Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  File Format of X Font
Message-ID: <9008150659.AA25738@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 15 Aug 90 06:59:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29

> I would like to use X font to display text in Smalltalk, since the
> available smalltalk fonts are not that beautiful.

> However, I do not know the format of the x font files.

There is no single format.  Each server has its own format (many of
them use the format chosen for the MIT sample server, but some (eg,
DECwindows and I think some recent Sun versions) use a different
format.

However, there is the BDF format (Bitmap Distribution Format, I think
it stands for) which is the de-facto standard interchange format.  All
(or almost all, certainly all civilized) X implementations provide a
way to convert a BDF font to whatever that implementation's server
format happens to be.  To go the other way, I wrote a program getbdf
which connects to an X server and goes through the necessary gyrations
to upload a font, which it then dumps out in BDF format.  (getbdf can
be obtained by anonymous ftp to 132.206.1.1, in X/getbdf.c and
X/mterm.src/mterm.aux, or by mailing me and asking.)

BDF format documentation can be found on the MIT R4 tape in mit/doc/BDF.

I know nothing about the format Smalltalk wants, converters to or from
it, etc.

					der Mouse

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			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu