SuperLinux Encyclopedia - Fonts

Misc:

• XFree86 Font Deuglification Mini HOW-TO  "make X Windows much more pleasant to look at"
• Inside M$'s Clear-Type Technology  Not Linux related, but some good font technology info.
• Freshmeat: Fonts and Utilities
• A Fonts Tutorial

Font tools:

• fnsam  "creates a set of HTML pages, each showing samples of twenty fonts -- Type1, TrueType, and others that are available to Ghostscript. You can quickly browse your fonts using a HTML browser, and click a sample to view that font's complete character set. A separate script is available that lists detailed info about a particular font."
• bdftops - Converts a BDF bitmapped font file to a low-quality Type 1 scalable outline font using bdftops.ps .
• TclFont  "technology for creation, display and printing of scalable _stroke_ fonts defined as TCL scripts."; by CurveSoft.
• Do "man -k font" to find many more.

Font Sources:

• Ghostscript site  Documentation lists URLs of many fonts of many languages, etc.
• Fonts at Ghostscript FTP site
• Internet Font Archives  Huge archive of fonts and related info.
• Fonts at sunsite FTP site
• Jim's Fonts for X  With screenshots.

Specific Fonts:

• Adobe Type 1:
  • t1lib  "library for generating character- and string-glyphs [&bitmaps] from Adobe Type 1 fonts"
• Fonts  Fonts: FKP, VGA, SabVGA, VGA 11x19, Nexus.
• True Type:
  • freetype.org  True Type SW.
  • ttftot42  "True Type Font to Type 42" Use TrueType fonts with PostScript interperters using FreeType.
  • xfsft  Truetype Font Server/Support For X.
  • xfsft for RedHat-5.1  An X font server.
  • The X-TrueType Server Project
  • The Xfstt True-Type Font Server  May'98 LG
  • Mini-HOWTO  "on getting truetype fonts to work"
  • ttmkfdir  "a tool to create valid and complete fonts.dir files from TrueType fonts"
  • Conversion of TrueType to X11 Fonts  A manual.

A NOTE ON X FONT SETUP:

If you are using XFree86, reverse the order of the 75 and 100 DPI font
paths in your XF86Config file.  This will make the fonts bigger in many
applications.  There could be one or two pairs of lines to switch.  My
FontPath section (RedHat 5.0) looks like this after the change:

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

For other applications, you will need to adjust them one by one.  Some
(like netscape) have dialogs to make the change, but most use Resource
settings from the .Xdefaults file.

OFF USENET:
1. FreeType is a free TrueType font handling library, which is used
by programs like the xfstt TrueType font server. You need it if you
want to recompile xfstt from sources, not otherwise.

2. xfstt is a font server that reads TrueType fonts, rasterizes them
into something palatable to the X server and passes them along. It does
the same job for TrueType fonts as xfs does for other types.

3. The easiest way is to install xfstt and point it at your TrueType
font directory. Then install xfs, set it's catalog to the font directories
mentioned in the FontPath directive in XF86Config, and include near the
front a reference to "unix/:7101" which is the xfstt font server port ( I
put it after the bitmapped fonts but before the Type 1 Postscript fonts
in the list ). Then comment out the FontPath directives in you XF86Config
file and add one that mentions "unix/:7100". Now start xfstt, then xfs,
then restart your X server. You'll want to edit runlevels, of course, and
make one modification to /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfstt: make it sleep for 5-10
seconds just after starting xfstt so that xfstt has time to get running
and set things up before xfs tries to talk to it. And make sure that
xfstt is started before xfs in the boot sequence, or things will get ugly.

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