afmtodit(1) General Commands Manual afmtodit(1)
Name
afmtodit - adapt Adobe Font Metrics files for groff PostScript and PDF
output
Synopsis
afmtodit [-ckmnsx] [-a slant] [-d device-description-file]
[-e encoding-file] [-f internal-name]
[-i italic-correction-factor] [-o output-file]
[-w space-width] afm-file map-file font-description-file
afmtodit --help
afmtodit -v
afmtodit --version
Description
afmtodit adapts an Adobe Font Metric file, afm-file, for use with the
ps and pdf output devices of troff(1). map-file associates a groff
ordinary or special character name with a PostScript glyph name.
Output is written in groff_font(5) format to font-description-file, a
file named for the intended groff font name (but see the -o option).
map-file should contain a sequence of lines of the form
ps-glyph groff-char
where ps-glyph is the PostScript glyph name and groff-char is a groff
ordinary (if of unit length) or special (if longer) character
identifier. The same ps-glyph can occur multiple times in the file;
each groff-char must occur at most once. Lines starting with “#” and
blank lines are ignored. If the file isn't found in the current
directory, it is sought in the devps/generate subdirectory of the
default font directory.
If a PostScript glyph is not mentioned in map-file, and a groff
character name can't be deduced using the Adobe Glyph List (AGL, built
into afmtodit), then afmtodit puts the PostScript glyph into the groff
font description file as an unnamed glyph which can only be accessed by
the “\N” escape sequence in a roff document. In particular, this is
true for glyph variants named in the form “foo.bar”; all glyph names
containing one or more periods are mapped to unnamed entities. Unless
-e is specified, the encoding defined in the AFM file (i.e., entries
with non-negative codes) is used. Refer to section “Using Symbols” in
Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, the groff Texinfo manual, or
groff_char(7), which describe how groff character identifiers are
constructed.
Glyphs not encoded in the AFM file (i.e., entries indexed as “-1”) are
still available in groff; they get glyph index values greater than 255
(or greater than the biggest code used in the AFM file in the unlikely
case that it is greater than 255) in the groff font description file.
Unencoded glyph indices don't have a specific order; it is best to
access them only via special character identifiers.
If the font file proper (not just its metrics) is available, listing it
in the files
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/download
and
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devpdf/download
enables it to be embedded in the output produced by grops(1) and
gropdf(1), respectively.
If the -i option is used, afmtodit automatically generates an italic
correction, a left italic correction, and a subscript correction for
each glyph (the significance of these is explained in groff_font(5));
they can be specified for individual glyphs by adding to the afm-file
lines of the form:
italicCorrection_ps-glyph_n
leftItalicCorrection_ps-glyph_n
subscriptCorrection_ps-glyph_n
where ps-glyph is the PostScript glyph name, and n is the desired value
of the corresponding parameter in thousandths of an em. Such
parameters are normally needed only for italic (or oblique) fonts.
The -s option should be given if the font is “special”, meaning that
groff should search it whenever a glyph is not found in the current
font. In that case, font-description-file should be listed as an
argument to the fonts directive in the output device's DESC file; if it
is not special, there is no need to do so, since troff(1) will
automatically mount it when it is first used.
Options
--help displays a usage message, while -v and --version show version
information; all exit afterward.
-a slant
Use slant as the slant (“angle”) parameter in the font
description file; this is used by groff in the positioning of
accents. By default afmtodit uses the negative of the
ItalicAngle specified in the AFM file; with true italic fonts it
is sometimes desirable to use a slant that is less than this.
If you find that an italic font places accents over base glyphs
too far to the right, use -a to give it a smaller slant.
-c Include comments in the font description file identifying the
PostScript font.
-d device-description-file
The device description file is desc-file rather than the default
DESC. If not found in the current directory, the devps
subdirectory of the default font directory is searched (this is
true for both the default device description file and a file
given with option -d).
-e encoding-file
The PostScript font should be reencoded to use the encoding
described in enc-file. The format of enc-file is described in
grops(1). If not found in the current directory, the devps
subdirectory of the default font directory is searched.
-f internal-name
The internal name of the groff font is set to name.
-i italic-correction-factor
Generate an italic correction for each glyph so that its width
plus its italic correction is equal to italic-correction-factor
thousandths of an em plus the amount by which the right edge of
the glyph's bounding box is to the right of its origin. If this
would result in a negative italic correction, use a zero italic
correction instead.
Also generate a subscript correction equal to the product of the
tangent of the slant of the font and four fifths of the x-height
of the font. If this would result in a subscript correction
greater than the italic correction, use a subscript correction
equal to the italic correction instead.
Also generate a left italic correction for each glyph equal to
italic-correction-factor thousandths of an em plus the amount by
which the left edge of the glyph's bounding box is to the left
of its origin. The left italic correction may be negative
unless option -m is given.
This option is normally needed only with italic (or oblique)
fonts. The font description files distributed with groff were
created using an option of -i50 for italic fonts.
-o output-file
Write to output-file instead of font-description-file.
-k Omit any kerning data from the groff font; use only for
monospaced (constant-width) fonts.
-m Prevent negative left italic correction values. Font
description files for roman styles distributed with groff were
created with “-i0 -m” to improve spacing with eqn(1).
-n Don't output a ligatures command for this font; use with
monospaced (constant-width) fonts.
-s Add the special directive to the font description file.
-w space-width
Use space-width as the with of inter-word spaces.
-x Don't use the built-in Adobe Glyph List.
Files
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/DESC
describes the ps output device.
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/F
describes the font known as F on device ps.
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/download
lists fonts available for embedding within the PostScript
document (or download to the device).
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/dingbats.map
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/dingbats-reversed.map
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/slanted-symbol.map
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/symbol.map
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/groff/1.23.0_1/share/groff/1.23.0/font/devps/generate/text.map
map names in the Adobe Glyph List to groff special character
identifiers for Zapf Dingbats (ZD), reversed Zapf Dingbats
(ZDR), slanted symbol (SS), symbol (S), and text fonts,
respectively. These map-files are used to produce the font
description files provided with groff for the grops output
driver.
Diagnostics
AGL name 'x' already mapped to groff name 'y'; ignoring AGL name
'uniXXXX'
You can disregard these if they're in the form shown, where the
ignored AGL name contains four hexadecimal digits XXXX. The
Adobe Glyph List (AGL) has its own names for glyphs; they are
often different from groff's special character names. afmtodit
is constructing a mapping from groff special character names to
AGL names; this can be a one-to-one or many-to-one mapping, but
one-to-many will not work, so afmtodit discards the excess
mappings. For example, if x is *D, y is Delta, and z is
uni0394, afmtodit is telling you that the groff font description
that it is writing cannot map the groff special character \[*D]
to AGL glyphs Delta and uni0394 at the same time.
If you get a message like this but are unhappy with which
mapping is ignored, a remedy is to craft an alternative map-file
and re-run afmtodit using it.
See also
Groff: The GNU Implementation of troff, by Trent A. Fisher and Werner
Lemberg, is the primary groff manual. Section “Using Symbols” may be
of particular note. You can browse it interactively with “info
'(groff)Using Symbols'”.
groff(1), gropdf(1), grops(1), groff_font(5)
groff 1.23.0 5 July 2023 afmtodit(1)