gfontview - README


gfontview is a Font Viewer for outline fonts (PostScript Type 1 and
TrueType). It will display all fonts present in the chosen directory
in a list, with a preview of the font in the main window.  You can get
the latest version from 'http://gfontview.sourceforge.net'

It uses the GTK+ library (V1.2) for X11 windowing, t1lib (V1.0) as a
PostScript Type 1 renderer and the freetype library (V1.2) for
TrueType rendering.  It also uses the gif or ungif library to produce
GIF files of text typeset in a font.  You can get read about and get
GTK+ at 'http://www.gtk.org'. You can read about and get t1lib at
'http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/rmz/t1lib/t1lib.html'.
You can read about and get freetype at 'http://www.freetype.org' The
gif and ungif libraries are available at
'http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software',
'http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/libs/giflib' and
'http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/libs/graphics'.

gfontview also allows you to display a particular character or string of a
font in an own window, thus allowing a comparison between several
fonts with a particular string sample.  This character or string can
be antialiased (smoothed). The string can also consider the kerning
pairs if available in the AFM or TTF file.  The displayed character or
string can be saved in GIF format. The generated GIF defines the
background white colour as transparent.  Note: the generated GIF file
will be compressed or not depending on which library you use when
compiling (gif or ungif). See the implications of this at
'http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software'.
If you select multiple fonts, all of them will be put together
in the displayed window.
The name of each font will appear above the bitmap, in a style
defined in the style files for the widget "*fontname label".

AFM files will be read (and generated if not present) by the t1lib.
Their expected location is either the same directory as the PostScript
fonts or a subdirectory inside it called 'afm'.

A table with all glyphs in the font (for PostScript Type 1 fonts also
in several encodings) can also be created. A custom encoding will be
generated on the fly to allow you to see all characters (also not
encoded ones) in a Type 1 font, the so called "Custom" encodings.  
Clicking on each glyph of the table
will open a popup window magnifying the glyph. The magnifying factor
depends on the mouse button clicked. These glyphs are always without
antialiasing. The PostScript name of the character appears in the down part
of the window.

Asynchronous error messages (like the ones generated when reading a
font directory) are collected sorted by font file name in an auxiliar
window.

You can also print a sample of a font. The program generates
PostScript code with sample strings in several sizes, which you can
download to any PostScript printer or to ghostscript.  In the case of
TT fonts, the font is downloaded as Type42, which means that if you
use a Postscript printer, it must be at least a Level 2 printer and
also have Type42 support. ghostscript understands the format beginning
with version 5.10.  The program can also print a longer text in the
selected font, thus allowing you to get an impresion of how a text
page looks like in the selected font. Printing of all characters
present in a font (a font map) or of a selected string
(to print font catalogs) are the other possibilities.
If several fonts were selected, all of them will be printed.

TrueType fonts can be saved as Type42 PostScript fonts by right clicking
on them. If several fonts were selected, the fonts will be stored
in the selected directory with their same name but extension pfa.

gfontview reads on start the init file gfontviewrc, where GTK styles
can be defined. It will look for it in the standard gnome directories.
It will accept a starting directory as a command line argument; if
a file is given, the directory the file is in will be read.
This allows for it to be used as associated viewer for ttf or pfb/pfa files
in Gnome or KDE graphical file managers.