FTLINT(1)

📦
version 2.15.0 · 9 versions
, in arch rolling

🎀 FTLINT(1) 🎀

okay so real quick — you're looking at the ftlint page from the General Commands Manual, and bestie, it's literally just a simple font tester. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

ftlint — a simple font tester. that's it, that's the name, she's humble 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ftlint [options] ppem font...

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so ftlint opens up the font(s) you hand it, then loads and renders glyphs at whatever ppem value you gave it. ✨

the shape complexity of outline glyphs gets examined based on their taxicab perimeters — the higher that number, the more complex the shape, no cap. and for glyphs that render successfully, it calculates the bitmap MD5 checksum for regression testing, plus horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) acutances for quality assessment. the acutance is equal to 2.0 for monochrome bitmap fonts, and it approaches this value for hinted anti-aliased fonts. 🔥

  • ppem — Size in pixels per EM. that's it, that's the unit 🦋
  • font — The font file(s) to test. you can give her multiple, she'll handle it 💜
this program is part of the FreeType demos package. iconic behavior, honestly 👑

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • -f L — Use hexadecimal (not decimal!) number L, defined by FT_LOAD_XXX flags. the default is 0. yes, hex, don't come at her with decimals 🙈
  • -r N — Set render mode to N:
    • 0 — normal
    • 1 — light
    • 2 — mono
    • 3 — horizontal LCD
    • 4 — vertical LCD

which corresponds to the values of the FT_RENDER_MODE_XXX enumeration. default is 0 😌

  • -i I-J — Range of glyph indices to use. default: all of them, she's not picky 💅
  • -q — Quiet mode without the rendering analysis. shhh 🤫
lowkey important: those -f flags are raw FT_LOAD_XXX values in hex, and the -r modes map one-to-one onto FT_RENDER_MODE_XXX. keep those exact, bestie, iykyk 💀

and that's the page!! 🎀 written for FreeType 2.15.0, dated October 2026 — mwah, sending you off with a kiss, go test some fonts fr fr 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from