This document is located at my webpage
I'm going to make this brief (-; The purpose of this document is to address what was a gaping hole in font documentation. While previously, there were several documents about fonts for Linux, I felt that none of them were comprehensive, all of them had a relatively narrow focus. Hence the goal of this document is not to provide radical new insight into the issue of font handling ( though I have included material previously unavailable ), the main aim is to provide a comprehensive source to act as a starting point for any and all font questions about Linux.
Special thanks are due to Rod Smith, who made several helpful suggestions, and fixed pfm2afm. Also thanks to Doug Holland, whose Font Deuglification HOWTO proved to be a good reference, John McLaughlin, author of the document that helped me come to grips with Star Office, and the Linux community for their suggestions and construtive comments.
A bitmap is a matrix of dots. Bitmap fonts are represented in precisely this way -- as matrices of dots. Because of this, they are device dependent -- they are only useful at a particular resolution. A 75 DPI screen bitmap font is still 75 DPI on your 1200 DPI printer.
There are two types of bitmap fonts -- bitmap printer fonts, such as
the pk fonts generated by dvips, and bitmap screen fonts,
used by X and the console. The bitmap screen fonts typically have
a bdf or pcf extension. Bitmap screen
fonts are most useful
for terminal windows, consoles and text editors, where the lack of
scalability and the fact that they are unprintable is not an issue.
The Type1 font standard was devised by Adobe, and Type1 fonts are supported by Adobe's postscript standard. Because of this, they are also well supported under linux. They are supported by X and ghostscript. Postscript fonts have traditionally been the choice of font for anything on UNIX that involves printing.
Typically, a UNIX Type1 font is distributed as an afm
( adobe font metric ) file, and an outline file, which
is usually a pfb ( printer font binary ) or
pfa ( printer font ascii )
file. The outline file
contains all the glyphs, while the metric file
contains the metrics.
Type 1 fonts for other platforms may be distributed in different
formats. For example, postscript fonts for windows often use a different
format ( pfm ) for the metric file.
These fonts are distributed in a similar manner to Type1 files --
in groups of afm font metrics, and pfa files.
While they are supported by the postscript standard, they are not
supported by X, and hence have limited use.
True type fonts were developed by Apple. They made the format available
to Microsoft, and succesfully challenged Adobe's grip on the font
market.
True type fonts store the metric and shape information in a single
file ( usually one with a ttf extension ). Recently,
font servers have been developed that make TrueType available
to X. And postscript and ghostscript have supported TrueType fonts
for some time. Because of this, TrueType fonts are becoming more
popular on linux.
Type42 fonts are actually just TrueType fonts with headers that enable them to be rendered by a postscript interpreter. Most applications, such as ghostscript and SAMBA handle these fonts transparently. However, if you have a postscript printer, it may be necessary to explicitly create Type42 font files.
Despite the historical feuding between the proponents to Type1 and TrueType fonts, both have a lot in common. Both are scalable outline fonts. Type1 fonts use cubic as opposed to quadratic curves for the glyphs. This is in theory at least a slight advantage since they include all the curves available to TrueType fonts. In practice, it makes very little difference.
TrueType fonts have the apparent advantage that their support for hinting is better ( Type1 fonts do have hinting functionality, but it is not as extensive as that of TrueType fonts ). However, this is only an issue on low resolution devices, such as screens ( the improved hinting makes no discernable difference on a 600dpi printer, even at small point sizes. ) The other point that makes this apparent advantage somewhat questionable is the fact that well hinted TrueType fonts are rare. This is because software packages that support hinting functionality are out of the budget of most small time designers. Only a few major foundries, such as Monotype make well hinted fonts available.
In conclusion, the main differences between TrueType and Type1 fonts are in availability and application support. The widespread availability of TrueType fonts for Windows has resolted in webpages designed with the assumption that certain TrueType fonts are available. Also, many users have large numbers of TrueType fonts because they ship with the users Windows applications. However, on Linux, most applications support Type1 fonts but do not have the same level of support for TrueType. Moreover, most major font foundries still ship most of their fonts in Type1 format. For example, Adobe ship very few TrueType fonts. My recommendation to users is to use whatever works for your application, and try to avoid converting from one format to another where possible ( because the format conversion is not without loss ).
Metafont was developed by Donald E Knuth as part of the TeX typesetting system. Metafont is a graphics programming language ( like postscript ) that has applications wider than just fonts. Metafonts exhibit some very desirable qualities. One of the important features is that metafonts can scale very gracefully. The metafont Computer Modern has different shape at 20 point and 10 point. The shape changes with size, because it is desirable for a smaller font to be proportionately wider than a larger font ( this makes the larger fonts more elegant and the smaller font more readable ).
Metafonts typically have a mf extension. They are rendered
to device dependent bitmap fonts. The rendering is slow, so they
are of excellent quality, but are not well suited to WYSIWYG
publishing.
Typically typically come in groups of a few variants. For example, most fonts come with a bold, italic, and bold-italic variant. Some fonts may also have small caps, and demibold variants. A group of fonts consisting of a font and its variants is called a family of typefaces. For example, the Garamond family consists of Garamond, Garamond-italic, Garamond-bold, Garamond bold-italic, Garamond demi-bold, and Garamond demi-bold-italic. The Adobe expert Garamond font also makes available Garamond small caps, and Garamond titling capitals.
Here, we discuss some typography basics. While this information is not essential, many font lovers will find it interesting.
There are several classifications of typefaces. Firstly, there
are fixed width fonts, and variable width fonts.
