Provided by: unifont-bin_15.1.01-1build1_amd64 
NAME
Unifont - a bitmapped font with full Unicode Plane 0 (BMP) coverage
SYNOPSIS
unifont.hex
DESCRIPTION
Unifont is a bitmapped font with glyphs described in a plain text file, generically
referred to as unifont.hex herein. This man page describes the format of three related
files: unifont.hex, masks.hex, and combining.txt. All three of these files start with a
Unicode code point as a hexadecimal string, with code points appearing in ascending order.
A unifont.hex file consists of single-line entries for each Unicode code point. Each line
contains the code point, a colon (':') field separator, and the glyph bitmap. The glyphs
in a unifont.hex format file must appear in ascending Unicode code point order.
This file can be converted into a BDF font using the hex2bdf(1) program, and into a
TrueType font using fontforge(1) (which is not part of this package). The BDF font can
also be converted into a PCF font using bdftopcf(1) (which is also not part of this
package).
The first field
The first field is the Unicode code point in hexadecimal, ranging from "0000"
through "10FFFF", inclusive. This corresponds to the Unicode code points U+0000
through U+10FFFF, respectively.
The second field
The second field is the glyph's bitmap string. This is a series of hexadecimal
digits. Currently Unifont encodes two glyph sizes: 8 pixels wide by 16 pixels tall
(single-width), and 16 pixels wide by 16 pixels tall (double-width). A third
format of 32 pixels wide (drawn as 31 pixels plus a pixel on the right that is
always blank) by 16 pixels tall (quadruple-width) is also available, but only for
experimental use.
As each hexadecimal digit can encode four bits, one pixel row of a glyph is either
two hexadecimal digits long (single-width) or four hexadecimal digits long (double-
width). The glyphs are 16 pixels tall, so a single-width glyph is (2)(16) = 32
hexadecimal digits long and a double-width glyph is (4)(16) = 64 hexadecimal digits
long.
Previous versions of this package supplied a file named masks.hex. This file followed the
same format as unifont.hex with a first field that was a Unicode code point in
hexadecimal, followed by a colon (':') field separator, followed by a second field that
was a hexadecimal string representing a glyph bitmap. Code points were in ascending
order. The glyph bitmaps were bitmaps that would be exclusive-ored with the glyph in
unifont.hex that had the same code point. The original unifont.hex contained combining
circles as depicted in The Unicode Standard. When Paul Hardy got combining characters to
display properly in the TrueType version, it became desirable to remove these combining
circles for proper display with unifont.ttf. The program uniunmask(1) will read such a
masks.hex file, read a unifont.hex format file, and apply the exclusive-or masks in
masks.hex to unifont.hex. The output is another file in unifont.hex format with the
masked-off bits (i.e., combining circles) removed.
Because the operation is an exclusive-or, masks.hex could also be used to turn on pixels
in selective glyphs, for example to add combining circles to selective glyphs that do not
show them. However, the program unigencircles(1) can do this without a separate masks.hex
file. Thus masks.hex is no longer supplied with this package. uniunmask(1) remains part
of this distribution in case someone might find creating a custom masks.hex file useful
for another purpose.
The TrueType version of the font, unifont.ttf, and the unigencircles(1) utility both read
a file combining.txt. This file appears in the directory font/ttfsrc. The combining.txt
file is a list of code points as hexadecimal strings, one per line in ascending order, of
Unicode code points that show combining circles in The Unicode Standard. Any glyph with
its code point listed in combining.txt will have zero width in unifont.ttf.
UTILITIES
Roman Czyborra, the font's creator, originally wrote two Perl scripts as utilities:
bdfimplode(1) and hexdraw(1).
The bdfimplode(1) Perl script reads in a font in BDF format and generates a font output in
unifont.hex format.
The hexdraw(1) Perl script might appear somewhat magical. It can read a file in
unifont.hex format and generate a text file with each glyph appearing as a grid of
characters in an 8 by 16 or 16 by 16 grid: a '-' character indicates a corresponding white
pixel, and a '#' character indicates a corresponding black pixel. These pixel grids are
indented with a single tab character. The first line of each glyph first shows the code
point for the glyph, followed by a colon (':'). The 16 lines that graphically represent
each glyph are followed by one blank line. This text file can then be modified with any
text editor. The magical part about hexdraw(1) is that it will read in this text file,
detect that it is in this converted format, and produce as output a second file in
Unifont's .hex format. Thus hexdraw(1) automagically provides round-trip coverage between
an original font file in unifont.hex format and an intermediate text graphics format for
editing.
Utilities introduced after those first two convert a file in unifont.hex format to and
from bitmapped graphics (".bmp") files. The unihex2bmp(1) program converts a file in
unifont.hex format into a .bmp format file, for editing with a graphics editor. The
unibmp2hex(1) program performs the reverse conversion, from a bitmapped graphics format
back to a file in unifont.hex format.
hexdraw(1), unihex2bmp(1), and unibmp2hex(1) are the central programs that handle
conversion of a unifont.hex file to and from two-dimensional glyph representations for
visual editing. See the doc/unifont.info texinfo file included in the source package for
more information on these and other utilities to customize unifont.hex format files. Also
consult the man pages for the utilities listed below.
FILES
The following files are part of the Unifont source distribution:
font/plane*/*.hex
GNU Unifont font files
LICENSE The Unifont license
README Instructions on building Unifont
doc/unifont.info
Tutorial in texinfo format on customizing Unifont
SEE ALSO
bdfimplode(1), hex2bdf(1), hex2otf(1), hex2sfd(1), hexbraille(1), hexdraw(1), hexkinya(1),
hexmerge(1), johab2syllables(1), johab2ucs2(1), unibdf2hex(1), unibmp2hex(1),
unibmpbump(1), unicoverage(1), unidup(1), unifont-johab631(5), unifont-viewer(1),
unifont1per(1), unifontchojung(1), unifontksx(1), unifontpic(1), unigen-hangul(1),
unigencircles(1), unigenwidth(1), unihex2bmp(1), unihex2png(1), unihexfill(1),
unihexgen(1), unihexpose(1), unihexrotate(1), unijohab2html(1), unipagecount(1),
unipng2hex(1)
AUTHOR
The unifont.hex format was created by Roman Czyborra, who drew the original set of glyphs.
LICENSE
unifont is Copyright © 1998 Roman Czyborra, with portions Copyright © 2007–2013 Paul
Hardy, Copyright © 2004–2013 Qianqian Fang, and others.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
BUGS
The format is very straightforward and no real bugs exist. However, Unifont's original
BDF font format does not support Unicode's combining characters (accents, etc.); only the
TrueType version of Unifont does.
2020 Jul 03 UNIFONT(5)