Music Software
With Avrella you are free to design your own fonts for use with Avrella Music Score Editor. For this a font software package is required. This is a brief list of various software packages available for this purpose. This list is by no means comprehensive.
The best known. However if you are just going to be a part time user then it does not come cheap.
Fontographer 4.1.5 - US $349.
The Avrella Standard Type 1 and Freestyle Type 1 fonts were developed for release using this package.
Macromedia had not continued further development of this program from the 4.1 release dated 1996. However in May 2005 it was announced that Fontlab had acquired from Macromedia the Fontographer product line. Along with this announcement was the commitment to work on fixing bugs and preparing a new version. The current Windows release is 4.1.5.
May 2010: Fontographer5 is due "for a launch announcement within the next few weeks!"
Users (including this one) have experienced problems running this package on Windows XP.
Fontlab website (21 May 2010):
"Macromedia Fontographer 4.1.x for Windows was created in 1995-96, at the time when the current operating system from Microsoft was Windows 95. Currently, the only version of Fontographer available for Windows is the ‘old’ 4.1.5. There are a number of compatibility problems that may prevent Fontographer 4.1.5 from working on Windows 2000 or XP."
Ref: Fontlabs Fontographer FAQ page for further info. and workarounds / fixes.
Another fairly well known though by no means inexpensive font editor.
FontLab Studio 5.0 - US $649.
There is a less expensive Lite version:
TypeTool* 3.0 - US $99
*Lite version of FontLab - does the basics.
Unlike Fontographer (which from 1996 - 2005 was not developed past release 4.1) this product has been actively developed for many years. For this reason many font developers prefer FontLab over Fontographer. A downloadable demonstration version of FontLab (export and save limitations) is available from their website.
Described as "The Ultimate Tools for Professional Font Production". This no doubt goes some way to explaining the price. They provide a downloadable demo.
DTL FontMaster complete, (including 10% discount) - 2038.50 Euro (approx US $ 2500)
The original Avrella Standard and Freestyle fonts were created using this editor. Whilst not having all the features of its more expensive rivals - the price is just £15 (approx US $25) - excellent value for money.
Softy 1.07b - £15 (approx US $25)
Brief product info.: New fonts can be created from scratch or existing fonts amended. New and amended glyphs in TrueType fonts are unhinted, but hints are retained for unchanged glyphs when an existing font is amended TrueType glyphs can be created and amended using a variety of drawing tools, or by autotracing bitmap templates.
Note: Future development of this package has been frozen.
Font Creator 6.1 Home Edition US $79
Professional Edition US $199
(All prices quoted were taken May 2010.)