Man page 1 : tftopl

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

tftopl [ -charcode-format =format ] [

-verbose ] tfm_name[.tfm][ pl_name[.pl]]

This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documentation for this version of \*(TX 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_nameis extended with .plif it lacks a suffix. If pl_nameis not given, standard output is used. Likewise, tfm_nameis extended with .tfmif it lacks a suffix. Also, path searching is done for the .tfmfile using the environment variable TEXFONTS. If that is not set,

tftopl uses the system default.

See

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

The argument formatto

-charcode-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

R in which case all character codes are output in octal.) If formatis

R ascii , all character codes that correspond to graphic characters, besides the left and right parentheses, are output in ASCII. Finally, if formatis

R octal , all character codes are output in octal.

Without the

-verbose option,

tftopl operates silently. With it, a banner and progress report are printed on stdout .

R pltotf (1),
Donald E. Knuth, "\*(OXware" .
Donald E. Knuth, "The \*(MFbook"(Volume C of "Computers and Typesetting" ), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.

Donald E. Knuth wrote the program. It was published as part of the \*(OXwaretechnical report, available from the \*(TX Users Group. Howard Trickey and Pavel Curtis originally ported it to Unix.