This is part of the old website, it is no longer updated.

Several formats for bitmap only sfnts
(the file type which holds a truetype or opentype font)

Unfortunately every system has its own way of storing bitmap only fonts into an sfnt wrapper (or the system just doesn't support it)

Apple

Apple documents the existence of a bitmap only format, and gives some hints about the requirements of it. Their documentation is far from complete and the following is determined in part by that documentation, in part by examining the (few) bitmap only fonts of theirs I have found, and in part by error messages given by some of their tools.

X11 (Unix/Linux)

The X consortium have devised their own format which they call "OpenType Bitmap" with extension .otb.

MS

MicroSoft Windows provides no support for a bitmap only sfnt. So I have created a faked up format which should work in most cases