plotfont Utilityplotfont
GNU plotfont is a simple utility that will produce a character
map for any font available to the GNU plotting utilities graph,
plot, pic2plot, and tek2plot, and the GNU
libplot graphics library on which they are based. The map may be
displayed on an X Window System display, or produced in any of
several output formats. The `-T' option is used to specify the
desired output format. Supported output formats include "X", "pnm",
"gif", "ai", "ps", "fig", "pcl", "hpgl", "tek", and "meta" (the
default).
Which fonts are available depends on the choice of display or output format. To get a list of the available fonts, use the `--help-fonts' option. For example,
plotfont -T ps --help-fonts
will list the fonts that are available when producing Postscript output. One of these fonts is "Times-Roman". Doing
plotfont -T ps Times-Roman > map.ps
will produce a character map of the lower half of this font, which consists of printable ASCII characters. The map will be a 12x8 grid, with a character centered in each grid cell. If you include the `-2' option, you will get a map of the upper half of the font.
Most built-in fonts are ISO-Latin-1 fonts, which means that the upper half is arranged according to the ISO-Latin-1 encoding. The "HersheyCyrillic" font is one that is not. If you do
plotfont -T ps -2 HersheyCyrillic > map.ps
you will get a map that illustrates its arrangment, which is called KOI8-R. The KOI8-R arrangement is the standard for Unix and networking applications in the former Soviet Union. So-called dingbats fonts, such as "ZapfDingbats" and "Wingdings", also have an individualistic layout. In most installations of the plotting utilities, the Wingdings font is not available when producing Postscript output. However, it is available when producing output in PCL 5 or HP-GL/2 format. If you do
plotfont -T hpgl Wingdings > map.plt
you will get a Wingdings character map, in HP-GL/2 format, that may be
imported into any application that understands HP-GL/2. Similarly,
plot -T pcl Wingdings will produce a Wingdings character map in
PCL 5 format, which may be printed on a LaserJet or other PCL 5
device.
In all, more than a hundred fonts are built into the plotting utilities. See section Available text fonts. Actually, if you are using the plotting utilities to display output on an X display, you are not restricted to the built-in fonts. Doing
plotfont -T X --help-fonts
produces a list of the built-in fonts that are available, including both
Hershey and Postscript fonts. But fonts available on your X display
may also be used. The xlsfonts command will list the fonts
available on your X display, most font names being given in what is
called XLFD format. The plotting utilities refer to X fonts by
shortened versions of their XLFD names. For example, the font
"Utopia-Regular" is available on many X displays. Its XLFD name is
"-adobe-utopia-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1", and its
shortened XLFD name is "utopia-medium-r-normal". If you do
plotfont -T X utopia-medium-r-normal
then a character map for this font will be displayed in a popped-up X window.
When using the `-T X' option, you may also use the `--bitmap-size' option to choose the size of the popped-up window. Modern X displays can scale fonts by different amounts in the horizontal and vertical directions. If, for example, you add `--bitmap-size 600x300' to the above command line, both the character map and the Utopia-Regular font within it will be scaled in this way. If your X display does not support font scaling, a scalable font will be substituted.
plotfont command-line options
The plotfont font display utility will produce a character map
for any of the fonts available to the GNU plotting utilities
graph, plot, pic2plot, and tek2plot, and the
GNU libplot graphics library on which they are based. The map
may be produced in any supported output format, or displayed on an X
Window System display. The output format or display type is specified
with the `-T' option.
The names of the fonts for which a character map will be produced may
appear anywhere on the plotfont command line. That is, the
relative order of font names and command-line options does not matter.
The character map is written to standard output, unless the `-T X'
option is specified. In that case the character map is displayed in
a window on an X Window System display, and there is no output file.
The possible options are listed below. There are three sorts of option:
plotfont, i.e., relevant only if no
display type or output format is specified with the `-T' option.
Each option that takes an argument is followed, in parentheses, by the type and default value of the argument.
The following are general options.
idraw-editable Postscript, the format used by the xfig
drawing editor, the Hewlett--Packard PCL 5 printer language, the
Hewlett--Packard Graphics Language (by default, HP-GL/2), Tektronix
format, and device-independent GNU graphics metafile format.
Files in PNM, pseudo-GIF, AI, or Fig format may contain only a single
page of graphics. So if the `-T pnm' option, the `-T gif'
option, the `-T ai' option, or the `-T fig' option is used,
a character map will be produced for only the first-specified font.
plotfont -T X,
plotfont -T pnm, and plotfont -T gif. An unrecognized
name sets the color to the default. For information on what names are
recognized, see section Specifying Colors by Name. The environment variable
BG_COLOR can equally well be used to specify the background
color.