The fixed width fonts look like typewriter text, because
each character is the same width. This quality is desirable for
something like a text editor or a computer console, but not
desirable for the body text of
a long document. The other class is variable
width. Most of the fonts you will use are variable width, though
fixed with can be useful also ( for example, all the example
shell commands in this document are illustrated with a
fixed with font ). The most well known fixed width font
is courier.
Serifs are little hooks on the ends of characters. For example, the letter i in a font such as Times Roman has serifs protruding from the base of the i and the head of the i. Serif fonts are usually considered more readable than fonts without serifs. There are many different types of serif fonts.
Sans serif fonts do not have these little hooks, so they have a starker appearance. One usually does not write a long book using a sans serif font for the body text. There are sans serif fonts that are readable enough to be well suited to documents that are supposed to be browsed / skimmed ( web pages, catalogues, marketting brochures ). Another application that sans serif fonts have is as display fonts on computer screens, especially at small sizes. The lack of detail in the font can provide it with more clarity. For example, Microsoft touts Verdana as being readable at very small sizes on screen.
Notable sans serif fonts include Lucida sans, MS Comic Sans, Verdana, Myriad, Avant Garde, Arial, Century Gothic and Helvetica. By the way, Helvetica is considered harmful by typographers. It is somewhat overused, and many books by typographers plead users to stay away from it.
Old style fonts are based on very traditional styles dating as far back as the late 15th century. Old style fonts tend to be conservative in design, and very readable. They are well suited to writing long documents. The name ``old style'' refers to the style of the font, as opposed to the date of its design. There are classic old style fonts, such as Goudy Old Style, which wre designed in the 20th century. The old style class of fonts has the following distinguishing features:
The moderns are the opposite of old style fonts. These fonts typically have more character, and more attitude than their old style counterparts, and can be used to add character to a document rather than to typeset a long piece. However, nothing is black and white -- and there are some modern fonts such as computer modern and Monotype modern, and New Century Schoolbook are very readable ( the contrast between heavy and light is softened to add readability ). They are based on the designs popular in the 19th century and later. Their distinguishing features include:
Transitional fonts fit somewhere in between moderns and old style fonts. Many of the transitionals have the same kind of readability as the old styles. However, they are based on slightly later design. While a move in the direction of the moderns may be visible in these fonts, they are still much more subtle than the the moderns. Examples of transitionals include Times Roman, Utopia, Bulmer, and Baskerville. Of these, Times leans towards old style, while Bulmer looks very modern.
The slab serif fonts are so named because they have thick, block like serifs, as opposed to the smooth hooks of the old styles or the thin lines of some of the moderns. Slab serif fonts tend to be sturdy looking and are generally quite readable. Many of the slab serifs have Egyptian names -- such as Nile, and Egyptienne ( though they are not really in any way Egyptian ). These fonts are great for producing readable text that may suffer some dilution in quality ( such as photocpied documents, and documents printed on newspaper ). These fonts tend to look fairly sturdy. The most notable slab serif fonts are Clarendon, Memphis and Egyptienne, as well as several typewriter fonts. Many of the slab serif fonts are fixed width. Conversely, most ( almost all ) fixed width fonts are slab serif.
Surprisingly, the rise of sans serif fonts is a fairly recent phenomenon. The first well known sans serif fonts were designed in the 19th early 20th century. The earlier designs include Futura, Grotesque and Gill Sans. These fonts represent respectively the ``geometric'', ``grotesque'' and ``humanist'' classes of sans serif fonts.
The grotesques where so named because the public were initially somewhat shocked by their relatively stark design. Groteques are very bare in appearance due to the absence of serifs, and the simpler, cleaner designs. Because of their ``in your face'' appearance, grotesques are good for headlines. The more readable variations also work quite well for comic books, and marketting brochures, where the body text comes in small doses. Grotesques don't look as artsy as their geometric counterparts. Compared to the geometrics, they have more variation in weight, more strokes, they are squarer ( because they don't use such circular arcs ). They use a different upper case G and lower case a to the geometrics. While they are minimalistic but don't go to the same extreme as the brutally avant-garde geometrics.
Notable grotesques include the overused Helvetica, Grotesque, Arial, Franklin Gothic, and Univers.
The Futura font came with the manifesto: form follows function. The geometric class of fonts has a stark minimalistic appearance. Distinguishing features include a constant line thickness ( no weight ). This is particularly conspicuous in the bold variants of a font. Bold groteques and humanist fonts often show some notable variation in weight while this rarely happens with the geometric fonts. Also notable is the precise minimalism of these designs. The characters almost always are made up from straight horizontal and vertical lines, and arcs that are very circular ( to the point where they often look as though they were drawn with a compass ). The characters have a minimal number of strokes. This gives them a contemporary look in that they embrace the minimalistic philosophy that would later take the world of modern art by storm. A tell tale sign that a font is a geometric type is the upper case ``G'', which consists of a minimalistic combination of two strokes -- a long circular arc and a horizontal line. The other character that stands out is the lower case ``a'' -- which is again two simple strokes, a straight vertical line and a circle ( the other ``a'' character is more complex which is why it is not used ). Notable geometrics include Avant Garde, Futura, and Century Gothic.
As the name might suggest, humanist fonts were designed with a goal of being less mechanical in appearance. In many ways, they are more similar to the serif fonts than the geometrics and the grotesques. They are said to have a ``pen drawn'' look about them. They tend to have subtle variation in weight, especially observable in bold variants. The curve shapes are considerably less rigid than those of the geometrics. Many of them are distinguishable by the ``double story'' lower case g, which is the same shape as the g used in the old style serif fonts. The humanist typefaces are the easiest to use without producing an ugly document as they are relatively compatible with the old style fonts.
