How to install the Bravura font

[cmloegcmluin]

[Skip to here for an easy way.]

Installing the Bravura font is not as easy as it sounds. It is more complex than your ordinary font. Here are some tips. These instructions worked for me on the latest versions of Mac OS and Windows as of today, the 7th of April 2020.

1. What you need to download is here, on their GitHub Releases: https://github.com/steinbergmedia/bravura/releases
   Download the Asset: "Source code (zip)".
2. Unarchive/Extract the downloaded zip file.
3. The next step depends on your OS. If you're on a Mac, you'll need to get Packages by WhiteBox. If you're on Windows, you'll need to get Inno Setup. In either case, what you are getting is an installer compiler. In other words, Bravura not only needs an installer program in order to be installed, but that program is not ready to go as part of the release you downloaded from GitHub. You need to download one of these two programs in order to compile the installer from source code that was included in that release.
4. Install the compiler you downloaded. If you're on Mac and your OS refuses to open the Packages installer because it is from an unrecognized developer, you will need to go to your System Preferences -> Security & Privacy and find the little button to "open anyway",
5. The next step again depends on your OS.
   
   If you're on Mac, inside the unarchived Bravura release, open "installers/mac/Bravura Font Family.pkgproj". It should open in Packages. Next choose "Build" from the Build menu in the toolbar, or simply use the key combo Command B. If it asks you whether to save changes to the script before building, there is no need. The installer should compile (build) successfully. Edit: If it doesn't, you may need to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access and enable for "packages_dispatcher". If you look back in Finder, you should see that there is a new folder called "build" which is a sibling to the "Bravura Font Family.pkgproj" file you just opened. Inside "build" you will finally find an installer called "Bravura Font Family.pkg". Run that, and Bravura will be installed.
   
   If you're on Windows, inside the unarchived Bravura release, open "installers\windows\bravura-installer.iss". It should open in Inno Setup. Look for the line that says "LicenseFile=Z:\git\bravura\redist\OFL.txt" and change it to "LicenseFile=..\..\redist\OFL.txt". Next choose "Run" from the Run menu in the toolbar, or simply click the green "Run" button. If you look back in Windows Explorer, you should see that there is a new folder called "Output" which is a sibling to the "bravura-installer.iss" file you just opened. Inside "Output" you will finally find an installer called "InstallBravura-1.204.exe". Run that, and Bravura will be installed.

Once you have Bravura you have the power to type music! You can even put noteheads and sagittals on musical staffs in the correct positions. Some tips about that here: http://forum.sagittal.org/viewtopic.php?p=965#p965

[Dave Keenan]

I like the way you kept a straight face while writing all that, and I thank you for going to the trouble, but you and I both know that is "absolute madness". No one should have to go to that much trouble to install a font.

I suppose that for most people, Bravura is automatically installed as part of their notation software. Or maybe it is never actually installed in the OS for general use, but is only available in the notation software itself.

But if people want to see the proper symbols in the updated JI notation spreadsheet you recently posted, or want to try typing staff notation in a word processor or text editor using BravuraText, then they will need to install the font in their OS.

Surely, for this application, they don't need the metadata, license or documentation files, and so don't need the installer, but can simply download the Bravura.otf and/or BravuraText.otf files, right click on them and choose Install. And yet, when I try to do this on Windows 10, I am told ""Cannot install ... does not appear to be a valid font".

FontForge says a similar thing when I try to open these files.

[cmloegcmluin]

Haha. Yes I agree that the developers of Bravura are not expecting mere mortals to attempt to install them directly. But it is handy for that spreadsheet!

I couldn’t figure out what the deal is with the font files not simply installing like normal font files, but I suspect it could have something to do with all those json configuration files the installer also installs. I should determine ASAP whether bundling those font files with a static web application (like a Sagittal calculator) works or if there’s something mysterious preventing that.

[Dave Keenan]

The fonts did install correctly when I followed your instructions above. Thanks. And I noticed that the .otf files were more than 500 kB each, whereas the .otf files I downloaded separately were exactly 65 kB each. Apparently I had downloaded them in the wrong way, somehow.

I upload below, the (zipped) Windows installer for version 1.350 of Bravura and BravuraText, so others might avoid having to follow the complicated procedure above.

[cmloegcmluin]

Dave again with the pragmatic solution. Here's the compiled Mac installer for 1.350. If these don't work for you, fall back to the instructions above.

[AxelArnoldBangert]

Hi dear Sagittalers ,
locally it works now perfect in version 1.37. But if you want to use BravuraText.otf in Webapplications it seems definitly not to be installable via @font-face https://stackoverflow.com/posts/62068468/edit . We are waiting for an answer of Daniel Spreadbury concerning that theme
Best regards
Axel Arnold Bangert 31.05.2020

[Dave Keenan]

Here's the zipped Windows installer for the fonts Bravura.otf and BravuraText.otf version 1.392. This is the first version to comply with SMuFL 1.4.

[cmloegcmluin]

And here's the zipped Mac installer equivalent of the previous post.

FYI: I needed to revise the instructions in the OP due to a new error I experienced this time.

[Harmonybear]

Greetings - This is an old thread so I hope it pings. I tried installing the Bravura SMuFL font on my iMac (Intel, Ventura)using the Package app and the Bravura Font Family.pkgproj file from the SMuFL GitHub page. Everything loaded fine into Package but it won't build. Here's the error message: Unable to copy item at path "/Users/redist/bravura-text.md" because the item could not be found. I'm not even sure what the 'item' is. I did grant permission for Package. I need a font guru!

Thanks for any help anyone might offer.

Cheers,

Gary

[cmloegcmluin]

Howdy Gary,

I just retried my instructions from a few years back and it worked for me. I did need to do the enable Full Disk Access for packages_dispatcher step, though.

I am on Big Sur, on an ancient 2014 Mac laptop, so it's a bit different than your setup.

I did notice that inside my bravura-bravura-1.380 folder, there's a "redist" folder that has a file called "bravura-text.md" in it. I think that's the "item" you should be worried about. Do you see that file on your end? If not, what *do* you see in that redist folder? And it might be worth re-downloading and re-extracting Bravura, in case something went wrong with the download or extraction.

Also, maybe you tried to use Bravura 1.392, which is still a pre-release, and that might not work quite right. If so, it would be safer to try 1.380, which is what I used.

Let me know if you have any other issues or questions and I'll see what I can do to help.

Best,
Douglas