Fonts in PFM & PFB Files
As a web designer I often get into installing new fonts to work on a company’s particular typeface. But passing font files between developers is not such a straight-forward procedure as you might expect – the last time I got the fonts in two versions with .pfm and .pfb extensions…
.pfb (Printer Font Binary) files contain a binary compressed outline font for use on a user's Windows system.
.pfm (Printer Font Metrics) files contain font metric information used by applications for laying out lines of text in a document. They also specify the Windows font menu name, kerning pair data, and a variety of other font-level information.
Basically, PFB is an encrypted Type 1 font, and PFM is Windows Type 1 font metrics. These two files need to be together for the Type 1 font to work.
According to the info on Microsoft’s site, you cannot load Type 1′s the way you can TTF’s – instead you’ve gotta use Adobe Type Manager. Adobe has discontinued the deluxe version of this software but is still giving away it’s light version as a free download over here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/atmlight/index.html
As for the Mac, the short answer is that you won’t be able to use those fonts. PFB and PFM files combine to make Postscript fonts on the PC. That format isn’t supported by Mac OSX. PostScript font support is built directly into Mac OS X.
