pfbtops(1)

💖 NAME 💖

Okay bestie, this is the pfbtops(1) page from the General Commands Manual — and it's for the tool that will translate PostScript Printer Font Binary files to Printer Font ASCII. Yep, PFB to PFA, the font-format glow-up we deserve 💅✨

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pfbtops [pfb-file]

pfbtops --help

pfbtops -v

pfbtops --version

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

pfbtops translates a PostScript Type 1 font in Printer Font Binary (PFB) format to Printer Font ASCII (PFA) format, splitting overlong lines in text packets into smaller chunks. Like, it's not just a format switcher — it's also doing that little line-chunking chore, no cap 🎀

If pfb-file is omitted, the PFB file will be read from the standard input stream. The PFA font will be written on the standard output stream. So it's giving very main-character stdin → stdout energy, and honestly? Obsessed 🦋

History bestie moment: PostScript fonts for MS-DOS were historically supplied in PFB format. And when you're using a PostScript Type 1 font with groff, that requires conversion of its metrics (AFM file) to a groff font description file; see afmtodit(1). That's the pipeline lore, iykyk 💜

The --help option displays a usage message, while -v and --version show version information; all exit afterward. Tiny little helper flags that say their piece and dip — iconic, honestly 🫶

Bestie note: PFA output is written on the standard output stream — that's literally the assignment 💅

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• grops(1)
• gropdf(1)

---

That's the whole manual-page moment — signed off from the groff 1.24.2 era, dated 2026-10-01, with all the love 🫶💖