GSFTOPK(1) General Commands Manual GSFTOPK(1)
NAME
gsftopk - render a ghostscript font in TeX pk form
SYNOPSIS
gsftopk [-i path] [-q] [-t] [--debug=n] [--dosnames] [--inter-
preter=path] [--mapline=line] [--mapfile=file] [--quiet] [--test]
[--help] [--version] font dpi
ARGUMENTS
font Name of the font to be created.
dpi Desired resolution of the font to be created, in dots per inch.
This may be a real number.
DESCRIPTION
gsftopk is a program which calls up the ghostscript program gs(1) to
render a given font at a given resolution. It packs the resulting char-
acters into the pk file format and writes them to a file whose name is
formed from the font name and the resolution (rounded to the nearest in-
teger). The font may be in any format acceptable to Ghostscript, in-
cluding .pfa, .pfb, .gsf, and .ttf files.
This program should normally be called by a script, such as mktexpk, to
create fonts on demand.
gsftopk obtains the character widths from the .tfm file, which must ex-
ist in the standard search path. It also must be able to find the font
in a map file (such as psfonts.map), formatted as in dvips(1)), unless
the --mapline option is used. The set of map files is given by the
--mapfile option, or in the files config.ps, $HOME/.dvipsrc, and con-
fig.gsftopk (as would be used by dvips -Pgsftopk).
The following pk "specials" are added at the end of the output file, to
provide an internal check on the contents of the file: "jobname=font",
"mag=1", "mode=modeless", and "pixels_per_inch=dpi". This is in accor-
dance with the TeX Directory Standard (TDS).
OPTIONS
--debug=n
Set the Kpathsea debug flags according to the integer n.
--dosnames
Use a name of the form font.pk instead of font.dpipk.
-h, --help
Print a brief help synopsis and exit.
-i path, --interpreter=path
Use path as the Ghostscript interpreter.
--mapfile=file
Use file to look for the map information for font. This should
be the full name of the file (in other words, no path searching
algorithms are applied).
--mapline=line
Use line instead of looking for an entry in a map file. The
first word of line must match font.
-q, --quiet
Operate quietly; i.e., without writing any messages to the stan-
dard output.
-t, --test
Test run: return zero status if the font can be found in the map
file(s), and nonzero status if it cannot. If this option is
specified, then the dpi argument is optional (since the font will
not be generated).
-v, --version
Print the version number and exit.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
DVIPSRC Name of file to read instead of $HOME/.dvipsrc. This
should be the full name of the file (in other words, no
path searching algorithms are applied).
GSFTOPKFONTS See TFMFONTS.
GSFTOPKHEADERS See TEXPSHEADERS.
PSHEADERS See TEXPSHEADERS.
TEXCONFIG Colon-separated list of paths to search for map files.
An extra colon in the list will include the compiled-in
default paths at that point. A double slash will enable
recursive subdirectory searching at that point in the
path.
TFMFONTS Colon-separated list of paths to search for the .tfm
file associated with the font. Double slashes and extra
colons behave as with TEXCONFIG. This information may
also be supplied by using the environment variables TFM-
FONTS or GSFTOPKFONTS. These environment variables are
checked in the order GSFTOPKFONTS, TFMFONTS, TFMFONTS;
the first one (if any) having a value is used.
TEXPSHEADERS Colon-separated list of paths to search for the Ghost-
script driver file render.ps and for any PostScript
header or font files (.enc, .pfa, .pfb, .gsf, or .ttf
files). Double slashes and extra colons behave as with
TEXCONFIG. This information may also be supplied by us-
ing the environment variables PSHEADERS or GSFTOPKHEAD-
ERS. These environment variables are checked in the or-
der GSFTOPKHEADERS, TEXPSHEADERS, PSHEADERS; the first
one (if any) having a value is used.
TFMFONTS See TFMFONTS.
CONFIGURATION
In order to determine the set of map files to be used and the path for
finding PostScript files, gsftopk reads, in order, the files config.ps,
.dvipsrc, and config.gsftopk. The files config.ps and config.gsftopk
are searched for using the environment variable TEXCONFIG, the Kpathsea
configuration file, or the compiled-in default paths. The file .dvipsrc
is searched for in the user's home directory.
These files are in the same format as for dvips (as well as being in the
same locations). The entries used by gsftopk are as follows.
H path Indicates that the Ghostscript driver file render.ps and the
PostScript header and font files are to be searched for using
path.
p file Indicates that the list of map files is to be erased and replaced
by file.
p +file
Indicates that file is to be added to the list of map files.
All other entries are ignored.
This is similar to the handling of these options when running dvips
-Pgsftopk. For more details, see the Kpathsea manual.
BUGS
gsftopk sometimes has trouble with fonts with very complicated charac-
ters (such as the Seal of the University of California). This is be-
cause gsftopk uses the charpath operator to determine the bounding box
of each character. If the character is too complicated, then old ver-
sions of Ghostscript fail, causing gsftopk to terminate with an error
message
Call to gs stopped by signal 10
(The number may vary from system to system; it corresponds to a bus er-
ror or a segmentation fault.) The best way to fix this bug is to in-
stall a current version of ghostscript. As an alternative, gsftopk can
be instructed to use the bounding box provided with the font (if one ex-
ists) instead of finding a bounding box for each character. To do this,
include the string
/usefontbbox true def
in the font map file; e.g.,
ucseal "/usefontbbox true def"
This will not affect use of the font by dvips.
SEE ALSO
gs(1), gftopk(1), tex(1), xdvi(1), dvips(1)
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Vojta. This program was inspired by Karl Berry's gsren-
derfont.
MODIFICATIONS
Modified by Yves Arrouye to use Karl Berry's Kpathsea library.
28 November 1998 GSFTOPK(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 05:44:01 CET 2025.