
pfaedit (1)
NAME
pfaedit - create and modify PostScript fonts
SYNOPSIS
pfaedit [-new] [-recover {none|auto|clean}] [-script scriptfile] [-help]
[-usage] [-version] [-nosplash] [-display name] [-depth val]
[-vc type] [-cmap type] [-sync] [-keyboard ibm|mac|sun|ppc]
fontname
DESCRIPTION
pfaedit allows you to create and modify PostScript and TrueType fonts.
You can save fonts in several different PostScript formats as well as
TrueType, OpenType and CID-keyed fonts. It will also generate bitmaps.
If the -new flag is specified, a new PostScript font with the ISO 8859-1
encoding (the international encoding standard for western Europe, and the
standard for most X fonts) will be created.
If the -recover flag is specified, you can control PfaEdit's crash recov-
ery mechanism -- just in case the crash recovery itself causes problems.
-recover=none will not attempt to recover from crashes on this run, while
-recover=clean will delete any recovery information.
If the -script flag is specified then the following argument will be
treated as the filename of a script file, which will be executed. will
not open the X display and it will pass any other command line arguments
to the script file.
-help will list the available options and fork off a browser looking at
the online documentation. If you have installed the docs locally it will
search for them in /usr/share/doc/pfaedit (or whatever other location was
compiled in), if not it will search for them online.
-usage will list the available options.
-version will display the current version of pfaedit (a six digit string
containing the date stamp of the source files).
-nosplash will not display the splash screen.
The -display flag must be followed by a display-name argument (local-
host:0) and allows you to specify the display.
The -depth flag must be followed by an integer specifing a pixel depth
supported by the current X server. pfaedit will attempt to find a visual
that matches this depth, and if found will use it.
The -vc flag must be followed by either the name of a visual class or an
integer enumerating a visual class. pfaedit will attempt to find a
visual that matches this class, and if found will use it.
The -cmap flag must be followed by one of the strings: "Current", "Copy",
or "Private". It gives the user some control over how colormaps are han-
dled on 8bit screens. If you select "Current", pfaedit will attempt to
allocate its colors in the current (shared) colormap. It probably won't
get everything it wants. If you specify "Copy" then pfaedit will allocate
what it can and then copy the current colormap. This means it can make
"sun" or "ppc". If specified pfaedit will alter its menus to display
modifier keys appropriate for that system. (ppc assumes you have a mac
keyboard and are running SuSe linux. The mappings are different from
those used by X on Mac OS/X. Annoying).
If a fontname is given, pfaedit will open a font view looking at each
font you selected. This may be a binary or ascii PostScript type1 font
(.pfa or .pfb extensions) or one of pfaedit's spline font database files
(.sfd extension), or even a PostScript type 0 font (.ps extension, though
the encoding will probably be lost here), a true type font (.ttf), an
opentype font (.otf), a CID-keyed font (.cid, .otf) or a bitmap font
(.bdf).
Without flags or arguments, pfaedit will open a file picker dialog and
allow you to browse your disk to find the appropriate font file, or cre-
ate a new one.
ENVIRONMENT
If any of the following environment variables exist, they are used by
pfaedit:
BROWSER Specifies the name of a browser program for examining documenta-
tion.
AUTOTRACE Specifies the location of the autotrace program.
FILES
~/.PfaEdit/autosave/ crash recovery directory
/usr/share/pfaedit/*.ui translations for the user interface
/usr/share/doc/pfaedit/*.html optional location for online documenta-
tion.
*.cidmap "encoding" files for Adobe's cid formats
from http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz
SEE ALSO
The pfaedit user manual, at http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/
AUTHOR
George Williams
BUGS
No doubt many. But unknown (and ever changing). See
http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/#known-bugs for a current list.
BSD March 11, 2002 BSD