1fontopia(1) fontopia man page fontopia(1)
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6 fontopia - the console bitmap font editor
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9 fontopia [OPTIONS] [file-name]
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12 Fontopia is an easy-to-use, text-based, console font editor. What this
13 means in simple English is that you can edit the fonts that your
14 GNU/Linux kernel is using to display your text on text-based (vs graph‐
15 ical) terminals.
16 Unlike other console text editors which usually work on one PSF ver‐
18 sion, or work on unicode tables only, or allow very minimal glyph edit‐
19 ing, fontopia provides all these functions together:
20 - It works on both PSF 1 & 2, you can even change file type and save it
21 to disk in the other version.
22 - It allows exporting and importing of unicode tables from external
23 files.
24 - It provides a user-friendly, easy-to-use glyph editor.
25 - It can easily change font metrics, e.g. length, width, height...
26 Console font files are commonly of PSF type (of which there are two
27 versions), or of CP type (legacy fonts). Fontopia works with PSF files
28 of both versions, as well as CP, PCF, BDF files and raw font files.
29 What's new:
31 ===========
32 - We added support for the PCF (Portable Compiled Format) fonts. Work
33 is ongoing on Windows FON and FNT files.
34 - We added the Extended Glyph Operations window (accessed by pressing
35 O) and the Glyph Info window (accessed by pressing G).
36 Package dependencies:
38 =====================
39 Fontopia needs GnuDOS package in order to run. Furthermore, if you are
40 going to compile Fontopia from the source, you will need the following
41 header files: dialogs.h, kbd.h and screen.h. Those files are part of
42 the GnuDOS package. If you don't have GnuDOS installed on your system,
43 you can download the sources from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnudos/, com‐
44 pile and install them, then retry running or compiling Fontopia.
45 Alternatively, if you are using an RPM-based distro, you can download
47 and install the RPM from places like: https://pkgs.org/download/gnudos.
48 Additionally, Fedora, CentOS and RHEL users can use yum/dnf to install
49 GnuDOS from the official repos. (Note: if you are installing GnuDOS
50 from an RPM repo, and you want to compile Fontopia from the source, you
51 will need to install the 'gnudos-devel' package in addition to the
52 'gnudos' package. The former package includes the above header files,
53 which are needed to compile Fontopia from the source).
54 Supported formats:
56 ==================
57 - PSF 1 and 2
58 - Linux Code pages (CP)
59 - Raw fonts
60 - BDF fonts (beta)
61 - PCF fonts
62 - Windows FON & FNT files support under development
63 WARNING:
65 ========
66 (1) There is a major downside currently: fontopia doesn't work with
67 unicode sequences properly (at least not in all cases). If you export a
68 unicode table, edit it, and then import it to a font file, you should
69 be safe.
70 (2) Note that if you changed the font version from CP to any other ver‐
71 sion, only the ACTIVE font will be changed, as the other font formats
72 (PSF, Raw, BDF) don't support multiple fonts inside the same font file.
73 In this case, you will need to open the original CP file multiple
74 times, every time select a different font size (by using '1'-'4' number
75 keys) and convert to the new font version, then reopen the original CP
76 file, select another font size, convert it, and so on.
77 Navigation:
79 ===========
80 Using the editor is very easy:
81 (1) Navigate the glyphs on the right side window using the arrow keys.
82 Edit a single glyph using ENTER (or TAB).
83 (2) Navigate the bits that form a single bit (on the left side window)
84 using arrow keys. Press ENTER or SPACE to set/unset the desired bit.
85 Go back to right window (glyph list) using TAB.
86 (3) To zoom in (make the glyph on the left look bigger), press Z.
87 (4) To zoom out, press X.
88 (5) To open a new file, press CTRL+O.
89 (6) To create a new font from scratch, press CTRL+N.
90 (7) To save your work, press CTRL+S.
91 (8) To save with a new filename, press CTRL+D (aka Save As..).
92 (9) To quit the editor, press CTRL+Q.
93 (10) To show help, press CTRL+H.
94 (11) To copy a glyph, press CTRL+C.
95 (12) To cut a glyph, press CTRL+X.
96 (13) To paste a glyph, press CTRL+V.
97 (14) To show about dialog box, press A.
98 (15) To switch buffer mode (on/off), press CTRL+B.
99 (16) To clear a glyph (i.e. remove all bits), press C.
100 (17) To invert a glyph, press D.
101 (18) To export font unicode table (by default to a file with same orig‐
102 inal
103 file name plus .tab extension), press E.
104 (19) To show glyph info, press G.
105 (20) To flip a glyph horizontally, press H.
106 (21) To import unicode table from another file, press I.
107 (22) To show these keys without the extra jargon, press K.
108 (23) To show font metrics window, press M.
109 (24) To show the extended glyph operations window, press O.
110 (25) To change codepage of a CP font, press P.
111 If font is in BDF format, P shows properties (or metadata).
112 (26) To remove unicode table from font, press CTRL+R.
113 (27) To set a glyph (i.e. set all bits), press S.
114 (28) To show font unicode table, press U.
115 (29) To flip a glyph vertically, press V.
116 (30) To export font glyphs in textual format (by default to a file with
117 same original file name plus .glyph extension), press W.
118 (31) If editing a CP font and you want to change the active font (e.g.
119 edit the 8x8 font instead of the 16x8 font you are currently edit‐
120 ing)
121 press any key from '1' to '4' and the respective font will be the
122 active font to be edited. You can go back and forth by using the
123 number keys.
124 The unicode values that are mapped to a specific glyph are shown on the
126 status bar (the bottom strip) to the right side.
127 That should make you ready to move around and edit your fonts. Have
129 fun!.
130
135 -h, --help
136 Print command line help and exit
137 -v, --version
140 Display program version and exit
141
144 file-name The name of a font file to load into fontopia.
145
148 - Testing and debugging - Help with handling unicode sequences
149
152 info fontopia
153
156 Mohammed Isam <mohammed_isam1984@yahoo.com>
1571.8 MAY 2018 fontopia(1)