VFTOVP(1)

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

💖 VFTOVP(1) — the vftovp glow-up 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair, we're reading a General Commands Manual page together and honestly? it's giving iconic. this is vftovp, and she's here to turn your virtual fonts into something a human can actually read. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

vftovp — convert virtual font (vf) files to virtual property lists (vpl)

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

vftovp [OPTIONS] vf_name[.vf] [tfm_name[.tfm] [vpl_name[.vpl]]]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Real talk: this manual page is not meant to be exhaustive, bestie. The complete documentation for this version of TeX lives in the info file or the manual Web2C: A TeX implementation. so if you want the whole saga, go there. 📚

So here's the vibe: vftovp takes a (program-oriented) virtual font file and its accompanying TeX font metric file, and translates them into a (human-oriented) property list file. the way that means you can actually edit the virtual font, and display its exact contents mnemonically instead of staring at raw bytes like 😭. she also moonlights as a VF-file validating program — if no error messages pop up, congrats babe, your input files are correct. no notes. ✅

The filenames are extended with the appropriate extension if necessary. periodt.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -charcode-format=format — this one is all about how character codes get printed in the VPL file, and format decides the whole lewk. 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 of them are output in octal — she's quirky like that 💅). If format is ascii, all character codes that correspond to graphic characters — besides the left and right parentheses — are output in ASCII. On the other hand, if format is octal, all character codes are output in octal. pick your fighter, bestie. 🥊
  • -verbose — without this option, vftovp operates silently (mysterious, lowkey iconic 🤫). With it, a banner and a progress report are printed on stdout. so if you're nosy like me, turn her on. 🔥

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

vftovp looks for vf_name using the environment variable VFFONTS. If that is not set, it uses the variable TEXFONTS. If that is not set, it uses the system default. the search order said what she said. 💜

See tex(1) for the details of the searching. (iykyk 🫶)

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

pltotf(1), tftopl(1), vptovf(1).

💖 AUTHORS 💖

Donald E. Knuth wrote the program, based in part on an idea of David Fuchs, starting with the code for tftopl(1). Karl Berry adapted it for compilation with web2c. absolute legends, no cap. 🌟

okay that's the whole page, bestie, you ate that 🍓 this little beauty is from Web2C 2025, dated 16 June 2015 — so go forth and convert those virtual fonts, main character energy only, mwah 💋✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from