[Freetype] off topic -- mac fonts on freebsd

[Max Bloch]

Hi there Freetypers:

as the subject already implies, this mail is pretty much off topic and
doesn't exactly pertain to the freetype project, but I am pretty sure
that I might find the right people here to help me out with my problem.

To start explaining, I use Freetype 1.3 together with GD 1.83 and PHP
4.03 on a FreeBSD machine to create PNG previews of truetype fonts. As
of now I am receiving Windows truetype fonts packed as Windows/DOS .zip
files, which I run through a script to to extract them (using unzip) and
then to go on to create the previews with the mentioned above tools. I
would like to be able to create previews of Macintosh truetype fonts on
some equivalent way and that is where I am having problems. I don't know
anything about Mac, exept for that Mac users preferably compress their
files (and fonts for distribution) using Stuffit Expander, but I am
having my problems handling these files on Freebsd. I can't even extract
.zip files correctly made with Zipit for Mac -- All I then get is the
font as a suitcase resource fork (.suit) file, whatever that means?!?! I
don't know if I am doing anything wrong, or if the Mac user trying to
help me out doesn't know what he is doing or if reading mac files on
FreeBSD is just way more complicated than I expected it to be.

Anybody who could point me in the right direction to learn how fonts are
to be compressed to .sit, .hqx or .zip files on a Mac and how I can
decompress them on my Freebsd machine would be doing me a great favor.

Thanks for reading this far ;)...

...Max