TFTOPL(1)

📦
version 77830 · 8 versions
, in alpine 3.24, fedora 44, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu resolute

💖 TFTOPL — the manual page, bestie edition ✨

okay so real talk, this is tftopl, a lil General Commands Manual situation, and it converts TeX font metric (tfm) files into property lists. it's giving translator, it's giving glow-up, it's giving "let me make this readable for u boo". 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

tftopl — convert TeX font metric (tfm) files to property lists

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

tftopl [OPTIONS] tfm_name[.tfm] [pl_name[.pl]]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay first thing first, bestie: this manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. like, it's the vibes version. the complete documentation for this version of TeX lives in the info file or the manual Web2C: A TeX implementation. go read that if u need the full lore. 📚

so what does tftopl actually do? it translates a (program-oriented) font metric file into a (human-oriented) property list file. 🦋 which means... u can literally go in and edit the contents of the TFM files. when would u do that? iconic reasons only:

  • the font designer did not do his or her job properly 🙈
  • ur encountering strange difficulties (been there)
  • ur just curious (also been there)

it also serves as a TFM-file validating program, which is lowkey the best part — i.e., if no error messages are given, the input file is correct. vibe check passed, no notes. ✅

now, the filename rules, pay attention bestie:

  • pl_name gets extended with .pl if it lacks a suffix.
  • if pl_name is not given, standard output is used.
  • likewise, tfm_name gets extended with .tfm if it lacks a suffix.
  • also, path searching is done for the TFM file using the environment variable TEXFONTS. if that is not set, tftopl uses the system default.

and if u want the details of the searching, go see tex(1). that's the whole tea. ☕

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -charcode-format=format — the argument format specifies how character codes are output in the PL file. by default, only letters and digits are output using the C integer code (i.e., in ASCII); the others are output in octal. (unless the font's coding scheme starts with TeX math sy or TeX math ex, in which case all character codes are output in octal.) if format is ascii, all character codes that correspond to graphic characters, besides the left and right parentheses, are output in ASCII. finally, if format is octal, all character codes are output in octal. three modes, pick ur fighter. 🥊
  • -verbose — without this option, tftopl operates silently. with it, a banner and progress report are printed on stdout. so if u wanna watch it cook, turn this on. 👀🔥

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

  • pltotf(1)
  • Donald E. Knuth, TeXware.
  • Donald E. Knuth, The Metafontbook (Volume C of Computers and Typesetting), Addison-Wesley, 1986, ISBN 0-201-13445-4.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Donald E. Knuth wrote the program. it was published as part of the TeXware technical report, available from the TeX Users Group. Howard Trickey and Pavel Curtis originally ported it to Unix. absolute legends, every single one of them. 🧚💜

and that's the whole page, bestie!! slay 🌈

this has been your girl reporting from Web2C 2025, dated 16 June 2015 — mwah, go convert some fonts, ily, periodt 💖✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from