Tengwar Formal font homepage

Download zipped Tengwar Formal truetype font

After enjoying the "Lord of the rings" and having seen some available tengwar fonts, I decided do make one, and it's here now. The font is made to resemble the formal bookhand, the elvish handwriting style – hence the name. I hope I did quite well, and I don't see any reason to enjoy the work myself only.

Current version is 1.2c. In this release, I fixed some minor bugs, added files needed for Ω typesetting system, and adjusted some deeply-hidden metadata that contained obsolete license texts. Since version 1.2b, released in February 2006, Tengwar Formal fonts are distributed as freeware under terms of Open Font License by SIL international. Further details along with FAQ are available at: http://scripts.sil.org/OFL.

This font's character mapping is compatible with Daniel Smith's, so there should be no problems using it. Important: if you are a novice in tengwar fonts, please read the tutorial! This mapping is accepted as a standard and used in many tengwar transcription programs. The only difference is, that key "<" gives not an ancient hwesta, but a variant of esse.

Unfortunately, the Dan Smith's mapping was invented under Windows long time ago, and hence exchange of Tengwar texts between users of different operating systems is always a pain. The best I can advice is to always use Unicode.

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There are several versions of Tengwar Formal font in different formats. My program is capable to output mac fonts, but I have no hardware to test them. I would be grateful if anyone could check it. Anyway, the PC truetype should work under MacOS X.

pc truetype — 67.7 KB
Basic version for Windows and Linux. Should also work under Mac OS X. Comes with OMF and CFG files for Ω typesetting system.
pc opentype cff — 65.0 KB
Postscript outlines in modern Open Type format. Win2000/XP/Vista and probably also MacOS X display this version better in small sizes. Many applications do not offer good support for such fonts, so it may be needed to use system character map. Windows older than 2000 need the Adobe Type Manager for these fonts to work. The fonts come with OMF and CFG files for Ω typesetting system.
pc type 1 — 91.2 KB
Old postscript format. Contains AFM and PFM files, and, for Tεχ users, also ENC and TFM files. Windows older than 2000 need the Adobe Type Manager for these fonts to work. Encoded in MS Latin (ANSII).
SVG Font — 65,0 KB
Experimental fonts in SVG format, for web pages and web graphics.
TengwarFormal.pdf — 41.3 KB
A PDF summary of Tengwar Formal keymapping, including Tengwar Formal A keymapping. It's included in the font packages, however I provide it also here for convenience.

Dan Smith's mapping was made under Windows, so users of older, non-Unicode versions of Mac OS were always in uncomfortable situation – a lot extended tehtar and special signs are unavailable or have different keystrokes than given in instructions. The problem is partly soluble by forging MacRoman versions of the fonts prepared so that every byte of the text is displayed like in PC. But the Unicode meaning is different! So these fonts, even if they actually work, are unsuitable for exchanging any data.

mac truetype — 70.1 KB
For users of MacOS X Classic and older. Files in ttf.bin format. In non-unicode applications some lesser-used chars are unreachable. The fonts come with OMF and CFG files for Ω typesetting system.
mac type 1 — 94.9 KB
Old mac postscript format. Contains AFM, PFM, ENC and TFM files. Also contains 10px bitmap fonts that are needed for proper installation. MacOS 9.x and older need the Adobe Type Manager for these fonts to work. Note: encoded in MacRoman codepage, so some lesser-used chars are unreachable.

Maybe in future I will have some time to make the fonts in other formats, but it's more likely I won't... Still, if there isn't your favourite format in the list above, you can convert this font. If you do so, please let me publish it here, so that everyone could enjoy it.

Tengwar Formal font homepage

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