Grouping typefaces is not easy, so it pays to avoid using too many on the one page. A logical choice of two typefaces consists of a serif and a sans serif. Monotype's Typography 101 page provides a category-matchup. They conclude that the moderns and geometrics form good pairs, while the old styles and humanists also go together well. The transitionals are also paired with the humanists. The slab serifs are paired with the grotesques, and some variants of the slab serifs are also said to match the geometrics or humanists.
From reading this, one gets the impression that their philosophy is essentially to match the more conservative serifs with the more moderate sans serifs, and pair the wilder modern serifs with the avant garde looking ( pun unavoidable ) geometrics.
Properly spacing fonts brings with it all sorts of issues. For example, to properly typeset the letters ``fi'', the i should be very close to the f. The problem is that this causes the dot on the i to collide with the f, and the serif on the head of the i to collide with the horizontal stroke of the f. To deal with this problem, font collections include ligatures. For example, the ``fi'' ligature character is a single character that one can substitute for the the two character string ``fi''. Most fonts contain fi and fl ligatures. Expert fonts discussed later often include extra ligatures, such as ffl, ffi, and a dotless i character.
Small caps fonts are fonts that have reduced size upper case letters in place of the lower case letters. These are useful for writing headings that require emphasis ( and they are often used in LaTeX ). Typically, when one writes a heading in small caps, they use a large cap for the beginning of each word, and small capitals for the rest of the word ( ``title case'' ). The advantage of this over using all caps is that you get something that is much more readable ( using all caps is a big typographic sin ).
Expert fonts consist of several extras designed to supplement a typeface. These include things like ligatures, ornaments ( much like a mini-dingbats collection designed to go with the typeface ), small caps fonts, and swash capitals ( fancy, calligraphic letters ).
Font metrics define the spacing between variable width fonts. The metrics include information about the size of the font, and kerning information, which assigns kerning pairs -- pairs of characters that should be given different spacing. For example, the letters ``To'' would usually belong in a kerning pair, because correctly spaced ( or kerned ), the o should partly sit under the T. Typesetting programs such as LaTeX need to know information about kerning so that they can make decisions about where to break lines and pages. The same applies to WYWIWYG publishing programs.
In addition to the metrics, is the font outline, or shape. The components of the fonts shape ( a stroke, an accent, etc ) are called ``glyphs''.
There are a number of ways fonts can be added to X. Firstly, XFree86 has a font path which is just a list of several directories or font servers where it searches for fonts. A font server is just a background process that makes fonts available to XFree86. An advantage of font servers is that they can send fonts to remote displays.
Recently, xfs ( the ``X font server'' ) has been patched
to support TrueType fonts, and run as a stand-alone program.
The patched version ships with Redhat and Redhat-based distributions,
and is included in XFree86 3.9.17 ( the latest version at the time of
writing. It will also be a part of XFree86 4.0 )
xfs is actually just the standard font server that comes
with XFree86. It's source code is part of the XFree86 source tree.
However, distributions have recently been shipping a version that runs
in stand alone mode.
The standalone X font server, with the TrueType support
patch ( the TrueType support takes place via a font server
called xfsft ) is probably the nicest font management
solution currently available. Its advantages include:
chkfontpath, as opposed to
having to edit configuration files. This not only makes life
easier for users, it makes packaging more safer and more scriptable
for packagers.Because different distributions ship with different configurations, it is not true that one size fits all. We can split users up into three groups:
xfs
and it has been patched to support TrueType. This group
includes Redhat users and users of derivatives of Redhat
such as Mandrake, TurboLinux, and Independence.
For this group, the wisest strategy is to install both TrueType
and Type1 fonts through xfsxfs
package, but no TrueType support (at the time of writing.
Note that XFree86 supports TrueType as of version 3.9.17 ).
This includes Debian. For these users, the best thing to do is use
xfs to install Type1 fonts, and install TrueType
fonts via xfstt. Debian users can seek out
the
TrueType Fonts in Debian mini-HOWTO
for information about installing TrueType fonts in Debian.xfs then you will need to install
Type1 fonts by adding to their XFree86 font path and
using xset. You should install TrueType
via xfstt.XFree86 finds your fonts by searching a font path, a list of directories ( or servers -- we'll explain this further later. ) containing fonts. When an application requests a font, it searches through the directories in your font path one at a time until the font is found. To make fonts available requires you to set your font path. You can add a directory to your font path with the command
xset fp+ directory
Once you have done this, you need to ask the X server to re-scan
for available fonts with the command
xset fp rehash
Since you will want these commands to run automatically, you should
put them in your .xinitrc file ( or possibly your
.Xclients or .xsession file -- this depends on
how you start X. It's convenient to make two of these files symlinks
to the other to avoid confusion ).
Another way to have the commands set automatically is edit XF86Config.
For example, to add /usr/share/fonts/myfonts to the fontpath
when X is started, edit XF86Config like this:
...
Section "Files"
...
FontPath /usr/share/fonts/myfonts
...
EndSection
...
The advantage of editing XF86Config is that the resulting changes
are system wide.
