<div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0px 0px 1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:15px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Sans",Tahoma,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(36,39,41);background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.53)">Recently I made a small helping module in FreeType for my research work. This module is mainly responsible for processing a METAFONT input by client application. I used FTVIEW as my client application that takes a METAFONT file to display styled text on screen.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:15px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Sans",Tahoma,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(36,39,41);background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.53)">I am using the Mftrace program for converting any METAFONT request into its corresponding Type1 format and then, using the default Type1 driver module, I am processing it and displaying results on screen. It's working fine.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:15px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Sans",Tahoma,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(36,39,41);background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.53)">Now what I want is to use the <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">mf</code> program (the default compiler of METAFONT) instead of Mftrace, to process METAFONT using FreeType. The <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">mf</code> program takes a <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.mf</code> file as input and returns a <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.tfm</code> and <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> file. This <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> file is then converted using GFtoPK or GFtoDVI into <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pk</code> or <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.dvi</code> files respectively and then can be used for displaying.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:15px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Sans",Tahoma,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(36,39,41);background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.53)">As FreeType engine doesn't support <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> and <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">pk</code> files respectively, I came to know that there is an old library called VFlib that actually supports these two types of files. I have read about VFlib and got to know that it is also a font library that handles many font types and can make glyphs as bitmaps from these different font formats like <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.ttf</code>, <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pfb</code>, <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code>, <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pk</code> etc.</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:15px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Lucida Grande","Lucida Sans Unicode","Lucida Sans",Tahoma,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(36,39,41);background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.53)">As <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> and <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pk</code> files are actually bitmap font formats (the later is the more compressed file of <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> file which can be obtained by using programs like GFToPK), my question is: how does this VFlib library actually support <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> and <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pk</code> formats? What is the main task of this library if a <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.gf</code> or <code style="margin:0px;padding:1px 5px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;font-family:Consolas,Menlo,Monaco,"Lucida Console","Liberation Mono","DejaVu Sans Mono","Bitstream Vera Sans Mono","Courier New",monospace,sans-serif;vertical-align:baseline;background-color:rgb(239,240,241);white-space:pre-wrap">.pk</code> file is input?</p></div>