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I'm trying to educate myself about font systems, and I'd like to be able to look at an actual ttf file the way I can look at a metafont file. However when I load the file in a text editor (aquamacs) or in TeXShop I can't make anything out that corresponds to the documentation I found here:

https://developer.apple.com/fonts/TTRefMan/index.html

Am I doing something wrong? Can anyone help me out? Thanks.

(More generally, I would like to be able to look at other kinds of font files this way, but I'm starting with ttf. If anyone has any advice, bombs away by all means.)

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The .ttf format is not TeX-specific: I'm not sure this is on topic. – Joseph Wright♦ Jun 6 '12 at 8:23
Perhaps I overestimate the importance of .ttf and other formats to the tex community. – user15340 Jun 6 '12 at 8:56
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The closest to machine-readable you can get is by using TTX to dump the font file into an XML representation. But I agree with Joseph, it is off topic here. – Khaled Hosny Jun 6 '12 at 9:01
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As far as I know, .ttf (and .otf) files are not human-readable in the same way MetaFont files are: that's why tools such as FontForge are used by font designers. My point was not that fonts are not of interest to TeX users, but that 'modern' font file formats are not TeX-specific, and also that working with fonts is somewhat distinct from working with TeX. I'm not sure how many TeX users worry about the 'internals' of system font formats, other than those who are font designers. – Joseph Wright♦ Jun 6 '12 at 9:01
Aha, I'll get right on that (don't know anything about XML at the moment). Much obliged, and sorry for posting off topic. – user15340 Jun 7 '12 at 11:32

closed as off topic by egreg, lockstep, diabonas, Marco Daniel, dıʞsdoʇ Jun 13 '12 at 16:29

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