1 FreeType font driver for BDF fonts
3 Francesco Zappa Nardelli
4 <francesco.zappa.nardelli@ens.fr>
10 BDF (Bitmap Distribution Format) is a bitmap font format defined by Adobe,
11 which is intended to be easily understood by both humans and computers.
12 This code implements a BDF driver for the FreeType library, following the
13 Adobe Specification V 2.2. The specification of the BDF font format is
14 available from Adobe's web site:
16 http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/5005.BDF_Spec.pdf
18 Many good bitmap fonts in bdf format come with XFree86 (www.XFree86.org).
19 They do not define vertical metrics, because the X Consortium BDF
20 specification has removed them.
26 The variety of encodings that accompanies bdf fonts appears to encompass the
27 small set defined in freetype.h. On the other hand, two properties that
28 specify encoding and registry are usually defined in bdf fonts.
30 I decided to make these two properties directly accessible, leaving to the
31 client application the work of interpreting them. For instance:
34 #include FT_INTERNAL_BDF_TYPES_H
37 BDF_Public_Face bdfface;
40 FT_New_Face( library, ..., &face );
42 bdfface = (BDF_Public_Face)face;
44 if ( ( bdfface->charset_registry == "ISO10646" ) &&
45 ( bdfface->charset_encoding == "1" ) )
49 Thus the driver always exports `ft_encoding_none' as face->charmap.encoding.
50 FT_Get_Char_Index's behavior is unmodified, that is, it converts the ULong
51 value given as argument into the corresponding glyph number.
53 If the two properties are not available, Adobe Standard Encoding should be
60 The driver supports an extension to the BDF format as used in Mark Leisher's
61 xmbdfed bitmap font editor. Microsoft's SBIT tool expects bitmap fonts in
62 that format for adding anti-aliased them to TrueType fonts. It introduces a
63 fourth field to the `SIZE' keyword which gives the bpp value (bits per
64 pixel) of the glyph data in the font. Possible values are 1 (the default),
65 2 (four gray levels), 4 (16 gray levels), and 8 (256 gray levels). The
66 driver returns either a bitmap with 1 bit per pixel or a pixmap with 8bits
67 per pixel (using 4, 16, and 256 gray levels, respectively).
73 - A font is entirely loaded into memory. Obviously, this is not the Right
74 Thing(TM). If you have big fonts I suggest you convert them into PCF
75 format (using the bdftopcf utility): the PCF font drive of FreeType can
76 perform incremental glyph loading.
78 When I have some time, I will implement on-demand glyph parsing.
80 - Except for encodings properties, client applications have no visibility of
81 the PCF_Face object. This means that applications cannot directly access
82 font tables and must trust FreeType.
84 - Currently, glyph names are ignored.
86 I plan to give full visibility of the BDF_Face object in an upcoming
87 revision of the driver, thus implementing also glyph names.
89 - As I have never seen a BDF font that defines vertical metrics, vertical
90 metrics are (parsed and) discarded. If you own a BDF font that defines
91 vertical metrics, please let me know (I will implement them in 5-10
98 Copyright (C) 2001-2002 by Francesco Zappa Nardelli
100 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
101 a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
102 "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
103 without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
104 distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
105 permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
106 the following conditions:
108 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
109 included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
111 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
112 EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
113 MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
114 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
115 CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
116 TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
117 SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
119 *** Portions of the driver (that is, bdflib.c and bdf.h):
121 Copyright 2000 Computing Research Labs, New Mexico State University
122 Copyright 2001-2002 Francesco Zappa Nardelli
124 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
125 copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
126 to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
127 the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
128 and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
129 Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
131 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
132 all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
134 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
135 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
136 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
137 THE COMPUTING RESEARCH LAB OR NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY BE LIABLE FOR ANY
138 CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT
139 OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR
140 THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
146 This driver is based on excellent Mark Leisher's bdf library. If you
147 find something good in this driver you should probably thank him, not