README
1 FreeType font driver for PCF fonts
2
3 Francesco Zappa Nardelli
4 <francesco.zappa.nardelli (a] ens.fr>
5
6
7 Introduction
8 ************
9
10 PCF (Portable Compiled Format) is a binary bitmap font format, largely used
11 in X world. This code implements a PCF driver for the FreeType library.
12 Glyph images are loaded into memory only on demand, thus leading to a small
13 memory footprint.
14
15 Information on the PCF font format can only be worked out from
16 `pcfread.c', and `pcfwrite.c', to be found, for instance, in the XFree86
17 (www.xfree86.org) source tree (xc/lib/font/bitmap/).
18
19 Many good bitmap fonts in bdf format come with XFree86: they can be
20 compiled into the pcf format using the `bdftopcf' utility.
21
22
23 Supported hardware
24 ******************
25
26 The driver has been tested on linux/x86 and sunos5.5/sparc. In both
27 cases the compiler was gcc. When back in Paris, I will test it also
28 on linux/alpha.
29
30
31 Encodings
32 *********
33
34 Use `FT_Get_BDF_Charset_ID' to access the encoding and registry.
35
36 The driver always exports `ft_encoding_none' as face->charmap.encoding.
37 FT_Get_Char_Index() behavior is unmodified, that is, it converts the ULong
38 value given as argument into the corresponding glyph number.
39
40
41 Known problems
42 **************
43
44 - dealing explicitly with encodings breaks the uniformity of FreeType 2
45 API.
46
47 - except for encodings properties, client applications have no
48 visibility of the PCF_Face object. This means that applications
49 cannot directly access font tables and are obliged to trust
50 FreeType.
51
52 - currently, glyph names and ink_metrics are ignored.
53
54 I plan to give full visibility of the PCF_Face object in the next
55 release of the driver, thus implementing also glyph names and
56 ink_metrics.
57
58 - height is defined as (ascent - descent). Is this correct?
59
60 - if unable to read size information from the font, PCF_Init_Face
61 sets available_size->width and available_size->height to 12.
62
63 - too many english grammar errors in the readme file :-(
64
65
66 License
67 *******
68
69 Copyright (C) 2000 by Francesco Zappa Nardelli
70
71 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
72 a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
73 "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
74 without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
75 distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
76 permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
77 the following conditions:
78
79 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
80 included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
81
82 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
83 EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
84 MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
85 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
86 CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
87 TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
88 SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
89
90
91 Credits
92 *******
93
94 Keith Packard wrote the pcf driver found in XFree86. His work is at
95 the same time the specification and the sample implementation of the
96 PCF format. Undoubtedly, this driver is inspired from his work.
97