The easiest way to make Type1 fonts available to X is with the help of the Type1inst utility. This is a perlscript that automatically creates the fonts.dir and fonts.scale files that you need for X to use the fonts. Simply CD to the directory, and run type1inst.
cd directory
type1inst
xfs PackageNow you need to add the fonts to your fontpath. If you already
have the standalone
xfs running, you do this
by editing your xfs configuration file.
Redhat users can just use
chkfontpath.
the format is
chkfontpath --add directory
Your fonts should now be available to X. Now you just run
xset fp rehash
and X will be able to find the new fonts.
xfs PackageIn this case, you need to add the directory containing your new fonts to the font path, as described previously.
Adding TrueType fonts is a little more difficult, because you need to have a font server that is capable of serving TrueType fonts. Two font servers that do this are xfstt and xfs.
xfstt is a TrueType font server. While it's easy to configure,
and quite useful, it appear that xfs is becoming more popular.
The main advantage of xfs over xfstt is that it supports
both Type1 and TrueType fonts.
To set up xfstt, just download it and install it. If you have an rpm based distribution, there is a well packaged version of xfstt at http://independence.seul.org/. Once you install it, you need to do the following:
xfstt --sync. This causes it
to look for the fonts and create the fonts.dir file. unix/:7100 to your font path.rpm -ql xfstt |grep init and look for the
file with a name something like this: /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfstt
)
If you don't have an init script, just
put two lines in /etc/rc.local like this:
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt --sync
/usr/X11R6/bin/xfstt &
Some of the newer Linux distributions ship with the X font server
xfs configured to run as a stand alone program.
Notably, Redhat and all the redhat based distributions use this
modularised xfs with TrueType compiled in.
Debian also ship xfs, but the version
they ship doesn't have built in true
type support.
Running xfs
as a stand alone server has several benefits, especially
if it is compiled with TrueType support. The main advantage is that since
the font server is no longer attached to the X server, it is possible
to serve fonts to remote displays. Also, it makes it much easier
to modify the font path.
xfs PathAs a font server, xfs has it's own font path.
One might wonder where this fits into the picture. It
works like this: you can place the xfs font server
in XFree86's font path, by adding unix/:port to
the XFree86 font path.
Once you do this, any font in the xfs font path
automatically becomes available to XFree86.
The xfs font path
is determined by the xfs configuration file,
which is /etc/X11/fs/config on Redhat, and
/etc/X11/xfs/config on Debian.
Redhat users do not need to explicitly edit this file, they
can use the chkfontpath utility.
The syntax is simple:
chkfontpath --add directory
Users of other distributions can edit the configuration file as
follows:
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
...
/usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/,
...
/usr/share/fonts/some_other_directory
# in 12 points, decipoints
default-point-size = 120
...
The above would add /usr/share/fonts/my_new_fonts/ to the
xfs font path. Note that the last line of the list of
directories doesn't have a comma at the end.
For these modifications to the font path to become effective, xfs
must be restarted. It's also a good idea to restart your
X session after restarting
xfs.
xfsTo prepare a font for xfs, you need to follow the following
steps:
type1inst in the directory.
ttmkfdir -o fonts.scale
mkfontdir
in the directory containing your new fonts.
ttmkfdir is part of the freetype package.xfs search path.
Users of Redhat-like distributions
can do this with the chkfontpath utility:
Other users can do this by editing their xfs configuration
file.xfs is already installed on your system,
you should see which port it is running on. You can do this
as follows:
ps ax|grep xfs
xset -q
unix:/port_number
were port_number is the port which the server is running on, then
you already have xfs set up properly. Otherwise, you should add it to
your XFree86 font path.
xset fp+ unix/:port_number
xset fp rehash
You can add it permanently by editing your .xinitrc as explained
previously.
To add it system wide, edit your XF86Config file ( probably either
/etc/X11/XF86Config, /etc/XF86Config or
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config ), by adding a
line FontPath "unix:/port_number" in the Files section.
Here's an example:
...
Section "Files"
...
FontPath "unix/:-1"
...
EndSection
...
xfs is already properly installed, then you can restart
it like this:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart
xfs, it's a good idea to restart your
X-session.To make fonts available to ghostscript, it suffices to tell ghostscript
where the files corresponding to a given font are located. The
file that needs to be edited is
/usr/share/ghostscript/version/Fontmap.
The format is very simple, almost immediately self evident on
perusing it.
Adding Type1 fonts is straightforward. Run type1inst on the directory
containing the font. type1inst will output a file called
Fontmap. Append this file to the ghostscript
Fontmap file.
Adding truetype fonts is a little trickier, because we have to get the
name of the TrueType font. One way (brute force, alas) to do this is using
the ttf2pt1 TrueType to Type1 converter, and grabbing the font
name from the afm ( there's got to be a more efficient way !
but this works, ugly as it is ). You do it like this:
ttf2pt1 -A fontname - 2 > /dev/null |grep FontName
Then you add an entry to the ghostscript Fontmap file
in the correct format, eg
some-font (/usr/share/fonts/subdirectory/somefont.pbf);
Well, that works fine, but try doing it with 500 or so fonts.
This is the kind of thing that calls for a short perlscript:
#!/usr/bin/perl
# ttfontmap -- generate fontmap file for TrueType fonts
my $directory=shift || print STDERR "Usage: ttfontmap {directory}\n";
$directory=~s/\/$//;
for my $fontname ( glob ( "$directory/*.ttf" ) )
{
open ( R, "sh -c \"ttf2pt1 -A $fontname - 2>/dev/null\" |" );
while ( <R> )
{
if ( $_ =~ /^FontName/ )
{
s/^FontName\s*//;
chomp;
print "/" . $_ . " ($fontname);\n" ;
}
}
close R;
}
You can
download this script
To set this script up, all you need to do is cut and paste it into
a file called ttfontmap, and place the file somewhere
in your PATH ( such as /usr/bin ).