If the `-T gif' option is used, a transparent pseudo-GIF may be
produced by setting the TRANSPARENT_COLOR environment variable to
the name of the background color. See section Environment variables.
plotfont -T X,
plotfont -T pnm, and plotfont -T gif, for which the
graphics display size can be expressed in terms of pixels. The
environment variable BITMAPSIZE can equally well be used to
specify the size.
The graphics display used by plotfont -T X is an X window.
If you choose a rectangular (non-square) window size, the fonts in the
plot will be scaled anisotropically, i.e., by different factors in the
horizontal and vertical direction. This requires an X11R6 display. Any
font that cannot be scaled in this way will be replaced by a default
scalable font, such as the Hershey vector font "HersheySerif".
For backward compatibility, the X resource Xplot.geometry,
which can be set by the user, may be used to set the window size,
instead of `--bitmap-size' or BITMAPSIZE.
plotfont -T pnm,
plotfont -T gif, plotfont -T pcl, plotfont -T hpgl
and plotfont -T tek, for which "HersheySerif" is the default.)
Set the font used for the numbering of the characters in the character
map(s) to be font_name.
plotfont -T ai, plotfont -T ps, plotfont -T fig,
plotfont -T pcl and plotfont -T hpgl. "letter" means an
8.5in by 11in page. Any ISO page size in the range
"a0"..."a4" or ANSI page size in the range "a"..."e" may be
specified ("letter" is an alias for "a" and "tabloid" is an alias
for "b"). "legal", "ledger", and "b5" are recognized page sizes
also. The environment variable PAGESIZE can equally well be used
to specify the page size.
For plotfont -T ai and plotfont -T ps, the graphics
display within which each character map is drawn will be a square region
centered on the specified page, occupying its full width (with allowance
being made for margins). For plotfont -T fig, it will be a
square region of the same size, located in the upper left corner of an
xfig display. For plotfont -T pcl and plotfont -T
hpgl, the graphics display will be a square region of the same size,
but may be positioned differently. Fine control over its positioning on
the page can be accomplished by setting certain environment variables
(see section Environment variables).
The following option is relevant only to raw plotfont, i.e.,
relevant only if no display type or output format is specified with the
`-T' option. In this case plotfont outputs a graphics
metafile, which may be translated to other formats by invoking
plot.
META_PORTABLE to "yes".
The following options request information.
plotfont -T X, plotfont -T ai, plotfont
-T ps, and plotfont -T fig each support the 35 standard
Postscript fonts. plotfont -T ai, plotfont -T pcl, and
plotfont -T hpgl support the 45 standard PCL 5 fonts, and
plotfont -T pcl and plotfont -T hpgl support a number of
Hewlett--Packard vector fonts. All of the preceding, together with
plotfont -T pnm, plotfont -T gif, and plotfont -T
tek, support a set of 22 Hershey vector fonts. Raw plotfont
in principle supports any of these fonts, since its output must be
translated to other formats with plot.
plotfont and the plotting utilities
package, and exit.
The behavior of plotfont is affected by several environment
variables, which are the same as those that affect graph,
plot, and tek2plot. For convenience, we list them here.
We have already mentioned the environment variables BITMAPSIZE,
PAGESIZE, and BG_COLOR. They serve as backups for the
options `--bitmap-size', `--page-size', and `--bg-color'.
The remaining environment variables are specific to individual output
formats.
plotfont -T X, which pops up a window on an X Window
System display and draws a character map in it, checks the
DISPLAY environment variable. The value of this variable
determines the display on which the window will be popped up.
plotfont -T pnm, which produces output in Portable Anymap
(PBM/PGM/PPM) format, is affected by the PNM_PORTABLE environment
variable. If its value is "yes", the output file will be in the
portable (human readable) version of PBM, PGM, or PPM format, rather
than the default (binary) version.
plotfont -T gif, which produces output in pseudo-GIF format, is
affected by two environment variables. If the value of the
INTERLACE variable is "yes", the pseudo-GIF output file will be
in interlaced format. Also, if the value of the
TRANSPARENT_COLOR environment variable is the name of a color
that appears in the output file, that color will be treated as
transparent by most applications that read GIF files. For information
on what color names are recognized, see section Specifying Colors by Name.
plotfont -T pcl, which produces PCL 5 output for
Hewlett--Packard printers and plotters, is affected by several
environment variables. The position of the graphics display on the page
can be adjusted by setting the PCL_XOFFSET and PCL_YOFFSET
environment variables, which may be specified in centimeters,
millimeters, or inches. For example, an offset could be specified as
"2cm" or "1.2in". Also, the display can be rotated 90 degrees
counterclockwise on the page by setting the PCL_ROTATE
environment variable to "yes". This is not the same as the rotation
obtained with the --rotation option, which sets the rotation
angle of the character map within the display. Besides "no" and "yes",
recognized values for the PCL_ROTATE variable are "0", "90",
"180", and "270". "no" and "yes" are equivalent to "0" and
"90", respectively.
