GFTOPK(1)

✨ gftopk(1) — the Glow-Up Page ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to gftopk, a page from the General Commands Manual and honestly? it's giving font conversion main character energy 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

gftopk — convert generic font (gf) bitmap files to packed font (pk) files 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

gftopk [-v] gf_file[gf] [pk_file]

like, that's it. that's the whole vibe check. 🎀

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the gftopk program converts a generic font (gf) bitmap file — which is output by, typically, mf(1) — into a packed font bitmap file, for use by DVI-reading programs. and ngl, this matters because notably, dvips(1) only supports pk files 😭 so if you're a gf girlie and you need dvips, you need this.

and the reason everyone's obsessed? packed font files (pk files) are much smaller than the corresponding gf files. literally so much chiller for your disk. 💀✨

the gf_file on the command line must include the resolution, but can omit the suffix gf. and the pk_file? it defaults to the same (stripped) name as gf_file, and it is placed in the current working directory with the pk suffix replacing gf. so for example:

/some/directory/cmr10.300gf

would become:

cmr10.300pk

iconic behavior, no notes. 👑

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🫶 OPTIONS 🫶

• -v (a.k.a. -verbose) — by default, gftodvi operates silently. with this option, some reports are printed on stdout. so it's the "tell me what's happening" flag 🗣️✨
• -help — the standard option, also supported. 💜
• -version — the standard option, also supported. 💜

also: see tex(1) for details of command-line parsing. iykyk 🌈

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

the program looks for gf_file using the environment variables GFFONTS, GLYPHFONTS, and TEXFONTS, in that order. if none are set, it uses the system default. 🍓

see the Kpathsea manual at https://tug.org/kpathsea for the details of the searching — that's where the lore lives, bestie 📚

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

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

more places to lose yourself in:

• Package page on CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/gftopk
• Section in the Web2c manual: https://tug.org/texinfohtml/web2c.html#gftopk-invocation
• Typeset source code, including file format descriptions: https://ctan.org/pkg/knuth-pdf

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💅 AUTHORS 💅

Tomas Rokicki wrote the program. it was published as part of the Metafontware technical report. Paul Richards originally ported it to Unix. absolute legends, both of them 🫶👑

Public discussion list and bug reports: https://lists.tug.org/tex-k — go say hi, they're lovely 💌

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chronicle of the vibe: Web2C 2026, dated 25 January 2026 — that's the source, the version, and the date, all wrapped up in a little bow 🎀 bye bestie, go pack some fonts ✨💖