Global Font Information

The following keywords describe global information which is valid for the entire font:

STARTFONT#

STARTFONT number

STARTFONT is followed by a version number indicating the exact file format used (for example, 2.1).

COMMENT#

COMMENT string

One or more lines beginning with the word CONTENT. These lines can be ignored by any program reading the file.

CONTENTVERSION#

CONTENTVERSION integer

(Optional) The value of COMMENTVERSION is an integer which can be assigned by an installer program to keep track of the version of the included data. The value is intended to be valid only in a single environment, under the control of a single installer. The value of COMMENTVERSION should only reflect upgrades to the quality of the bitmap mages, not to the glyph complement or encoding.

FONT#

FONT string

FONT is followed by the font name, which should exactly match the PostScript™ language FontName property in the corresponding outline font program.

SIZE#

SIZE PointSize Xres Yres

SIZE is followed by the point size of the glyphs and the x and y resolutions of the device for which the font is intended.

FONTBOUNDINGBOX#

FONTBOUNDINGBOX FBBx FBBy Xoff Yoff

FONTBOUNDINGBOX is followed by the width in x and the height in y, and the x and y displacement of the lower left corner from origin 0 (for horizontal writing direction); all in integer pixel values. (See the examples in section "Examples".)

METRICSSET#

METRICSSET integer

(Optional) The integer value of METRICSSET may be 0, 1, or 2, which correspond to writing direction 0 only, 1 only, or both (respectively). If not present, METRICSSET 0 is implied. If METRICSSET is 1, DWIDTH and SWIDTH keywords are optional.

Metrics keywords#

  • SWIDTH
  • DWIDTH
  • SWIDTH1
  • DWIDTH1
  • VVECTOR

These metrics keywords may be present at the global level to define a single value for the whole font. The values may be defined at this level, yet overridden for individual glyphs by including the same keyword and a value in the information for an individual glyph. For a composite font containing a large number of ideographic glyphs with identical metrics, defining those values at the global level can provide a significant savings in the size of the resulting file.

note

Version 2.1 of this document only allowed the metrics keywords SWIDTH and DWIDTH, and only at the glyph level. If compatibility with 2.1 is an issue, metrics should not be specified as global values.

These keywords all have the same meanings as specified in section "Individual Glyph Information".

STARTPROPERTIES#

STARTPROPERTIES n

The optional word STARTPROPERTIES may be followed by the number of properties (n) that follow. Within the properties list, there may be n lines consisting of a word for the property name followed by either an integer or string surrounded by ASCII double quotation marks (ASCII octal 042). Internal quotation characters are indicated (or “quoted”) by using two quotation characters in a row.

ENDPROPERTIES#

ENDPROPERTIES

The word ENDPROPERTIES is used to delimit the end of the optional properties list in fonts files containing the word STARTPROPERTIES.

Edit this page