g.mkfontcap(1)

✨ g.mkfontcap — the fontcap glow-up page 💖

okay bestie, this is the GRASS GIS User's Manual page for g.mkfontcap, and it's literally the module that goes out into your filesystem, finds every font it can, and writes you a lil config file. it's giving talent scout energy. 🎀

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💫 NAME

g.mkfontcap — Generates the font configuration file by scanning various directories for fonts.

🔖 KEYWORDS

general

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🌸 SYNOPSIS

g.mkfontcap
g.mkfontcap --help
g.mkfontcap [-s] [extradirs=string] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

🎀 Flags:

• -s — Write font configuration file to standard output instead of $GISBASE/etc
• --help — Print usage summary
• --verbose — Verbose module output
• --quiet — Quiet module output
• --ui — Force launching GUI dialog

🦋 Parameters:

• extradirs=string — List of extra directories to scan
  • Comma-separated list of extra directories to scan for Freetype-compatible fonts as well as the defaults (see documentation)

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💅 DESCRIPTION

so g.mkfontcap is the little utility that generates a GRASS font configuration file (aka a "fontcap") holding all the deets about the fonts chillin' on your current system. 🌈

if Freetype isn't installed, no biggie — the font list just gets limited to the set of Hershey stroke fonts that ship with GRASS. but with Freetype enabled? bestie, it's over for you, because the module will recursively scan all files inside a predefined hierarchy to find Freetype-compatible scalable fonts. the way it just... digs through everything. obsessed. 🔍✨

the list of directories scanned is currently:

/usr/lib/X11/fonts
/usr/share/X11/fonts
/usr/share/fonts
/usr/local/share/fonts
${HOME}/Library/Fonts
/Library/Fonts
/System/Library/Fonts
${WINDIR}/Fonts

these correspond to directories where fonts can be found on some common operating systems. extra directories to search can easily by added using the extradirs parameter, which accepts a comma-separated list. an extra directory may optionally contain an environment variable at the start of the string, if enclosed in ${xxx} syntax (see examples above). 💖

the module will normally write to the standard fontcap file location, $GISBASE/etc/fontcap. but!! if the environment variable GRASS_FONT_CAP is set, the output will instead be written to the file specified by that variable. this is useful if you don't have permission to modify $GISBASE/etc/fontcap — in this case you can use e.g.

# use local file version instead of system copy
GRASS_FONT_CAP=$HOME/.gfontcap
export GRASS_FONT_CAP
g.mkfontcap

to create a personal copy and then to make GRASS use that file instead of the system copy. main character move tbh. 👑

the output list of fonts is sorted first by type (Stroke fonts first, followed by Freetype) and within each type by the short name of the font. ✨

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👀 SEE ALSO

• d.font

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🫶 AUTHOR

Paul Kelly

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📜 SOURCE CODE

Available at: g.mkfontcap source code (history)

Accessed: Saturday Jan 17 05:40:39 2026

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© 2003-2025 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 8.4.2 Reference Manual

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okay that's the whole page, no cap, nothing skipped 💖 and yes this manual page is literally stamped GRASS 8.4.2 / g.mkfontcap(1), accessed Saturday Jan 17 05:40:39 2026. go scan some fonts bestie, slay. 🌸🦋💅