fntsample(1)

📦
version 5.4 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing

✨ fntsample — the font sample glow-up generator ✨

okay bestie, so like — this is the manual page for fntsample, a program that makes PDF and PostScript font samples. yes, lowercase fntsample. it's giving main character energy in the font-inspection world, and honestly? obsessed. 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

fntsample [ OPTIONS ] -f FONT-FILE -o OUTPUT-FILE
fntsample -h

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So fntsample makes font samples — the kind that show off a font's Unicode coverage, and they look so similar to actual Unicode charts. like, the vibe is immaculate. ✨

You can save those samples as a PDF (that's the default, bestie) or as a PostScript file.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

fntsample supports the following options, and no, we are not skipping any of them, periodt.

  • --blocks-file, -b BLOCKS-FILE — reads the Unicode blocks info from BLOCKS-FILE. like, that's where it gets the block tea from. 🍓
  • --font-file, -f FONT-FILE — makes samples of FONT-FILE. this is THE font, the one we're sampling.
  • --font-index, -n IDX — the font index for FONT-FILE that you specified with the --font-file option. highkey useful for files that hold multiple fonts, like TrueType Collections (.ttc). by default, the font with index 0 gets used. 💫
  • --output-file, -o OUTPUT-FILE — writes the output to OUTPUT-FILE. where the magic lands.
  • --other-font-file, -d OTHER-FONT — compares FONT-FILE against OTHER-FONT. the glyphs that got added to FONT-FILE will be highlighted. it's giving glow-up comparison. 🔥
  • --other-index, -m IDX — the font index for OTHER-FONT that you specified with the --other-font-file option.
  • --postscript-output, -s — uses PostScript format for the output instead of PDF. retro-ish, we respect it. 🎀
  • --svg, -g — uses SVG format for the output. the generated document contains one page — and yes, only one — so use the range selection options to specify which page that is. 💜
  • --print-outline, -l — prints document outlines data to standard output. that data can be used to add outlines (aka bookmarks, bestie) to the resulting PDF file with the pdfoutline program. 👑
  • --write-outline, -w — writes the document outlines directly (only in PDF output, so don't come for it otherwise).
  • --include-range, -i RANGE — shows characters in RANGE. only those. inclusive behavior fr fr.
  • --exclude-range, -x RANGE — does not show characters in RANGE. not me gatekeeping glyphs but okay.
  • --style, -t "STYLE: VAL" — sets STYLE to value VAL. run fntsample with the --help option to see the list of styles and their default values. peek behind the curtain, bestie. 🧚
  • --no-embed, -e — draws the outlines of the glyphs instead of embedding them in the PDF file. use this when embedding the font is not desired or not allowed. very "we're keeping it surface level" of you. 🙈
  • --help, -h — displays the help text and exits. the classic.
Also, quick note on the RANGE parameter for -i and -x: you can give it as one integer, or as a pair of integers delimited by a minus sign (-). Integers can be written in decimal, hexadecimal (0x...) or octal (0...) format. And one integer of a pair can be missing — -N specifies all characters with codes less or equal to N, and N- specifies all characters with codes greather or equal to N. (that typo is canon, we're keeping it, it's iconic 😭). Multiple -i and -x options can be used. 💖

🌈 COLORS 🌈

Glyph cells can have one of several background colors. Here's what each color is actually saying:

  • white — normal glyph present in the font. this includes space glyphs, which are usually invisible (they're shy, leave them alone 🫶).
  • gray — this glyph is defined in Unicode but not present in the font.
  • blue — this is a control character.
  • black — this glyph is not defined in Unicode.
  • yellow — this is a new glyph (only when used with -d). the fresh drops ✨

⭐ ENVIRONMENT ⭐

  • SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH — if $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is set, its value is interpreted as a Unix timestamp to be used for the creation date of the generated PDF files. this is useful for making builds that use fntsample reproducible. reproducible builds girlies, rise. 🔥

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

Make PDF samples for font.ttf and write them to file samples.pdf:

fntsample -f font.ttf -o samples.pdf

Make PDF samples for font.ttf, compare it with oldfont.ttf and highlight the new glyphs. Write output to file samples.pdf:

fntsample -f font.ttf -d oldfont.ttf -o samples.pdf

Make PostScript samples for font.ttf and write output to file samples.ps. Show only glyphs for characters with codes less or equal to U+04FF but exclude U+0370-U+03FF:

fntsample -f font.ttf -s -o samples.ps -i -0x04FF -x 0x0370-0x03FF

Make PDF samples for font.ttf and save output to file samples.pdf adding outlines to it:

fntsample -f font.ttf -o temp.pdf -l > outlines.txt
pdfoutline temp.pdf outlines.txt samples.pdf

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Copyright © Ievgenii Meshcheriakov <eugen@debian.org>

Homepage: <https://github.com/eugmes/fntsample>

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

pdfoutline(1) — the other program that shows up in like half these examples. go say hi.

okay that's the whole thing, no notes, ate and left no crumbs 💅 this was fntsample manual page, version 5.4, dated 2024-04-01 — love that for us, bye bestie!! 🦋🌸💖

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