You run this script like this:
ttfontmap directory > output_file
where directory is the directory containing the
fonts. You are left with the file output_file which you can append
to your ghostscript fontmap. Note: some will observe that you could
just use
ttfontmap directory >> /usr/share/ghostscript/version/Fontmap
However, I advise against this ( what would happen if you typed ``>'' instead of
``>>''
? )
Once you've made fonts available to ghostscript, you can preview them.
Do this by running the ghostscript interpreter on the file prfont.ps
in your ghostscript installation, and after you start it, type:
/Fontname DoFont
at the ghostscript font ( where FontName is the ghostscript
name of the font you wish to preview ).
There are several other ways you can invoke gs. For example,
if you want to create a postscript file that you can look at in
a nicer postscript viewer such as gv, you can use
gs -sDEVICE=pswrite -sOutputFile=somefile.ps prfont.ps
Having done this, you can also print your output file.
or perhaps the right question to ask is ``why not ?'' The typical Linux user has experienced a migration from Windows, and probably has an enormous collection of TrueType fonts. Many of these fonts ( eg those that ship with MS Word and Corel's products ) are of fairly good quality. However, some Linux applications, such as Star Office and LaTeX do not support TrueType fonts, but do support Type1 fonts. update: it looks like Star Office can handle TrueType fonts, but I'm still trying to work out the details. At best, it involves some fairly gruesome hacks. This is a pity, because with ghostscript support for TrueType, and TrueType font servers, Linux has the infrastructure it needs to handle TrueType.
To convert your TrueType fonts into Type1 fonts, go to http://quadrant.netspace.net.au/ttf2pt1/ and get ttf2pt1. To convert a TrueType to a Type1 font, use the following syntax:
ttf2pt1 -b file.ttf name
Where name is the name of the file corresponding to the new Type1
font ( ie it's arbitrary. It's a good idea to make it the same as the ttf file.
eg ttf2pt1 -b foo.ttf foo.
Well, that worked fine for one font. If we have a lot, we need a smarter way to do it. One can just just use a loop:
for X in *.ttf; do ttf2pt1 -b $X ${X%%.ttf}; done
Alternatively, you can download the
ttfutils
package and use ttf2type1 for the conversions.
ttf2type1 *.ttf
Installing fonts for WYSIWYG publishing on Linux is a relatively complex task. It typically involves three steps:
The good news is that most WYSIWYG applications use what is a reasonable solution to this problem. The solution involves constructing some kind of mechanism that maps screen fonts to printer fonts ( this is the main issue. There are also other issues, such as grouping bold, italic and roman variants into ``families'' of fonts ). Unfortunately, there is no standard way to do this. It seems that font management standards which address this issue would greatly simplify the installation of fonts into WYSIWYG publishing systems, because all applications could use a system-wide ( as opposed to application-specific ) configuration.
There are two ways to install fonts into Applixware. One method involves using FontTastic, which is Applixware's ``private'' font server. The other method involves editing Applixware's fontmap, to use a font already installed on the system. Installing into the font server is more convenient, but fonts installed in this manner may only be printed at 300 dpi.
Using FontTastic is the easy way to do it. To install new fonts like this, simply do the following:
This method is more involved, but produces better results. I recommend that this method is used for fonts that are really important, and that you use a lot. There are a few steps to this:
This is explained in the previous section
This is explained in in the previous section
This is the final step in making your fonts available to Applix, and also the most time consuming step. The file fontmap.dir is in under the axdata/fontmetrics of your applix installation. The purpose of this step is basically to tell applix which screen fonts go with which outline fonts. This is in general a very nontrivial problem, because the screen fonts are not always on the same computer that the application is installed.
We describe how to add fonts to fontmap.dir. In this example, we add the font Baskerville Italic.
Slant = 1
if the font is italic, and
Weight = 1
if the font is bold.
If the font is bold and italic, we add both lines.
In this example, we need only add the line
Slant = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
The screen name is the name that the X-server uses for the font.
We can list font names containing the string ``bask'' by typing
xlsfonts|grep -i bask
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb
If you are adding a TrueType file, you can use ttf2pt1
to generate an afm file :
ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - > foo.afm
( or get the ttfutils package and use ttf2afm )
Then you use something like this:
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/foo.afm
Do not include a Type1FontFileName directive --
let ghostscript take care of this.That's it. Now after adding the whole family of fonts, you should have something like this:
FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal
Family = Baskerville
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvl.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
Family = Baskerville
Slant = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Normal-Italic
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvli.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold
Family = Baskerville
Weight = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlb.pfb
FontRecord = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
Family = Baskerville
Weight = 1
Slant = 1
ScreenName = "-paradise-baskerville-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1"
PostScriptPrintName = Baskerville-Bold-Italic
MetricsFile = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.afm
Type1FontFileName = /usr/share/fonts/misc/baskvlbi.pfb
It is possible to do more with this configuration file. The file itself has a glossary which explains the format of the configuration file.
Here, we cover Star Office 5.0. The procedure with Star Office 5.1
is similar,
but the utility is called spadmin, not psetup.
It's worth mentioning up front that
John McLaughlin's page
is an excellent source on this issue, and it inspired most
of what follows.
