1FONTFORGE(1)                General Commands Manual               FONTFORGE(1)
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NAME

6       fontforge - create, modify, and view font files
7

SYNOPSIS

9       fontforge  [-c string]  [-cmap maptype]  [-depth pixeld] [-display str]
10       [-lang=ff]  [-lang=py]  [-help]  [-keyboard ktype]  [-new]  [-nosplash]
11       [-recover mode]  [-script file] [-sync] [-usage] [-vc class] [-version]
12       [fontfile ...]
13

DESCRIPTION

15       FontForge will read PostScript (pfa, pfb,  ps,  cid),  OpenType  (otf),
16       TrueType (ttf, ttc), Macintosh resource fonts (dfont, bin, hqx), Scaled
17       Vector Graphics (svg), TeX bitmap (pk), Glyph Bitmap Distribution  For‐
18       mat  (bdf),  and  X11 bitmap (pcf) fonts.  Font files may be compressed
19       with gzip (for example, myfont.pcf.gz).  FontForge will also  read  its
20       own format: Spline Font Database (sfd) files.
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22       If  the argument list contains a font file name (or several), fontforge
23       opens a fontview window for each font displaying the characters of that
24       font.   In  the  absence  of  options or arguments, the program opens a
25       file-picker window, allowing you to browse your disk  to  find  a  font
26       file, or create a new one.
27
28       This  manual  page  is intended only as a rudimentary overview; see the
29       HTML Users Manual for more complete information.
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31       If no fontfiles are specified, and neither is -new, and there is  noth‐
32       ing to recover, then FontForge will produce an open font dialogue box.
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34       If  a  scriptfile  is specified then FontForge will not open the X dis‐
35       play, nor will it process any additional arguments. It will execute the
36       scriptfile and give it any remaining arguments
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38       If  the first argument is an executable filename, and that file's first
39       line contains "fontforge", then it will be treated as a scriptfile.
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OPTIONS

42       -new        Creates a new font.
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44       -last       Loads the last sfd file closed.
45
46       -recover none|auto|inquire|clean
47                   Control error recovery.  none suppresses  crash  revcovery.
48                   auto  performs automatic recover if the program crashed be‐
49                   fore saving changes; this is  the  default.   inquire  asks
50                   what  to  do  with  auto-saved crash recovery files.  clean
51                   deletes recovery information.
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53       -allglyphs  Load all glyphs in the 'glyf' table. of a TrueType  collec‐
54                   tion.
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56       -nosplash   Suppress display of the splash screen.
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58       -quiet      Don't print non-essential information to stderr.
59
60       -unique     If  a  copy of fontforge is already running, open all argu‐
61                   ments in it and have this process exit.
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63       -display display-name
64                   Employ the X display specified by the  string  display-name
65                   (for example: localhost:0).
66
67       -depth pixeld
68                   Attempt to employ a visual that matches the specified pixel
69                   depth, pixeld.
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71       -vc val     Sets the visual class if possible.
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73       -cmap current|copy|private
74                   Sets the type of color map.  current attempts  to  allocate
75                   colors int he current (shared) color map.  The program will
76                   likely not find everything  it  requires.   copy  allocates
77                   what  can  be allocated, then copies the current color map;
78                   it can thus make use of cells  other  programs  are  using.
79                   private  creates  a new color map and fills it with the re‐
80                   quired colors.
81
82       -dontopenxdevices
83                   In case that fails.
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85       -sync       Syncs the display, debugging.
86
87       -keyboard ibm|mac|sun|ppc
88                   Generates appropriate hotkeys in menus.  Use ibm on an IBM-
89                   compatible  PC.   Use mac on a Mac computer running Mac OS.
90                   Use sun on a Sun workstation.  Use ppc on Power PC Mac run‐
91                   ning SUSE GNU/Linux.
92
93       -usecairo=yes|no
94                   Use (or not) the cairo library for drawing.
95
96       -help       Displays a help message and exits.
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98       -docs       Displays  help file output and then invokes a browser using
99                   the BROWSER environment variable.
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101       -version    Prints the version of fontforge and exits.
102
103       -lang=py    Use Python for scripts (may precede -script).
104
105       -lang=ff    Use fontforge's legacy scripting language.
106
107       -script scriptfile
108                   Executes scriptfile.  Must be the first option  (or  follow
109                   -lang).  All other arguments are passed to scriptfile.  Ex‐
110                   ecute the script named file.  Does not open the X  display.
111                   This  must  be the first argument passed to FontForge.  Any
112                   other arguments are handled by the script file itself.  Any
113                   other  command line arguments will be passed to the script.
114                   The program contains a command  interpreter,  which  allows
115                   access to most but not all of its interactive features.  If
116                   a script file is executable, and if its first line contains
117                   the  string  "fontforge",  then the argument -script may be
118                   omitted.  This means that FontForge can be used as  an  in‐
119                   terpreter.
120
121       -dry scriptfile
122                   Syntax  checks scriptfile (dry run).  Must be the first op‐
123                   tion.  All other arguments are passed to scriptfile.   This
124                   option can only be used with fontforge's own scripting lan‐
125                   guage, not with Python.
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127       -c script-string
128                   Executes argument as scripting commands.  Must be the first
129                   option.  All other arguments are passed to the script.
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EXAMPLE

