A PFB file (Printer Font Binary) is an Adobe PostScript Type 1 font in its binary, compact form. It was the standard font format of professional publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, so PFB files turn up today in old font CDs, agency archives, pre-press workflows and TeX distributions. On Windows a PFB almost always comes with a matching PFM file of the same name. Since 2023 most of the software that once used these fonts no longer accepts them, which is the main reason people look for a converter.
History of Type 1
Adobe created Type 1 together with the PostScript page description language in the mid-1980s. At first the format was secret and only Adobe could make fully hinted Type 1 fonts. After Apple and Microsoft announced TrueType, Adobe published the specification in 1990, and Adobe Type Manager brought sharp on-screen rendering of Type 1 to the Mac and to Windows. The format has not changed since the 1990s. Its successor is OpenType with CFF outlines, which Adobe describes as a compact representation of Type 1.
End of support
- Adobe: Photoshop dropped Type 1 in version 23.0 (October 2021). Illustrator 27.3, InDesign 18.2 and the video and audio apps followed in early 2023, as Adobe announced in 2021. Installed Type 1 fonts disappear from the font menus and documents report them as missing. Acrobat and Reader still display PDFs with embedded Type 1 fonts.
- Microsoft Office: Office for Windows stopped using Type 1 fonts with Office 2013, Microsoft 365 for Mac in 2023.
- Windows: in 2024 Microsoft added Type 1 to its list of deprecated features. Windows 10 and 11 still install the fonts, but future releases will not.
- LibreOffice stopped using Type 1 fonts in version 5.3 (2017).
How a PFB file is built
A Type 1 font is a PostScript program. Its header with the font name and encoding is plain text, while the glyph outlines (cubic Bézier curves with hints) are encrypted with Adobe's eexec scheme. The PFB file stores the encrypted part in binary and wraps the sections in small segment headers. Its text twin PFA stores the same data as hexadecimal text and is about twice as large. A Type 1 font can contain many glyphs, but its encoding addresses at most 256 of them at a time, which is why Central European characters often lived in separate "CE" versions of a font.
The PFB holds outlines and character widths, not kerning. Kerning pairs and other metrics are in a separate file: PFM on Windows, AFM on Unix and in TeX. A Mac Type 1 font is different again, an LWFN file plus a font suitcase, without the .pfb extension.
Opening and installing PFB
On Windows 10 and 11 you install the PFM file (right-click, Install) with the PFB in the same folder. Linux renders Type 1 through FreeType, and TeX uses PFB files directly through its map files. To look inside or edit the font, use the free FontForge.
Common problems
Type 1 font missing in InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop
The font is installed but the app ignores it. Either replace it with the OpenType version from the type vendor or convert the PFB to OTF. Then use Find Font in InDesign or Illustrator to swap the missing font in your documents. Check line breaks afterwards, small spacing differences can reflow text.
Windows will not install the PFB
Windows installs Type 1 from the PFM file and needs the PFB beside it. If you only have the PFB, convert it to OTF.
Old and new version of the font conflict
If the converted OTF has the same name as the installed Type 1 font, uninstall the old one first.
Converting PFB
The most useful conversion is PFB to OTF. Type 1 and CFF use the same kind of curves and hints, so our converter carries outlines over without approximation. Converting to TTF approximates the curves with quadratic ones. WOFF is the option if you need the font on a website. Keep in mind:
- We convert the single file you upload. Kerning stored in the PFM or AFM is not part of it, so the result has correct widths but no kerning pairs.
- Conversion does not add letters the font never had. Western Type 1 fonts usually cover Western European languages only, Polish, Czech or Cyrillic letters were sold as separate "CE" or "Cyrillic" fonts.
- Converting does not change the licence. Many Type 1 licences from the 1990s do not allow modification. Some vendors offer the OpenType version as a free or discounted upgrade, check with them before converting a commercial font.
PFB at a glance
| Developer | Adobe |
|---|---|
| Introduced | mid-1980s, specification public in 1990 |
| Status | legacy, unsupported in Adobe apps since 2023 |
| Type | PostScript Type 1 outline font, binary form |
| Companion files | PFM (Windows), AFM (metrics) |
| Successor | OpenType CFF (.otf) |
Specification: Adobe Type 1 Font Format.