BDF2GDFONT(1p)

📦
version 2.84 · 10 versions
, in ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute

💖 BDF2GDFONT 💖

okay bestie, so <pink>bdf2gdfont.pl</pink> is a Perl script (it lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section, manual page 1p) and it does one very specific little job: it takes X11 "BDF" font files and turns them into a loadable font format for GD. that's it. that's the whole vibe. but she does it well 💅

✨ NAME ✨

bdf2gdfont.pl — convert X11 "BDF" fonts into a loadable font format for GD. no cap, that's literally it 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

% bdf2gdfont.pl courR12.bdf > courR12.fnt

like. that's the whole thing. in goes a .bdf, out comes a .fnt. slay ✨

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So what's actually happening here? This script converts BDF-style X11 font files into a format that the GD module can load using the GD::Font->load() method. periodt 💅

And the way that there are like, several different ways to get your hands on BDF fonts?? obsessed. Here are the recipes:

  1. The font is already present on your system. 🏠 Some BDF fonts can be found in the standard X11R6 distribution. And here's the cute part — this script will automatically uncompress gzipped font files if their extension ends with .gz (the gunzip program must be on your path tho, don't forget that bestie 🫶).
  2. From a font server. 🌐 The fstobdf utility, a standard X11 utility, will read a named font from the font server of your choice and hand it back in BDF format. You can literally just pipe it into bdf2gdfont.pl:
fstobdf -s fontserverhost:7100 -fn 8x16 | bdf2gdfont.pl > newfont.fnt

Use xlsfonts to find out what fonts are available. Heads up though — most fonts will have long names like -B&H-LucidaTypewriter-Bold-R-Normal-Sans-18-180-75-75-M-110-ISO8859-10. (yes that's a real font name, she's giving full government name 😭).

  1. Using the pcf2bdf utility. 🛠️ Some fonts are only available in PCF (compiled) format. To obtain these, you can either turn on a font server and follow recipe (2), or use TAGA Nayuta's pcf2bdf utility. This utility is available from http://www.tsg.ne.jp/GANA/S/pcf2bdf/ (the page is in Japanese, but you can find the download link — iykyk 🌸).

💀 Limitations 💀

REAL TALK TIME. This font converter only works with fixed-width fonts. If you use it with a TrueType or proportional font, it will die with an error message. it's not being dramatic, that's just what happens 😭

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

  • GD

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Lincoln Stein <lstein@cshl.org>, heavily adapted from bdftogd from Jan Pazdziora <adelton@fi.muni.cz>.

Copyright (c) 2004 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory 🏛️

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. fr fr 🫶

okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate that 🍓✨ and for the receipts: this is perl v5.40.1, dated 2026-06-16, and the page is BDF2GDFONT(1p) — go convert some fonts, you got this 💅🎀💖

📦 where this page comes from