NAME

       tftopl - convert TeX font metric (tfm) files to property lists

SYNOPSIS

       tftopl [OPTIONS] tfm_name[.tfm] [pl_name[.pl]]

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual  page  is  not  meant  to be exhaustive.  The complete documentation for this
       version of TeX can be found in the info file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation.

       The tftopl program translates a (program-oriented) font metric file to a  (human-oriented)
       property  list  file.   Thus,  you  can  edit  the  contents of the TFM files, if the font
       designer has not done  his  or  her  job  properly,  or  if  you're  encountering  strange
       difficulties, or if you're just curious.  It also serves as a TFM-file validating program,
       i.e., if no error messages are given, the input file is correct.

       The pl_name is extended with .pl if it lacks a suffix.  If pl_name is not given,  standard
       output is used. Likewise, tfm_name is extended with .tfm if it lacks a suffix.  Also, path
       searching is done for the TFM file using the environment variable TEXFONTS.   If  that  is
       not set, tftopl uses the system default.

       See tex(1) for the details of the searching.

OPTIONS

       -charcode-format=format
              The  argument  format  specifies how character codes are output in the PL file.  By
              default, only letters and digits are output using the  C  integer  code  (i.e.,  in
              ASCII);  the  others  are output in octal.  (Unless the font's coding scheme starts
              with TeX math sy or TeX math ex, in which case all character codes  are  output  in
              octal.)   If  format  is  ascii,  all  character  codes  that correspond to graphic
              characters, besides the left and right parentheses, are output in ASCII.   Finally,
              if format is octal, all character codes are output in octal.

       -verbose
              Without  this  option,  tftopl  operates  silently.  With it, a banner and progress
              report are printed on stdout.

SEE ALSO

       pltotf(1),
       Donald E. Knuth, TeX for nroffware.
       Donald E. Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and Typesetting), Addison-Wesley,
       1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.

AUTHORS

       Donald  E.  Knuth  wrote  the  program.  It was published as part of the TeX for nroffware
       technical report, available from the TeX Users Group.  Howard  Trickey  and  Pavel  Curtis
       originally ported it to Unix.