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

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

9       fontforge   [-allglyphs]  [-c string]  [-cmap maptype]  [-depth pixeld]
10       [-display str] [-lang=ff] [-lang=py] [-help] [-keyboard ktype]  [-last]
11       [-new]  [-nosplash]  [-quiet]  [-recover mode] [-script file] [-skippy‐
12       file] [-skippyplug] [-sync] [-unique] [-usage]  [-vc class]  [-version]
13       [fontfile ...]
14

DESCRIPTION

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

43       -new        Creates a new font.
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45       -last       Loads the last sfd file closed.
46
47       -recover none|auto|inquire|clean
48                   Control  error  recovery.  none suppresses crash revcovery.
49                   auto performs automatic recover if the program crashed  be‐
50                   fore  saving  changes;  this  is the default.  inquire asks
51                   what to do with auto-saved  crash  recovery  files.   clean
52                   deletes recovery information.
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54       -allglyphs  Load  all glyphs in the 'glyf' table. of a TrueType collec‐
55                   tion.
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57       -nosplash   Suppress display of the splash screen.
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59       -quiet      Don't print non-essential information to stderr.
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61       -unique     If a copy of fontforge is already running, open  all  argu‐
62                   ments in it and have this process exit.
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64       -display display-name
65                   Employ  the  X display specified by the string display-name
66                   (for example: localhost:0).
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68       -depth pixeld
69                   Attempt to employ a visual that matches the specified pixel
70                   depth, pixeld.
71
72       -vc val     Sets the visual class if possible.
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74       -cmap current|copy|private
75                   Sets  the  type of color map.  current attempts to allocate
76                   colors int he current (shared) color map.  The program will
77                   likely  not  find  everything  it requires.  copy allocates
78                   what can be allocated, then copies the current  color  map;
79                   it  can  thus  make  use of cells other programs are using.
80                   private creates a new color map and fills it with  the  re‐
81                   quired colors.
82
83       -dontopenxdevices
84                   In case that fails.
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86       -sync       Syncs the display, debugging.
87
88       -keyboard ibm|mac|sun|ppc
89                   Generates appropriate hotkeys in menus.  Use ibm on an IBM-
90                   compatible PC.  Use mac on a Mac computer  running  Mac OS.
91                   Use sun on a Sun workstation.  Use ppc on Power PC Mac run‐
92                   ning SUSE GNU/Linux.
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94       -usecairo=yes|no
95                   Use (or not) the cairo library for drawing.
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97       -help       Displays a help message and exits.
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99       -docs       Displays help file output and then invokes a browser  using
100                   the BROWSER environment variable.
101
102       -version    Prints the version of fontforge and exits.
103
104       -lang=py    Use Python for scripts (may precede -script).
105
106       -lang=ff    Use fontforge's legacy scripting language.
107
108       -script scriptfile
109                   Executes  scriptfile.   Must be the first option (or follow
110                   -lang).  All other arguments are passed to scriptfile.  Ex‐
111                   ecute  the script named file.  Does not open the X display.
112                   This must be the first argument passed to  FontForge.   Any
113                   other arguments are handled by the script file itself.  Any
114                   other command line arguments will be passed to the  script.
115                   The  program  contains  a command interpreter, which allows
116                   access to most but not all of its interactive features.  If
117                   a script file is executable, and if its first line contains
118                   the string "fontforge", then the argument  -script  may  be
119                   omitted.   This  means that FontForge can be used as an in‐
120                   terpreter.
121
122       -dry scriptfile
123                   Syntax checks scriptfile (dry run).  Must be the first  op‐
124                   tion.   All other arguments are passed to scriptfile.  This
125                   option can only be used with fontforge's own scripting lan‐
126                   guage, not with Python.
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128       -c script-string
129                   Executes argument as scripting commands.  Must be the first
130                   option.  All other arguments are passed to the script.
131
132       -skippyfile Do not execute Python init scripts when initializing.
133
134       -skippyplug Do not load (enabled) Python plugins when initializing.
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EXAMPLE

137       Sample usage:
138
139              fontforge myfont.ttf &
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ENVIRONMENT

142       BROWSER
143              Specifies the name of a browser  program  for  examining  online
144              documentation.
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146       AUTOTRACE
147              Specifies  the location of the autotrace program.  Usually Font‐
148              Forge can figure this out without help, but not always.
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150       MF     Specifies the location of the metafont program.
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152       FONTFORGE_VERBOSE
153              Turns on verbose mode in scripting.  Each statement  is  printed
154              as it is executed.
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FILES

157       ~/.FontForge/autosave
158              Crash recovery directory.
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160       /usr/share/fontforge/*.ui
161              Translations for user interfaces.
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163       /usr/share/fontforge/doc/*.html
164              Optional location for online documentation.
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166       /usr/share/fontforge/*.cidmap
167              "Encoding"  files  for  Adobe's  cid  formats, from http://font
168              forge.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz.
169

SEE ALSO

171       sfddiff(1)
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173       The  HTML  version  of  the  FontForge  manual,  available  online  at:
174       http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/.
175

NOTE

177       FontForge used to be called PfaEdit.
178

AUTHORS

180       FontForge is Copyright © 2000–2014 by George Williams, and is currently
181       maintained by the FontForge development team.  See /usr/share/doc/font‐
182       forge/AUTHORS for a comprehensive list of contributors.
183

LICENSE

185       FontForge  is  licensed  under  GPLv3+:  GNU  GPL  version  3  or later
186       (http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) with many parts covered by a BSD li‐
187       cense  (http://fontforge.org/license.html).   Please  read  the LICENSE
188       file included  in  the  FontForge  distribution  for  details,  or  see
189       https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/blob/master/LICENSE.
190
191       FontForge  is  available  as  a  whole  under  the terms of the GNU GPL
192       (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), version 3 or any later version.
193       However,  almost  all of its parts are available under the "revised BSD
194       license"  (http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/talks/bsd.pdf)  because  Font‐
195       Forge was mostly written by George Williams, using that license.
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197       The  Revised  BSD License is very permissive, and allows for code to be
198       combined with other code under other licenses.
199
200       There are many useful libraries  available  under  copyleft  libre  li‐
201       censes,  such  as  the  LGPL and GPL, which FontForge started to use in
202       2012.
203
204       For example, Pango and Cairo are available under the LGPL.
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206       Some features added since 2012 are licensed by their individual  devel‐
207       opers under the GPLv3.
208

BUGS

210       See  the  FontForge  Github  Issue Tracker, at https://github.com/font
211       forge/fontforge/issues/.
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215                                  2017 Jun 18                     FONTFORGE(1)
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