Having tried both Star Office 5.0, and 5.1, I have found that Star Office 5.1 seems to give me less grief when adding new fonts. I was not succesful adding true type fonts to Star Office 5.0, but it proved somewhat easier with Star Office 5.1.
It's good to make a backup in case you inadvertantly hose your
configuration. Modifying fonts will impact several files in the
xp3.
You should definitely backup the file xp3/psstd.fonts.
I recommend going further and backing up the whole xp3
directory. You can do this by cd-ing to your Star Office
directory, then using
tar cvzf xp3.tgz xp3
to create a backup. To restore a backup,
delete the xp3 directory and unpack the archive
rm -rf xp3
tar xvzf xp3.tgz
Adding Type1 fonts to Star Office is relatively simple.
If you want to use your TrueType fonts with Star Office 5.0,
the best thing to do is convert them to Type1 fonts, and then follow
the procedure outlined here. If you have Star Office 5.1, you
might wish to use the proceedure for installing TrueType fonts
instead ( though it is somewhat more difficult ).
Firstly, do the usual thing -- make the font available to both X and
ghostscript. Once this is done, the font can be installed into Star Office
using the psetup tool. The procedure is as follows:
Adding TrueType fonts to Star Office is nontrivial, but possible. After some hard work, and long hours stareing at John McLaughlin's page page, I finally got them working in Star Office 5.1. Note that this does not work with version 5.0. The following steps are appropriate it you are printing through ghostscript:
afm files for the fonts you wish to
add. Use
ttf2pt1 -A foo.ttf - > foo.afm
to create the afm files.
Alternatively, you can get the ttf2afm The advantage of this
is you can handle several at a time, eg
ttf2afm *.ttf
pfb files corresponding
to each ttf file. You can create them
with the command
touch foo.pfb
Actually, Star Office only uses these files for printing purposes.
And by enterring the font in the PPD, thus duping Star Office into
thinking the fonts are inside your printer ( when they're actually
inside ghostscript's rendering system ), you get around needing to
use these files. Star Office just seems to require that the
pfb file exists to install the font.
spadmin and install the font(s).foobar.ttf and the corresponding afm
file is foobar.afm, you use the name
``foobar'' for the font in the PPD file. The entry
should look something like this:
*Font cloistrk: Standard "(001.002)" Standard ROM
On the other hand, if you are not printing from ghostscript,
you have different issues to deal with. In this case,
tricking Star Office into thinking that your printer has the fonts
is a bad idea, because your printer does not have the
fonts in the ROM, so while gv will display the postscript
files nicely, your printer will not be able to print them.
If you have a postscript printer, the main differences are as follows:
touch foo.pfb to create empty pfb
files, you need the pfb files to be Type42 postscript
fonts. A Type42 font is really a ``printer TrueType font''.
You don't really notice Type42 fonts even when you use them, because
most applications handle them transparently.
To create Type42 fonts, you use
ttfps to create the files.
ttfps foo.ttf foo.pfb
There are some gotchas. Sometimes, Star Office might not choose the
screen font you like. It is sometimes worth checking
xp3/psstd.fonts and possibly editing it to make sure
that Star Office is really using the font you had in mind for screen
display.
Also, Star Office doesn't handle configuration problems gracefully.
If there's something wrong with your configuration, it's
possible that the word processor will not even start. This is why
you should back up your xp3 directory.
If you wish to install TrueType fonts in Star Office, you may need
to learn how Star Office handles things. When you run spadmin
or psetup, the following happens:
pfb outline
files in your xp3/pssoftfonts directory.afm file is copied into the directory
xp3/fontmetrics/afm/xp3/psstd.fonts file.
This file stores the names of all the screen fonts used by
Star Office ( in particular, it maps the screen fonts to the outline
filenames ).This is why it's good to simply backup the whole xp3 directory --
it is the only convenient way to restore Star Office to a
clean configuration.
Nothing yet. Rod Smith's webpage is the definitive resource regarding installing fonts on Word Perfect.
Perhaps the most notorious application as far as fonts are concerned is the
dreaded Netscape. However, there is a fairly simple procedure to attack
Netscape font ugliness. The main problem is that Netscape wants to use
75dpi fonts which is typically too small. You can fix this by specifying
the appropriate X resources in your .Xdefaults file:
Netscape*documentFonts.sizeIncrement: 20
Netscape*documentFonts.xResolution*iso-8859-1: 100
Netscape*documentFonts.yResolution*iso-8859-1: 100
The number 100 can be chosen arbitrarily. For example, if you like your
fonts really large, like I do, then you may want to use 150 instead.
The other essential tip with regard to addressing Netscape font ugliness is this -- get the Microsoft font pack. These fonts are widely used and it makes an enormous difference if you have ( or don't have ) those fonts.
Adding fonts to TeX and LaTeX is a somewhat complex procedure. However, like a lot of things, it's easy if you know how to do it. Some fonts are distributed in metafont format, and some in Type1 format. Usually, the Type1 formats are more easily available. However, metafont fonts have the distinct advantage that they can adjust their shape at different sizes, while Type1 and TrueType fonts at different point sizes are simply magnified or reduced versions of precisely the same shape. The main reason why this feature is desirable is that ideally, fonts should be ( relatively ) wider at smaller sizes and narrower at larger sizes.
For this discussion, we focus on Type1 fonts, since they are more widely available, and more problematic to install.
