T1ASCII(1)

📦 version 2026.0, in alpine 3.24

💅 t1ascii — the binary-to-ASCII glow-up for your fonts ✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about t1ascii, a little general commands manual icon that lives in section 1 of your man pages. she does exactly one thing and she does it flawlessly: she takes a PostScript Type 1 font and turns the crunchy binary version into the cute ASCII version. no cap. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

t1ascii [-l length] [input [output]]

that's it. that's the whole summoning ritual. 🕯️

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea, bestie: t1ascii converts Adobe Type 1 font programs that are chillin' in PFB (that's the binary format) into PFA (that's the hexadecimal format). it's giving glow-up arc. 💖

and the way it handles files is so flexible, i'm obsessed:

  • if you don't specify the output file, the output just goes straight to the standard output. lowkey iconic of her.
  • if you don't specify the input file, the input comes from the standard input. she's adaptable like that. 🦋

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --line-length=num, -l num — sets the maximum length of the encrypted lines in the output to num. (iykyk, these are the lines made up entirely of hexadecimal digits, the little hex girlies 💜). the default is 64.
  • --warnings, -w — she will warn you when the input font contains lines longer than 255 characters. why do we care? because long lines don't strictly conform to Adobe's Document Structuring Conventions, and they may cause problems with older software. so like, she's not being dramatic, she's being helpful. 🫶
⚠️ heads up bestie: those long lines are a real vibe check failure for old software. not a drill, not a joke, just facts. 💀

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read those too, they're all part of the same friend group. 🌈

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the masterminds behind this whole operation, absolute main characters:

  • Lee Hetherington (ilh@lcs.mit.edu)
  • Eddie Kohler (ekohler@gmail.com)

and a special shoutout to Kai-Uwe Herbing (herbing@netmbx.netmbx.de), who ported this to the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler and the MS-DOS operating system. that's a wild era to be porting to and honestly? respect. 🙈💖

and that's the whole page, bestie!! ✨ version 1.42, straight from the General Commands Manual, and yes she's still serving T1ASCII(1) energy to this very day. slay, honestly. 🎀💅🦋

periodt. 💜

📦 where this page comes from