NAME

       mktextfm - create a TFM file for a font

SYNOPSIS

       mktextfm [options] font

DESCRIPTION

       mktextfm  is  used  to  generate  a  tfm  file from the Metafont source files for font, or
       hbf2gf(1), if possible.  If destdir is given, the generated file will be installed  there,
       otherwise a (rather complicated) heuristic is used.  If the tfm file already exists in the
       destination location, this is reported and nothing is done.

       If a GF (Generic Font) bitmap file is also  generated,  as  is  typical  with  ΜF,  it  is
       converted to PK (Packed Font) and installed similarly.

       The full pathname of the generated file is printed on standard output.

       If  available,  the mf-nowin(1) variant of Metafont is used to generate fonts to avoid the
       possibility of online display.

       mktextfm is typically called by other programs, via Kpathsea, rather than from the command
       line.

OPTIONS

       mktextfm accepts the following options:

       --destdir dir
              A directory name. If the directory is absolute, it is used as-is.  Otherwise, it is
              appended to the root destination directory set in the script.

       --help Print help message and exit successfully.

       --version
              Print version information and exit successfully.

ENVIRONMENT

       One environment variable is specific to mktextfm: MF_MODE_EXTRA_INFO.  If this is set to a
       non-empty value, a Metafont macro mode_include_extra_info will be invoked when the font is
       made.  The standard modes.mf file defines this, as of modes.mf version  4.0,  released  in
       2020.    This   causes  the  so-called  Xerox-world  information,  notably  including  the
       CODINGSCHEME for the font, to be included in the tfm file. (This is not  done  by  default
       since  it  is  too  intrusive  to  redefine  the necessary primitives, per Don Knuth.) The
       mftrace(1) program, for example, can use this to get  a  clue  about  the  font  encoding,
       although the information is not always perfectly definitive or unambiguous.

       For  more about the encodings of Metafont fonts, see the section ``Bitmap font encodings''
       in the Dvips manual (e.g., https://tug.org/texinfohtml/dvips.html).

       The many other environment variables and various configuration files that  control  a  TeX
       system also affect the behavior of mktextfm, as usual.

SEE ALSO

       mf(1), mktexmf(1), mktexpk(1).

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to: tex-k@tug.org (https://lists.tug.org/tex-k)
       TeX Live home page: https://tug.org/texlive/