132       Sample usage:
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134              fontforge myfont.ttf &
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ENVIRONMENT

137       BROWSER
138              Specifies  the  name  of  a browser program for examining online
139              documentation.
140
141       AUTOTRACE
142              Specifies the location of the autotrace program.  Usually  Font‐
143              Forge can figure this out without help, but not always.
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145       MF     Specifies the location of the metafont program.
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147       FONTFORGE_VERBOSE
148              Turns  on  verbose mode in scripting.  Each statement is printed
149              as it is executed.
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FILES

152       ~/.FontForge/autosave
153              Crash recovery directory.
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155       /usr/share/fontforge/*.ui
156              Translations for user interfaces.
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158       /usr/share/fontforge/doc/*.html
159              Optional location for online documentation.
160
161       /usr/share/fontforge/*.cidmap
162              "Encoding" files for  Adobe's  cid  formats,  from  http://font
163              forge.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz.
164

SEE ALSO

166       sfddiff(1)
167
168       The  HTML  version  of  the  FontForge  manual,  available  online  at:
169       http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/.
170

NOTE

172       FontForge used to be called PfaEdit.
173

AUTHORS

175       FontForge is Copyright © 2000–2014 by George Williams, and is currently
176       maintained by the FontForge development team.  See /usr/share/doc/font‐
177       forge/AUTHORS for a comprehensive list of contributors.
178

LICENSE

180       FontForge is  licensed  under  GPLv3+:  GNU  GPL  version  3  or  later
181       (http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) with many parts covered by a BSD li‐
182       cense (http://fontforge.org/license.html).   Please  read  the  LICENSE
183       file  included  in  the  FontForge  distribution  for  details,  or see
184       https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/blob/master/LICENSE.
185
186       FontForge is available as a whole  under  the  terms  of  the  GNU  GPL
187       (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), version 3 or any later version.
188       However, almost all of its parts are available under the  "revised  BSD
189       license"  (http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/talks/bsd.pdf)  because  Font‐
190       Forge was mostly written by George Williams, using that license.
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192       The Revised BSD License is very permissive, and allows for code  to  be
193       combined with other code under other licenses.
194
195       There  are  many  useful  libraries  available under copyleft libre li‐
196       censes, such as the LGPL and GPL, which FontForge  started  to  use  in
197       2012.
198
199       For example, Pango and Cairo are available under the LGPL.
200
201       Some  features added since 2012 are licensed by their individual devel‐
202       opers under the GPLv3.
203

BUGS

205       See the FontForge Github  Issue  Tracker,  at  https://github.com/font
206       forge/fontforge/issues/.
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210                                  2017 Jun 18                     FONTFORGE(1)
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