sfddiff(1)

1SFDDIFF(1)                  General Commands Manual                 SFDDIFF(1)
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NAME

6       sfddiff - compare two font files
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SYNOPSIS

9       sfddiff   [--help]   [--ignorehints]   [--ignorenames]   [--ignoregpos]
10       [--ignoregsub] [--ignorebitmaps] [--exact]  [--warn]  [--merge outfile]
11       [--usage] [--version] fontfile1 fontfile2
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DESCRIPTION

14       The program sfddiff compares two font files, which may be in any format
15       that fontforge(1) can read.  It will notice the following differences:
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17       1)  Characters are present in one font but not in the other.
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19       2)  Characters are present in both fonts but  have  different  sets  of
20           outlines  or  references. The outlines may be compared so that only
21           exact matches are accepted, or so that a  fuzzier  match  is  used.
22           Similarly  references  may need to match exactly, or may be matched
23           after an unlink.  This fuzzy comparison is  useful  when  comparing
24           truetype and postscript fonts, or when comparing a font with refer‐
25           ences to one without.
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27       3)  The PostScript hints or TrueType instructions are different.
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29       4)  The font names (the TrueType 'name' tables) differ.
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31       5)  The kerning (and other 'gpos' information) differs.
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33       6)  The ligatures (and other 'gsub' information) differ.
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35       7)  Any bitmap strikes present in one font but not in the other.
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37       8)  Any bitmap characters present in one strike of one font but not  in
38           the equivalent strike of the other.
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40       9)  Any bitmap characters which differ.
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OPTIONS

43       --help          Provide  a  description  with  a  list of the available
44                       options.
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46       --ignorehints   Suppress the reporting of hint/instruction differences.
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48       --ignoregpos    Suppress the reporting of kerning  (and  other  'gpos')
49                       differences.
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51       --ignoregsub    Suppress  the  reporting of ligature (and other 'gsub')
52                       differences.
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54       --ignorenames   Suppress the reporting of name string differences.
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56       --ignorebitmaps Suppress the reporting of bitmap differences.
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58       --exact         Require outlines to match exactly.
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60       --warn          Warn if the outlines/references are slightly different.
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62       --merge outfile Store a merged version of the two fonts into the speci‐
63                       fied  output  file.   The  merged data will be based on
64                       sfdfile1, any characters present in sfdfile2 but not in
65                       sfdfile1  will  be  added, and the outlines of sfdfile2
66                       will be placed in the  background.   Finally,  for  any
67                       characters  with  different  outlines or references the
68                       background of the character will contain  the  outlines
69                       from  sfdfile2  (references  will be unlinked into out‐
70                       lines and those outlines also will be added).
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72       --usage         Display the usage description.
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74       --version       Display the current version.
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NOTE

83       FontForge used to be called PfaEdit.
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AUTHORS

86       FontForge is Copyright © 2000–2014 by George Williams, and is currently
87       maintained by the FontForge development team.  See /usr/share/doc/font‐
88       forge/AUTHORS for a comprehensive list of contributors.
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LICENSE

91       The  sfddiff  program  is  licensed  under GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or
92       later (http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) with many parts covered  by  a
93       BSD   license  (http://fontforge.org/license.html).   Please  read  the
94       LICENSE file included in the FontForge distribution for details, or see
95       https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/blob/master/LICENSE.
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97       FontForge  is  available  as  a  whole  under  the  terms  of  the [GNU
98       GPL](http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), version 3 or any later ver‐
99       sion.   However,  almost  all  of  its  parts  are  available under the
100       "revised                          BSD                          license"
101       ([pdf](http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/talks/bsd.pdf))  because FontForge
102       was mostly written by George Williams, using that license.
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104       The Revised BSD License is very permissive, and allows for code  to  be
105       combined with other code under other licenses.
106
107       There   are  many  useful  libraries  available  under  copyleft  libre
108       licenses, such as the LGPL and GPL, which FontForge started to  use  in
109       2012.
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111       For example, Pango and Cairo are available under the LGPL.
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113       Some  features added since 2012 are licensed by their individual devel‐
114       opers under the GPLv3.
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BUGS

117       See the FontForge Github  Issue  Tracker,  at  https://github.com/font‐
118       forge/fontforge/issues/.
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122                                  2017 Jun 18                       SFDDIFF(1)