PKTOGF(1)

💖 PKTOGF — like, the whole vibe 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair 🫶 this is pktogf, straight out of the General Commands Manual (section 1, the classic). it's the little tool that turns your packed fonts into generic fonts. she's small, she's quiet, she's doing the most. let's get into it 💅

---

✨ NAME ✨

pktogf — convert packed font files to generic font files 🎀

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pktogf [-v] pk_file_name [gf_file_name]

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so first thing, this manual page is not meant to be exhaustive, bestie. the complete documentation for this version of TeX lives in the info file or in the manual Web2C: A TeX implementation. this is the appetizer, not the whole meal 🍓

so what does she actually do? the pktogf program converts a packed font file (pk) to a generic font file (gf). packed font files are much smaller than the corresponding gf files — like, dramatically smaller — but some DVI readers only understand gf files. so if your DVI reader is being picky, that's literally why this program exists. main character energy, honestly 👑

now the important bit, and I need you to lock in 🔒 — the pk_file_name on the command line must be complete. like, fully spelled out. because the resolution is part of the extension, it would not make sense to append a default extension as is done with TeX or DVI-reading software. the resolution is baked into the name, so auto-completing it would be chaos 💀

the gf_file_name defaults to the same (stripped) name as pk_file_name, and it gets placed in the current working directory, with the gf suffix replacing pk. for example, the input file io.300pk would become io.300gf. cute, right? the 300 stays, the suffix swaps. slay ✨

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -v — unless this switch is given, pktogf operates silently 🤫 (she's mysterious, she's demure). with -v, the version number of the program and statistics about the unpacking are output to stdout. so if you wanna see the receipts, pass -v. periodt 💅

---

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

pktogf looks for pk_file_name using the environment variable PKFONTS. and if that's not set? she goes looking down the list, in order:

1. PKFONTS
2. if that's not set → TEXPKS
3. if that's not set → TEXFONTS
4. if that's not set → the system default

so yeah, she's got backup plans on backup plans. iconic 💜

see tex(1) for the details of the searching — that's where the whole lookup saga is explained 👀

---

💫 SEE ALSO 💫

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

---

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Tomas Rokicki wrote the program 💖 and Pierre MacKay adapted it for compilation with web2c. two legends, one font converter. we love to see it 🫶

---

and that's the whole thing bestie! this page came to you from Web2C 2025, dated 16 June 2015 — yeah, she's been holding it down since 2015 and still eating every time 🌸✨ go convert some fonts, ily, bye 💅🎀