Provided by: fontforge-common_20201107~dfsg-4+deb11u1build0.22.04.1_all 
NAME
fontforge - create, modify, and view font files
SYNOPSIS
fontforge [-c string] [-cmap maptype] [-depth pixeld] [-display str] [-lang=ff] [-lang=py]
[-help] [-keyboard ktype] [-new] [-nosplash] [-recover mode] [-script file] [-sync]
[-usage] [-vc class] [-version] [fontfile ...]
DESCRIPTION
FontForge will read PostScript (pfa, pfb, ps, cid), OpenType (otf), TrueType (ttf, ttc),
Macintosh resource fonts (dfont, bin, hqx), Scaled Vector Graphics (svg), TeX bitmap (pk),
Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (bdf), and X11 bitmap (pcf) fonts. Font files may be
compressed with gzip (for example, myfont.pcf.gz). FontForge will also read its own
format: Spline Font Database (sfd) files.
If the argument list contains a font file name (or several), fontforge opens a fontview
window for each font displaying the characters of that font. In the absence of options or
arguments, the program opens a file-picker window, allowing you to browse your disk to
find a font file, or create a new one.
This manual page is intended only as a rudimentary overview; see the HTML Users Manual for
more complete information.
If no fontfiles are specified, and neither is -new, and there is nothing to recover, then
FontForge will produce an open font dialogue box.
If a scriptfile is specified then FontForge will not open the X display, nor will it
process any additional arguments. It will execute the scriptfile and give it any remaining
arguments
If the first argument is an executable filename, and that file's first line contains
"fontforge", then it will be treated as a scriptfile.
OPTIONS
-new Creates a new font.
-last Loads the last sfd file closed.
-recover none|auto|inquire|clean
Control error recovery. none suppresses crash revcovery. auto performs
automatic recover if the program crashed before saving changes; this is the
default. inquire asks what to do with auto-saved crash recovery files. clean
deletes recovery information.
-allglyphs Load all glyphs in the 'glyf' table. of a TrueType collection.
-nosplash Suppress display of the splash screen.
-quiet Don't print non-essential information to stderr.
-unique If a copy of fontforge is already running, open all arguments in it and have
this process exit.
-display display-name
Employ the X display specified by the string display-name (for example:
localhost:0).
-depth pixeld
Attempt to employ a visual that matches the specified pixel depth, pixeld.
-vc val Sets the visual class if possible.
-cmap current|copy|private
Sets the type of color map. current attempts to allocate colors int he
current (shared) color map. The program will likely not find everything it
requires. copy allocates what can be allocated, then copies the current color
map; it can thus make use of cells other programs are using. private creates
a new color map and fills it with the required colors.
-dontopenxdevices
In case that fails.
-sync Syncs the display, debugging.
-keyboard ibm|mac|sun|ppc
Generates appropriate hotkeys in menus. Use ibm on an IBM-compatible PC. Use
mac on a Mac computer running Mac OS. Use sun on a Sun workstation. Use ppc
on Power PC Mac running SUSE GNU/Linux.
-usecairo=yes|no
Use (or not) the cairo library for drawing.
-help Displays a help message and exits.
-docs Displays help file output and then invokes a browser using the BROWSER
environment variable.
-version Prints the version of fontforge and exits.
-lang=py Use Python for scripts (may precede -script).
-lang=ff Use fontforge's legacy scripting language.
-script scriptfile
Executes scriptfile. Must be the first option (or follow -lang). All other
arguments are passed to scriptfile. Execute the script named file. Does not
open the X display. This must be the first argument passed to FontForge. Any
other arguments are handled by the script file itself. Any other command line
arguments will be passed to the script. The program contains a command
interpreter, which allows access to most but not all of its interactive
features. If a script file is executable, and if its first line contains the
string "fontforge", then the argument -script may be omitted. This means that
FontForge can be used as an interpreter.
-dry scriptfile
Syntax checks scriptfile (dry run). Must be the first option. All other
arguments are passed to scriptfile. This option can only be used with
fontforge's own scripting language, not with Python.
-c script-string
Executes argument as scripting commands. Must be the first option. All other
arguments are passed to the script.
EXAMPLE
Sample usage:
fontforge myfont.ttf &
ENVIRONMENT
BROWSER
Specifies the name of a browser program for examining online documentation.
AUTOTRACE
Specifies the location of the autotrace program. Usually FontForge can figure this
out without help, but not always.
MF Specifies the location of the metafont program.
FONTFORGE_VERBOSE
Turns on verbose mode in scripting. Each statement is printed as it is executed.
FILES
~/.FontForge/autosave
Crash recovery directory.
/usr/share/fontforge/*.ui
Translations for user interfaces.
/usr/share/fontforge/doc/*.html
Optional location for online documentation.
/usr/share/fontforge/*.cidmap
"Encoding" files for Adobe's cid formats, from
http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz.
SEE ALSO
sfddiff(1)
The HTML version of the FontForge manual, available online at:
http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/.
NOTE
FontForge used to be called PfaEdit.
AUTHORS
FontForge is Copyright © 2000–2014 by George Williams, and is currently maintained by the
FontForge development team. See /usr/share/doc/fontforge/AUTHORS for a comprehensive list
of contributors.
LICENSE
FontForge is licensed under GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
(http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) with many parts covered by a BSD license
(http://fontforge.org/license.html). Please read the LICENSE file included in the
FontForge distribution for details, or see
https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/blob/master/LICENSE.
FontForge is available as a whole under the terms of the GNU GPL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), version 3 or any later version. However, almost
all of its parts are available under the "revised BSD license"
(http://www.law.yi.org/~sfllaw/talks/bsd.pdf) because FontForge was mostly written by
George Williams, using that license.
The Revised BSD License is very permissive, and allows for code to be combined with other
code under other licenses.
There are many useful libraries available under copyleft libre licenses, such as the LGPL
and GPL, which FontForge started to use in 2012.
For example, Pango and Cairo are available under the LGPL.
Some features added since 2012 are licensed by their individual developers under the
GPLv3.
BUGS
See the FontForge Github Issue Tracker, at https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/issues/.
2017 Jun 18 FONTFORGE(1)