The variable PCL_ASSIGN_COLORS is also recognized. It should be
set to "yes" when producing PCL 5 output for a color printer or
other color device. This will ensure accurate color reproduction by
giving the output device complete freedom in assigning colors,
internally, to its "logical pens". If it is "no" then the device will
use a fixed set of colored pens, and will emulate other colors by
shading. The default is "no" because monochrome PCL 5 devices,
which are much more common than colored ones, must use shading to
emulate color.
plotfont -T hpgl, which produces Hewlett--Packard Graphics
Language output, is also affected by several environment variables. The
most important is HPGL_VERSION, which may be set to "1", "1.5",
or "2" (the default). "1" means that the output should be
generic HP-GL, "1.5" means that the output should be suitable for
the HP7550A graphics plotter and the HP758x, HP7595A and HP7596A
drafting plotters (HP-GL with some HP-GL/2 extensions), and "2"
means that the output should be modern HP-GL/2. If the version is
"1" or "1.5" then the only available fonts will be vector fonts.
The position of the plotfont -T hpgl graphics display on the page
can be adjusted by setting the HPGL_XOFFSET and
HPGL_YOFFSET environment variables, which may be specified in
centimeters, millimeters, or inches. For example, an offset could be
specified as "2cm" or "1.2in". Also, the display can be rotated 90
degrees counterclockwise on the page by setting the HPGL_ROTATE
environment variable to "yes". This is not the same as the rotation
obtained with the --rotation option, which sets the rotation
angle of the character map within the display. Besides "no" and "yes",
recognized values for the HPGL_ROTATE variable are "0", "90",
"180", and "270". "no" and "yes" are equivalent to "0" and
"90", respectively. "180" and "270" are supported only if
HPGL_VERSION is "2" (the default).
By default, plotfont -T hpgl will draw with a fixed set of
pens. Which pens are present may be specified by setting the
HPGL_PENS environment variable. If HPGL_VERSION is
"1", the default value of HPGL_PENS is "1=black"; if
HPGL_VERSION is "1.5" or "2", the default value of
HPGL_PENS is
"1=black:2=red:3=green:4=yellow:5=blue:6=magenta:7=cyan". The format
should be self-explanatory. By setting HPGL_PENS, you may
specify a color for any pen in the range #1...#31. For information
on what color names are recognized, see section Specifying Colors by Name. Pen #1
must always be present, though it need not be black. Any other pen in
the range #1...#31 may be omitted.
If HPGL_VERSION is "2" then plotfont -T hpgl will also be
affected by the environment variable HPGL_ASSIGN_COLORS. If
the value of this variable is "yes", then plotfont -T hpgl will
not be restricted to the palette specified in HPGL_PENS: it
will assign colors to "logical pens" in the range #1...#31, as
needed. The default value is "no" because other than color LaserJet
printers and DesignJet plotters, not many HP-GL/2 devices allow the
assignment of colors to logical pens.
plotfont -T tek, which produces output for a Tektronix terminal
or emulator, checks the TERM environment variable. If the
value of TERM is "xterm", "xterms", or "kterm", it is taken
as a sign that the current application is running in an X Window
System VT100 terminal emulator: an xterm. Before drawing
graphics, plotfont -T tek will emit an escape sequence that
causes the terminal emulator's auxiliary Tektronix window, which is
normally hidden, to pop up. After the graphics are drawn, an escape
sequence that returns control to the original VT100 window will be
emitted. The Tektronix window will remain on the screen.
If the value of TERM is "kermit", "ansi.sys", "ansissys",
"ansi.sysk", or "ansisysk", it is taken as a sign that the current
application is running in the VT100 terminal emulator provided by the
MS-DOS version of kermit. Before drawing graphics,
plotfont -T tek will emit an escape sequence that switches the
terminal emulator to Tektronix mode. Also, some of the Tektronix
control codes emitted by plotfont -T tek will be
kermit-specific. There will be a limited amount of color
support, which is not normally the case (the 16 ansi.sys colors
will be supported). After drawing graphics, plotfont -T tek will
emit an escape sequence that returns the emulator to VT100 mode. The
key sequence `ALT minus' can be employed manually within
kermit to switch between the two modes.
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