Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdcsu!dmurdoch
From: dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Borland Graphics Interface (BGI) file formats??
Message-ID: <5424@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 89 20:05:14 GMT
References: <392@deimos.cis.ksu.edu> <28@cpro.UUCP> <1892@daimi.dk> <1285@cc.helsinki.fi> <826@dinl.mmc.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmurdoch@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (D.J. Murdoch - Statistics)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 68

I got the following from Compuserve's Borland forum.  I haven't tested 
it at all, but it should be a start.  It was called BGIFMT.TXT. I didn't
write it and can't answer any questions about it.

---------  cut here  -----------

The following is what I have been able to decipher about the format of
BGI font files.  This is NOT from Borland International.  Hope this helps
someone start on a font designer program while we wait for BI to officially
announce the format.

FontSig          : array[1..4] of byte;    { PK#8#8 }
FontDesc         : array[1..199] of char;  { null terminated string       }
                                           { length can vary              }
EndOfDesc        : char;                   { #26                          }
OffSetToFontData : word;                   { location of font information }
                                           { from beginning of file       }
FontName         : array[1..4] of char;
SizeOfFontInfo   : word;
UnKnown1         : byte;                   { Always 43?????               }
NumberOfChars    : word;
UnKnown2         : byte;
FirstASCIIChar   : byte;
OffsetToCommands : word;                   { Add 2 offsets together to get  }
                                           { location from beginning of file}
UnKnown3         : byte;
MaxXSize         : shortint;
UnKnown4         : byte;
MinYSize         : shortint;
UnKnown5         : array[1..5] of byte;
OffSetTable      : array[1..# chars] of word;  { contains offset to commands }
                                               { for drawing characters      }
WidthTable       : array[1..# chars] of byte;

The rest of the file contains a variable length list of 2 byte commands
followed by 2 null characters.  This is where the offset table helps you to
locate the particular commands for each character.
The 2 byte commands have the following format:

Byte 1  ---------------------------------
        | 1 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
        ---------------------------------
          ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^
          |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
          |   ---------------------------- X offset of command
          |------ always 1????

Byte 2  ---------------------------------     2nd byte of command
        |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
        ---------------------------------
          ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^   ^
          |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
          |   ---------------------------- Y offset of command
          |------ 0 = MoveTo command
                  1 = LineTo command

The following is an example of the commands to draw the "!" character
in the litt.chr font.

128 0 128 128 128 2 128 135 131 0 0 0

This would be translated to:
  MoveTo(x+0,y+0);
  LineTo(x+0,y+0);
  MoveTo(x+0,y+2);
  LineTo(x+0,y+7);
  MoveTo(x+3,y+0);
------------------  end of BGIFMT.TXT  ---------------------