MKTEXTFM(1)

🎀 MKTEXTFM(1) 🎀

okay bestie, this is the manual page for mktextfm, and it's giving font factory 🏭✨ it's part of the User Commands crew 💅

✨ NAME ✨

okay so mktextfm is the thing that makes a TFM file for a font 🧚 that's the whole job, no cap

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

mktextfm [options] font

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so mktextfm makes a tfm file from the Metafont source files for your font 📝 or it'll use hbf2gf(1) if that's possible 🌸 if you give it a destdir, the file gets installed right there 🦋 if you don't, it uses a (lowkey very complicated) heuristic to figure out where it goes 🙈

if the tfm file is already sitting in the destination, it'll tell you and then do absolutely nothing 💀 not me being like "wait, it's already here??"

the whole thing is lowkey a vibe check: if there's already a tfm in the spot, nothing new gets made.

also, if a GF (Generic Font) bitmap file gets generated too, which is super typical with ΜF 🌈, it gets converted into a PK (Packed Font) file and installed the same way 🫶

the full pathname of whatever got generated is printed on standard output ✨ so you can literally see where it landed 💜

if the mf-nowin(1) version of Metafont is available, mktextfm uses that to make the fonts 🔥 this is so there's no chance of online display popping up, which is iconic behaviour tbh 👑

and fyi, mktextfm is usually called by other programs through Kpathsea, rather than you typing it in the command line 🧚‍♀️ it's a background girlie, not a main character 💅

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

mktextfm accepts the following options:

• --destdir dir — this is where you tell it the destination directory 📂 if the directory is absolute, it gets used exactly as-is 🦋 if it's not absolute, it gets tacked onto the root destination directory that's set in the script 🌸
• --help — prints a help message and exits successfully 💖
• --version — prints version information and exits successfully ✨

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

one environment variable is specific to mktextfm: MF_MODE_EXTRA_INFO 🧚 if it's set to a non-empty value, the Metafont macro mode_include_extra_info gets invoked when the font is made 💜 the standard modes.mf file defines this, as of modes.mf version 4.0, which was released in 2020 🎀

this brings in the so-called Xerox-world information, and that includes the CODINGSCHEME for the font 📝 all of that goes into the tfm file 🫶 (this isn't done by default, because it's too intrusive to redefine the necessary primitives, per Don Knuth 🙈 respect the king 👑)

the mftrace(1) program, for example, can use this to get a clue about the font encoding 🔍 just know the info isn't always perfectly definitive or unambiguous, so don't treat it as gospel 💀

for more about the encodings of Metafont fonts, check out the section Bitmap font encodings in the Dvips manual (e.g., https://tug.org/texinfohtml/dvips.html) 🌸

and yeah, the many other environment variables and various configuration files that control a TeX system also affect how mktextfm behaves, as usual 💅

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

mf(1), mktexmf(1), mktexpk(1). 💖

🚨 REPORTING BUGS 🚨

report bugs to: tex-k@tug.org (https://lists.tug.org/tex-k) 📬 TeX Live home page: https://tug.org/texlive/ 🌈

okay bestie that's the whole thing 🫶 this page is from TeX Live, dated 30 January 2020, all about MKTEXTFM ✨💅