Here's a quick primer on LaTeX fonts. LaTeX uses the following types of font files for handling Type1 fonts:
.pl -- property list. This is a human readable version of a
tex font metric file..vpl -- virtual property list. Human readable version of a
virtual font file..fd -- font definition. Used to define a family of
fonts..tfm -- tex font metric. This is a metric file, as explained
in the glossary. It is completely analogous to the .afm files used
by Type1 fonts. TeX needs the font metrics to properly layout the page..vf -- virtual font. These files contain encoding details, and
act as interpreters. TeX treats them as fonts. For example,
Imagine that there's some wacky font foobar-exp.pfb which consists
of a few ( say 20 ) alternate characters, and there's a virtual font
which uses a few of these alternate characters ( and it gets the
rest of the characters from font foobar.pfb ).
Dvips might say
``I want character 65 of virtual font foo.vf''. Dvips knows that 65 is always
an ``a'' in TeX's scheme. Then the virtual font maps TeX's request to
a request for character 14 of the Type1 font foobar.pfb ( which might
be the alternate ``a'' in the Type1 font foobar.pfb ). The virtual font
mechanism is very flexible and allows fonts to be constructed from many
different font files. This is useful when using fonts such as adobe's
``expert'' fonts..pk -- a device dependent bitmap font. These are usually constructed
on an as-needed basis ( they are renderings of Type1 and metafont fonts ).
They are typically high resolution ( about 300-1200dpi ),
and are intended to be rendered on a printer. Because of their high resolution,
and the fact that each point size of each font requires a .pk file,
they require a lot of disk space, so they are cached, but not stored..mf -- metafont files. Metafont is a graphics programming language
widely used for font design ( though it can also be used for graphics ).
It has many advantages over TrueType and Type1 schemes. However, it's main
weakness is that it is not as ubiquitous as TrueType or Type1 ( and it is also
not terribly well suited to WYSIWYG publishing. Of course, this isn't a
major disadvantage when TeX is your typesetting system. )
It's good to know your way around the TeX directory structure. Here are the main directories you'll need to know about:
$TEXMF/fonts -- the main font directory$TEXMF/fonts/type1 -- the type1 font directory$TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry -- the directory for the shape files in a given foundry$TEXMF/fonts/type1/foundry/fontname -- contains the font called name.
The name is usually plain English, and needn't follow TeX's cryptic
naming scheme for fonts.$TEXMF/fonts/afm/foundry/fontname -- the directory containing the afm
files corresponding to the font name belonging to foundry foundry.$TEXMF/fonts/tfm/foundry/fontname -- analogous to the afm directory,
but contains tfm files instead.$TEXMF/fonts/vf/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but contains the virtual fonts.$TEXMF/fonts/source/foundry/fontname -- similar to the above, but contains metafont files.$TEXMF/dvips/config/psfonts.map -- fontmap file for dvips. This file is similar
in both function and format to ghostscript's Fontmap file.$TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss -- this is where all the font definition files go.
First, you need to appropriately name your fonts.
See the fontinst documentation on your system for instructions
on how to name fonts ( it should be fontinst subdirectory of the
directory containing your tetex documentation ).
To make a long story very short, the naming scheme is
FNW{V}E{n} where:
8a which is
adobe standard encoding ).pgad8a.
Now you can run fontinst as follows:
latex `kpsewhich fontinst.sty`
then you type at the prompt:
\latinfamily{font_name}{}\bye
where font_name is the first three letters of your
font file name ( for example, pad for adobe garamond ).
Now fontinst will generate a number of files --
font description files, property list files and virtual property
list files. It also generates a lot of .mtx files. These
are created by fontinst, but you don't need to use them.
You need to convert the property lists and virtual property lists
to metrics and virtual fonts. This is done using the utilities
vptovf and pltotf.
for X in *.pl; do pltotf $X; done
for X in *.vpl; do vptovf $X; done
Then remove the old vpl, pl and mtx files.
You will need to edit your dvips config file, psfonts.map.
The best way to explain the format of the file is to give an example.
marr8r ArialMT <8r.enc <farr8a.pfa
marbi8r Arial_BoldItalicMT <8r.enc <farbi8a.pfa
marb8r Arial_BoldMT <8r.enc <farb8a.pfa
marri8r Arial_ItalicMT <8r.enc <farri8a.pfa
marr8rn Arial_Narrow <8r.enc <farr8an.pfa
The 8r.enc is simply there to inform dvips of the encoding scheme
used ( in all our examples, it's 8r, because of the way fontinst
constructs the virtual fonts ). The leftmost column is the font name TeX
uses. The second column is the real name of the font, which is hardcoded
into the font file ( this name can be
deduced by opening the afm file in a text editor, and looking
for the FontName directive ). The last column is the filename
of the shape file corresponding with the font. It is not necessary to
provide a directory path -- tex knows where to look.
Try running latex on a document like this:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\usefont{T1}{pga}{m}{n}\selectfont
\huge
Testing a new font \dots the quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dogs
\end{document}
where you replace pga with the outline of your font.
If this works, you are almost done. All you have to do now is put all the
files in the right directories ( as explained in the primer ), then
run
texconfig rehash
so that tex can update the directory lists.
You may want to create a .sty file so that you can more easily use
fonts. Use the files in $TEXMF/tex/latex/psnfss as a template.
True type fonts are very easy to come by, and large amounts of them are typically included in packages like Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. Getting Word Perfect is an easy way to get an enormous amount of fonts ( and if you're really cheap, you could buy a legacy version of Word Perfect for windows. The fonts on the CD are readable. )
Microsoft have also made several TrueType fonts available. The
.exe file is simply an archive, you can extract it
using unzip.
