Ubuntu Manpage: fontforge - create, modify, and view font files

Provided by: fontforge-common_20230101~dfsg-4build1_all

NAME

       fontforge - create, modify, and view font files

SYNOPSIS

       fontforge  [-allglyphs]  [-c string] [-cmap maptype] [-depth pixeld] [-display str] [-lang=ff] [-lang=py]
       [-help]  [-keyboard ktype]   [-last]   [-new]   [-nosplash]   [-quiet]   [-recover mode]   [-script file]
       [-skippyfile] [-skippyplug] [-sync] [-unique] [-usage] [-vc class] [-version] [fontfile ...]

DESCRIPTION

       FontForge  will  read  PostScript  (pfa,  pfb,  ps,  cid), OpenType (otf), TrueType (ttf, ttc), Macintosh
       resource fonts  (dfont,  bin,  hqx),  Scaled  Vector  Graphics  (svg),  TeX  bitmap  (pk),  Glyph  Bitmap
       Distribution  Format  (bdf),  and  X11  bitmap  (pcf) fonts.  Font files may be compressed with gzip (for
       example, myfont.pcf.gz).  FontForge will also read its own format: Spline Font Database (sfd) files.

       If the argument list contains a font file name (or several), fontforge opens a fontview window  for  each
       font displaying the characters of that font.  In the absence of options or arguments, the program opens a
       file-picker window, allowing you to browse your disk to find a font file, or create a new one.

       This  manual page is intended only as a rudimentary overview; see the HTML Users Manual for more complete
       information.

       If no fontfiles are specified, and neither is -new, and there is nothing to recover, then FontForge  will
       produce an open font dialogue box.

       If  a  scriptfile  is  specified  then  FontForge  will  not  open the X display, nor will it process any
       additional arguments. It will execute the scriptfile and give it any remaining arguments

       If the first argument is an executable filename, and that file's first line contains "fontforge", then it
       will be treated as a scriptfile.

OPTIONS

-new Creates a new font.

-last Loads the last sfd file closed.

-recover none|auto|inquire|clean
Control error recovery. none suppresses crash revcovery. auto performs automatic recover if
the program crashed before saving changes; this is the default. inquire asks what to do with
auto-saved crash recovery files. clean deletes recovery information.

-allglyphs Load all glyphs in the 'glyf' table. of a TrueType collection.

-nosplash Suppress display of the splash screen.

-quiet Don't print non-essential information to stderr.

-unique If a copy of fontforge is already running, open all arguments in it and have this process
exit.

-display display-name
Employ the X display specified by the string display-name (for example: localhost:0).

-depth pixeld
Attempt to employ a visual that matches the specified pixel depth, pixeld.

-vc val Sets the visual class if possible.

-cmap current|copy|private
Sets the type of color map. current attempts to allocate colors int he current (shared)
color map. The program will likely not find everything it requires. copy allocates what can
be allocated, then copies the current color map; it can thus make use of cells other programs
are using. private creates a new color map and fills it with the required colors.

-dontopenxdevices
In case that fails.

-sync Syncs the display, debugging.

-keyboard ibm|mac|sun|ppc
Generates appropriate hotkeys in menus. Use ibm on an IBM-compatible PC. Use mac on a Mac
computer running Mac OS. Use sun on a Sun workstation. Use ppc on Power PC Mac running SUSE
GNU/Linux.

-usecairo=yes|no
Use (or not) the cairo library for drawing.

-help Displays a help message and exits.

-docs Displays help file output and then invokes a browser using the BROWSER environment variable.

-version Prints the version of fontforge and exits.

-lang=py Use Python for scripts (may precede -script).

-lang=ff Use fontforge's legacy scripting language.

-script scriptfile
Executes scriptfile. Must be the first option (or follow -lang). All other arguments are
passed to scriptfile. Execute the script named file. Does not open the X display. This
must be the first argument passed to FontForge. Any other arguments are handled by the
script file itself. Any other command line arguments will be passed to the script. The
program contains a command interpreter, which allows access to most but not all of its
interactive features. If a script file is executable, and if its first line contains the
string "fontforge", then the argument -script may be omitted. This means that FontForge can
be used as an interpreter.

-dry scriptfile
Syntax checks scriptfile (dry run). Must be the first option. All other arguments are
passed to scriptfile. This option can only be used with fontforge's own scripting language,
not with Python.

-c script-string
Executes argument as scripting commands. Must be the first option. All other arguments are
passed to the script.

-skippyfile Do not execute Python init scripts when initializing.

-skippyplug Do not load (enabled) Python plugins when initializing.

EXAMPLE

       Sample usage:

              fontforge myfont.ttf &

ENVIRONMENT

       BROWSER
              Specifies the name of a browser program for examining online documentation.

       AUTOTRACE
              Specifies  the  location  of the autotrace program.  Usually FontForge can figure this out without
              help, but not always.

       MF     Specifies the location of the metafont program.

       FONTFORGE_VERBOSE
              Turns on verbose mode in scripting.  Each statement is printed as it is executed.

FILES

       ~/.FontForge/autosave
              Crash recovery directory.

       /usr/share/fontforge/*.ui
              Translations for user interfaces.

       /usr/share/fontforge/doc/*.html
              Optional location for online documentation.

       /usr/share/fontforge/*.cidmap
              "Encoding" files for Adobe's cid formats, from http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz.

NOTE

       FontForge used to be called PfaEdit.

AUTHORS

       FontForge is Copyright © 2000–2014 by George Williams, and  is  currently  maintained  by  the  FontForge
       development team.  See /usr/share/doc/fontforge/AUTHORS for a comprehensive list of contributors.

LICENSE

       FontForge  is  licensed  under GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later (http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) with
       many parts covered by a BSD license (http://fontforge.org/license.html).  Please read  the  LICENSE  file
       included       in       the       FontForge       distribution       for       details,       or      see
       https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/blob/master/LICENSE.

       FontForge is available as a whole under the terms of the GNU GPL  (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html),
       version  3  or  any later version.  However, almost all of its parts are available under the "revised BSD
       license" (http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/talks/bsd.pdf) because FontForge was  mostly  written  by  George
       Williams, using that license.

       The  Revised  BSD  License  is  very permissive, and allows for code to be combined with other code under
       other licenses.

       There are many useful libraries available under copyleft libre licenses, such as the LGPL and GPL,  which
       FontForge started to use in 2012.

       For example, Pango and Cairo are available under the LGPL.

       Some features added since 2012 are licensed by their individual developers under the GPLv3.

BUGS

       See the FontForge Github Issue Tracker, at https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/issues/.

                                                   2017 Jun 18                                      FONTFORGE(1)