Developing fonts 
Specifications: overview
OpenType Specification v1.8.1
This specification details the format of OpenType fonts, TrueType and CFF outline formats, and the TrueType hinting language. Click here to see other versions.
OpenType Font Development
This 5-part document describes the technical underpinings for the OpenType font developer, including the layout model and related services, font format, shaping engines, encoding, client support and available tools.
Font Delivery Specification
The purpose of this document is to define the Microsoft Typography requirements and expectations of all deliverables.
Hinting and Production Guidelines
This document defines the technical requirements for fonts produced for Microsoft by external type developers. We have posted them here for the general benefit of all type developers.

TrueType Specification
The TrueType 1.66 specification is provided here in Word format for historical purposes.
title page[0.02Mb Word]
contents[0.02Mb Word]
preface[0.02Mb Word]
chapter 1- TrueType fundamentals [0.5Mb Word]
chapter 2- TrueType font file [0.3Mb Word]
chapter 3- recommendations for
chapter 4- character sets [0.02Mb Word]
WGL4 set[0.16Mb Word]
chapter 5- instructing glyphs [0.2Mb Word]
chapter 6a- TrueType instruction set [0.7Mb Word]
chapter 6b- TrueType instruction set [0.7Mb Word]
chapter 7- graphics state summary [0.02Mb Word]
appendix link- IBM font class parameters [0.04Mb Word]
appendix B- instruction set summary [0.04Mb Word]
appendix C- instruction set index [0.02Mb Word]
vendor ID registry [HTML]

Script-specific Development
These documents tell you how to create and support OpenType fonts for specific scripts.
Standard scripts (Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, etc.)
Complex Scripts (Supported by Universal Shaping Engine)
Arabic script
Buginese script
Hangul script
Hebrew script
Indic scripts:
Bengali script
Devanagari script
Gujarati script
Gurmukhi script
Kannada script
Malayalam script
Oriya script
Tamil script
Telugu script
Javanese script
Khmer script
Lao script
Myanmar script
Sinhala script
Syriac script
Thaana script
Thai script
Tibetan script

TrueType Specification
The TrueType 1.66 specification is provided here in Word format for historical purposes.
title page[0.02Mb Word]
contents[0.02Mb Word]
preface[0.02Mb Word]
chapter 1- TrueType fundamentals [0.5Mb Word]
chapter 2- TrueType font file [0.3Mb Word]
chapter 3- recommendations for
chapter 4- character sets [0.02Mb Word]
WGL4 set[0.16Mb Word]
chapter 5- instructing glyphs [0.2Mb Word]
chapter 6a- TrueType instruction set [0.7Mb Word]
chapter 6b- TrueType instruction set [0.7Mb Word]
chapter 7- graphics state summary [0.02Mb Word]
appendix link- IBM font class parameters [0.04Mb Word]
appendix B- instruction set summary [0.04Mb Word]
appendix C- instruction set index [0.02Mb Word]
vendor ID registry [HTML]

References
The Unicode Standard