Questions tagged [metafont]

{metafont} is a system for specifying fonts.

The program takes a semi-algorithmic specification of a font, and produces a bitmap font (whose properties are defined by a set of parameters of the target device), and a set metrics for use by TeX.

The bitmap output may be converted into a format directly usable by a device driver, etc., by the tools provided in the parallel mfware distribution. (Third parties have developed tools to convert the bitmap output to outline fonts.)

The distribution includes the source of Knuth’s METAFONTbook; this source is there to read, as an example of writing TeX — it should not be processed without Knuth’s direct permission.

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Metafont Book - problems with gray.tfm and displaying "experiment 2"

I'm working through Knuth's Metafont Book as preparation for learning Metapost and I'm running into some problems working through his "experiments". I've installed the latest TeX Live 2013 distribution on my system but I'm having problems. Here's…
acarlow
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Extracting purely the strokes for each glyph of a metafont

I am trying to attain a specific effect often seen on dials, gauges and telegraphs from the early 1900's e.g. from this link As these where hand-drawn these would generally use a fix-width stroke yet be transformed radially or otherwise sheared as…
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Using metafont-letters in LaTeX

I was playing around in metafont with some symbols I needed and now I got a result that I'd like to use. But I have two problem: I just need one, maybe two symbols, which are compiled right now using mf filename.mf and since I won't probably use…
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metafont hash symbol

What does the # symbol mean when it follows a variable name. e.g. arrow_len# vs arrow_len
Alex
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MetaFont: character dimension of unchanged glyphs change when adding new glyphs?

I have a very strange effect while debugging yhmath math fonts items. I am generating cmex10.tfm from cmex10.mf, and convert the tfm to pl file. Then I rename only rename the driver file to yrcmex10.mf, and add the following new glyph definitions in…
norbert
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how much is Metafont used these days?

Is it really all about TeX (and friends) these days, or does MetaFont still enjoy some use---even if that's in limited contexts? It seems that for all intents and purposes, we're essentially at version $e$ for MetaFont, while TeX may still get a…
Ðаո
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How to compile example on p.138 of MetaFontBook?

Here is the example from MetaFontBook: beginchar ("A", 29mm# , 25mm# , 0); thick# := 2mm#; thin# := 5/4mm#; define_whole_blacker_pixels(thick , thin); forsuffixes $ = a, b, c: transform $; forsuffixes e = l, r: path $e, $'e; numeric t$[]e; endfor…
Igor Liferenko
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Spurious line on `endash' and `emdash' metafont characters?

Run the following commands: mf cmr10 mktextfm gray gftodvi cmr10.2602gf Last two characters have a vertical line on the right. What is that?
Igor Liferenko
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Can anyone familiar with Metafont help me sort this out?

I tried to use Metafont to output a lowercase letter i, but the result was lamentable. It was almost as if the unit of measurement inside a character definition is different from outside. Regular.mf font_size…
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How do I get mflua to work?

I found a programme named mflua, that said: $ mflua MFLua version: 0.9.1 MFLua banner: This is MFLua, Version 2.7182818-0.9.1 This is MFLua, Version 2.7182818-0.9.1 (TeX Live 2019) (preloaded base=mflua) ** This gave me some hope it might work…
Toothrot
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Deleting a point in METAFONT

In METAFONT, run interactively, is it possible to give a new value to a point variable? If you just try to equate a point to a new point, the equation will be inconsistent with other equations. If you try to assign a new value, MF says that := is…
Toothrot
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Question about cmtex fonts

The question concerns info on this page. The extended ASCII font, cmtex10, has the parameters of cmtt10, except that the slant is positive (for a few characters that will be slanted). What is the meaning of the phrase "except that the slant is…
Igor Liferenko
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METAFONT: Error "Can't open display"

I am trying to get started with METAFONT and I created my first glyph using this tutorial. Unfortunately, when I run mf beta.mf in the command line, I receive the error message: Letter beta [66]Error: Can't open display:. I have googled extensively…
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minimum steps to re-generate MF fonts

I started studying metafont. I created some basics MF, with a single char. I would like to modify existing font, but I see no 'makefile' that I can just use to tell the system 'just regenerate all the files', even if I altered romanu.mf and…
Ange
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GF specials and their attachment to characters

One for the obsolete file format anoraks—DEK doesn't seem to make this clear anywhere in the gftodvi source code—I think that GF specials apply to the character data that follows them and that anything between the last eoc and the post opcode would…
Don Hosek
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