Alternative Font loaders in Monogame Framework

Question

While working on projects of mine, I have been finding that it is a huge pain to switch operating systems just to create a simple spritefont when using Monogame. I saw that the Nuclex Framework can load fonts which are clearer/sharper, and they can be used in a Monogame project as well. They load fonts using the FreeType library, which is very multiplatform and is used widely. Is there a fairly simple way to use the FreeType library or another library to render text suitable for use in a Monogame project, as an xnb file?

Answer 1

From my understanding a spritefont is essentially a collection of sprites where each letter translates to a coordinate on a spritesheet, such as the following:

You can do this manually, of course, but it would be a pain to check each coordinate. You can use BMFont to do the conversion for you, which creates an image such as the one above, followed by an xml file with coordinates to each letter.

I've never done it with MonoGame, but you can find a tutorial here

As far as what you said about needing to switch operating systems to create the file, what do you mean? You can create a content project in MacOS and Windows. Also, MonoGame has been working on the new pipeline using the new Pipeline.exe and related tools