You can get them from
the download site
Luc Devroye's webpage has links to several sites with free fonts available. What's unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.
There are several web sites offering freely available downloadable fonts. For example, the freeware connection has links to a number of archives.
Several foundries sell TrueType fonts. However, most of them are quite expensive, and for the same money, you'd be better of with Type1 fonts. I'll discuss these more in the Type1 fonts section. The one place that does do sell true type fonts at low prices is buyfonts. Please read the section on ethics before you buy cheap fonts.
Many foundries ship fonts with Windows and Mac users in mind.
This can sometimes pose a problem. Typically, the ``Windows fonts''
are fairly easy to handle, because they are packed in a zip
file. The only work to be done is converting the pfm file
to and afm file ( using pfm2afm ).
Macintosh fonts are more problematic, because they are typically
made available in .sit.bin format -- stuffit archives.
Unfortunately, there is no tool for Linux that can unpack stuffit archives
created with the newer version of stuffit.
The only way to do it is run Executor ( Mac emulator ), or try running
stuffit in dosemu or Wine.
Once the sit.bin file is unpacked, the Macintosh files can
be converted using t1unmac which comes with the
t1utils package.
Unfortunately, some vendors only ship Type1 fonts in Macintosh format ( stuffit archives ). However, according to font expert Luc Devroye, all major foundries make Type1 fonts available for Mac and Windows.
ctan have a number of good fonts, many of which are free. Most of these are in Metafont format, though some are also Type1 fonts. Also, see Bluesky who have made available Type1 versions of the computer modern fonts. ( The computer modern fonts are of excellent quality -- to purchase anything of comparable quality and completeness will cost you around $500-. They are comparable to the premium fonts. )
Luc Devroye's webpage has links to several sites with free fonts available. What's unique about these fonts is that a lot of them are really free, they are not ``warez fonts''.
URW have released the standard postscript fonts resident in most printers to the public domain. These fonts are quite good.
The Walnut Creek Archive has several freely available fonts, and shareware fonts. Some of these are obvious ripoffs ( and not very good ones ). If a font doesn't come with some kind of license, chances are it's a ripoff. Also Winsite have several Type1 fonts ( in the fonts/atm subsection of their windows 3.x software ). Unfortunately, several of these have afm files which have mistakes and are missing all kerning pairs ( you can fix the afms by editing the "FontName" section of the afm files. It should match the fontname given in the font shape file. Of course, adding kerning pairs is a topic beyond the scope of this document. )
Luc Devroye's webpage includes several free fonts he designed, as well as a lot of links, and fascinating discussion on the topic of typography. This site is a ``must-visit''. There are also several links to many foundries.
So you're wondering -- why do some fonts cost a lot and others are cheap ? These fonts are the ``standard postscript fonts'' resident in most postscript printers. Also the famous Why should I buy the more expensive ones ? My take on it is that for a casual user, the value fonts ( such as those on the Bitstream CD ) are just fine. However, if you're using the fonts for ``real work'', or you're just a hard core font junkie, then the better quality fonts are a must-have -- and most of the quality fonts are either free ( for example, Computer Modern ), or they are upmarket commercial fonts.
The advantage of the cheaper fonts is self evident -- they are cheaper. The quality fonts also have their advantages though.
For links to a bunch of other foundries, see Luc Devroye's page
There are several font packages for Linux. Many of them are essential.
xfs configuration
file.pfm font
metric files into afm metrics that can be used
for Linux. This is based on the original version available
at CTAN, and includes modifications from Rod Smith to make
it compile under Linux..ttf TrueType font files
into Type42 files.
ttf2pt1. Useful if not essential.
xfs
is probably a better choice.xfs.
Font licensing is a very contentious issue. While it is true that there is a wealth of freely available fonts, the chances are that the fonts are ``ripoffs'' in some sense, unless they come with a license indicating otherwise. The issue is made more confusing by intellectual property laws regarding typefaces. Basically, in the USA, font files are protected by copyright, but font renderings are not. In other words, it's illegal to redistribute fonts, but it's perfectly legal to ``reverse-engineer'' them by printing them out on graph paper and designing the curves to match the printout. Reverse engineered fonts are typically cheap and freely available, but of poor quality. These fonts, as well as pirated fonts are often distributed on very cheap CDs containing huge amounts of fonts. So it's not always easy to tell if a font is reverse engineered, or simply pirated. This situation creates an enormous headache for anyone hoping to package free fonts for Linux.
Perhaps one of the most offensive things about the nature of font piracy is that it artificially debases the value of the work that type designers do. Pirated fonts invariably are bundled en masse onto these one zillion font CDs, with no due credit given to the original designers. In contrast, what is commendable about several legitimate font foundries is that they credit their designers.
There are many differing opinions on this issue. See typeright for an explanation of the case in favour of intellectual property rights. Also, see Southern Software, Inc for another opinion -- but don't buy any of their fonts! Their Type1 fonts ( poorly reverse-engineered Adobe fonts ) do not have AFMs, and are thus unusable.
The comp.fonts FAQ also discusses the issues of fonts and intellectual property, as does Luc Devroye's homepage. These references are somewhat less extreme in their views.
xfs with TrueType
support.
afm ( adobe font metric ) file, and an outline file, which is
usually a .pfb ( printer font binary ) or
.pfa ( printer font ascii ) file. The outline file contains
all the glyphs, while the metric file contains the metrics.
pfa and
afm files ), but they are not supported by X, and because
of this, there are not very many linux applications which support them.