery utility, is often my go-to-tool to handle data loss situations. However, the program is only available to use on Windows PCs. There is no Recuva for Mac.

However, there are several best alternatives to Recuva that work great on Mac machines. They are Time Machine, Exif Untrasher, and PhotoRec as introduced above. Although each alternative has its own pros and cons as shown in my review, they are all 100% free to try and use without any function restrictions.

Lastly, make sure you always have at least one solid backup​ of your Mac drive data. These days the value of data is much more worthy than the computer or device itself.

Hope you find this article helpful. If you discover any other Recuva alternatives for macOS, feel free to leave a comment and let us know.​

Jessica is the co-founder and content manager. She has been fascinated by the startup culture in Silicon Valley and she loves building things from zero to one. When she is not writing, she loves getting close to nature and shoot photos with her iPhone and Canon EOS 80D.

FontForge is a font editor which supports many common font formats. Developed primarily by George Williams until 2012, FontForge is free software and is distributed under a mix of the GNU General Public License Version 3 and the 3-clause BSD license.^[2] It is available for operating systems including Linux, Windows^[3] and macOS^[4] and is localized into 12 languages.

Features[edit]

To facilitate automated format conversion and other repetitive tasks, FontForge implements two scripting languages: its own language and Python.^[5] FontForge can run scripts from its GUI, from the command line, and also offers its features as a Python module so it can be integrated into any Python program.^[6]

FontForge supports Adobe's OpenType feature file specification (with its own extensions to the syntax).^[7] It also supports the unofficial Microsoft mathematical typesetting extensions (MATH table)^[8] introduced for Cambria Math and supported by Office 2007, XeTeX and LuaTeX. At least one free OpenType mathematical font has been developed in FontForge.

FontForge uses FreeType for rendering fonts on screen.^[9] Since the November 15, 2008 release, FontForge uses libcairo and libpango software libraries for graphics and text rendering^[10] providing anti-aliased graphics and complex text layout support.

FontForge can use Potrace or AutoTrace to auto trace bitmap images and import them into a font.

Parts of FontForge code are used by the LuaTeX typesetting engine for reading and parsing OpenType fonts.^[11]

The FontForge source code includes a number of utility programs, including 'showttf' which shows the contents of binary font files, and a WOFF converter and deconverter.

Supported formats[edit]

FontForge supports a wide variety of font formats.^[12] Its native Spline Font Database format (.sfd file name extension) is text-based^[13] and facilitates collaboration between designers, as difference files can be easily created. FontForge also supports the interoperable UFO source format, which is based on XML.

The software supports many other font formats and converts fonts from one format to another. Supported font formats include: TrueType (TTF), TrueType Collection (TTC), OpenType (OTF), PostScript Type 1, TeX Bitmap Fonts, X11 OTB bitmap (only sfnt), Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF), FON (Windows), FNT (Windows), and Web Open Font Format (WOFF). FontForge also imports and exports fonts to and from the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format and the Unified Font Object (UFO) format.

Development history[edit]

The FontForge project was founded by George Williams as a retirement project, and initially published from 2001 to March 2004 as PfaEdit).^[14][15]

Williams actively developed, maintained and supported the program and related utilities for around 12 years. In mid-2011, Dave Crossland began contributing to the project and the project moved from SourceForge to GitHub. Crossland began offering introductory type design workshops through the TeX Users Group (TUG) to raise funds to hire contract developers to maintain and develop the program. FontForge's development became more active, and Khaled Hosny and Barry Schwartz were notable contributors, but in late 2012 they and Crossland disagreed about the direction of the project so they forked FontForge as SortsMill Tools.^[16]

In 2011, FontForge was packaged for easier installation on Mac OS X by Dr. Ben Martin with support from TUG. Meanwhile, Matthew Petroff published his Windows Build System and unofficial Windows builds. In 2013 the FontForgeBuilds project was started on sourceforge to extend this; it was subsequently entirely rewritten, and is today maintained by Jeremy Tan as an official Windows package.

In 2012, Crossland organized a new project website to be hosted on GitHub Pages, fontforge.github.io, and used funds raised from teaching FontForge to beginners to hire a contract web designer. With his support Martin added a real time collaboration feature that was presented by them both as a keynote at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2013 in Madrid.

In 2014, with financial support from Google, Frank Trampe added full support for the UFO font source format.

Fonts developed with FontForge[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Releases · fontforge/fontforge · GitHub'. GitHub. frank-trampe. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
2. ^fontforge. 'fontforge/LICENSE at master · fontforge/fontforge · GitHub'. GitHub.
3. ^Gurdy Leete; Mary Leete (12 June 2007). Microsoft Expression Blend Bible. John Wiley & Sons. p. 295. ISBN978-0-470-05503-8. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
4. ^James, Daniel (2009-12-04). Crafting Digital Media: Audacity, Blender, Drupal, GIMP, Scribus, and other Open Source Tools (1 ed.). Berkeley, CA: Apress. p. 114. ISBN1430218878.
5. ^'Writing scripts to change fonts in FontForge'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
6. ^'Writing python scripts to change fonts in FontForge'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
7. ^'FontForge's implementation of Adobe's Feature File syntax'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
8. ^'MATH typesetting information'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. 2007-08-04. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
9. ^'Building FontForge from source'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
10. ^'Change log for FontForge'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
11. ^'LuaTeX — Taco Hoekwater, July 24, TUG 2008'(PDF). Retrieved 2009-11-09.
12. ^Lunde, Ken (2009-01-13). CJKV Information Processing. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly. p. 447. ISBN9780596514471.
13. ^'Spline Font Database File Format'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
14. ^Yannis Haralambous (3 October 2007). Fonts & Encodings (1 ed.). O'Reilly Media, Inc. pp. 444, 988. ISBN978-0-596-10242-5. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
15. ^'The history of the development of FontForge'. Fontforge.sourceforge.net. Archived from the original on 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
16. ^'SortMill Tools'. Barry Schwartz. Retrieved 2015-02-27.
17. ^'OSP-foundry» Blog Archive » Sans Guilt'.
18. ^'OSP (Open Source Publishing) →'. osp.kitchen.

External links[edit]

Media related to Fontforge at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• 'I think the ideas behind it are beautiful in my mind': long interview with George Williams, July 8, 2007