GFTOPK(1)

💖 GFTOPK — the gftopk manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so you're in the General Commands Manual section, page GFTOPK(1), and this is literally the glow-up story of font files. buckle up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

gftopk — convert generic font files to packed font files. it's giving "make it smaller, make it cuter" 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gftopk [-v] gf_file_name [pk_file_name]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay first things first, bestie: this manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. the complete documentation for this version of TeX lives in the info file or manual Web2C: A TeX implementation. so like, this is the vibes summary, not the whole saga 📚

the gftopk program converts a generic font file (the kind output by, for example, mf(1)) into a packed font file for use by DVI-reading programs. packed font files (pk files) are much smaller than the corresponding gf files, so they're generally the font format of choice. lowkey iconic of them honestly ✨

the gf_file_name on the command line must be complete. why? because the resolution is part of the extension, so it would not make sense to append a default extension like TeX or DVI-reading software does. no default-extension magic here, we're being precise 🎯

the pk_file_name defaults to the same (stripped) name as gf_file_name, and it gets placed in the current working directory with the pk suffix replacing gf. for example, the input file cmr10.300gf would become cmr10.300pk. slay, glow-up complete 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -v — unless the -v switch is given, gftopk operates silently. with -v, the version number of the program and statistics about the packing are output to stdout. so if you want the receipts, pass -v, and if you want peace and quiet, don't 🫶

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

gftopk goes looking for gf_file_name first in the current directory. if it's not present there, it uses the environment variable GFFONTS. if that is not set, it uses the variable TEXFONTS. if that is not set, it uses the system default. it's a whole search-chain moment, iykyk 🔍

see tex(1) for the details of the searching. (yes, the details are over there, not here. go read that one too, bestie 📖)

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• gftype(1)
• pktogf(1)
• pktype(1)
• Donald E. Knuth et al., Metafontware.

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

Tomas Rokicki wrote the program. it was published as part of the Metafontware technical report, available from the TeX Users Group. Paul Richards originally ported it to Unix. legends, fr fr 🫶

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no cap, that's the whole page. every flag, every variable, every path, every example — all preserved, just with way better energy 💖

and that's a wrap on this Web2C 2025 era manual page, dated 16 June 2015. thanks for reading, bestie, go convert some fonts 🦋✨🎀