About the Tool

The Microsoft Visual OpenType Layout Tool provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface to add OpenType layout tables to fonts with TrueType outlines. It is licensed free and can be downloaded from the online community set up for it. The community hosts an active discussion forum, version history information, a wish-list and related downloads. Links to VOLT's release notes, as well as tips and tutorials are also posted.

VOLT supports a wide range of substitution and positioning types. It also contains a proofing tool for reviewing the application of layout table lookups. It allows import and export of glyph names, lookups, glyph groups and a full project.

The tool has been used by community members to add OpenType layout tables to various fonts supporting scripts, including Arabic (Naskh and Nastaliq writing styles), Bengali, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Latin, Sinhala, Syriac, Telugu, and Thaana.

Getting VOLT

Visit the VOLT community Web site and apply to join. A VOLT version 1.1 download, as well as notes and VOLT-related discussions, are hosted on the site.

Resources

• VOLT 1.1 Release Notes
• VOLT User Interface Overview
• VOLT and InDesign - a VOLT tutorial
• VOLT news page
• Windows Glyph Processing - an OpenType primer
• OpenType Specification
• Converting a Devanagari Font to Unicode / OTL
• Original VOLT Specification (historical interest only)