---
name: "pfaedit"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "pfaedit"
version: "0.0.20020312-1"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pfaedit"
---

# pfaedit(1)

create and modify PostScript fonts

## NAME

**pfaedit** – create and modify PostScript fonts

## SYNOPSIS

**pfaedit** \[**-new**\] \[**-recover** *{none\|auto\|clean}*\] \[**-script** *scriptfile*\] \[**-help**\] \[**-usage**\] \[**-version**\] \[**-nosplash**\] \[**-display** *name*\] \[**-depth** *val*\] \[**-vc** *type*\] \[**-cmap** *type*\] \[**-sync**\] \[**-keyboard** *ibm\|mac\|sun\|ppc*\] *fontname*

## DESCRIPTION

**pfaedit** allows you to create and modify PostScript and TrueType fonts. You can save fonts in several different PostScript formats as well as TrueType, OpenType and CID-keyed fonts. It will also generate bitmaps.

If the **-new** flag is specified, a new PostScript font with the ISO 8859-1 encoding (the international encoding standard for western Europe, and the standard for most X fonts) will be created.

If the **-recover** flag is specified, you can control PfaEdit's crash recovery mechanism — just in case the crash recovery itself causes problems. -recover=none will not attempt to recover from crashes on this run, while -recover=clean will delete any recovery information.

If the **-script** flag is specified then the following argument will be treated as the filename of a script file, which will be executed. **will** **not** **open** **the** **X** **display** and it will pass any other command line arguments to the script file.

**-help** will list the available options and fork off a browser looking at the online documentation. If you have installed the docs locally it will search for them in /usr/share/doc/pfaedit (or whatever other location was compiled in), if not it will search for them online.

**-usage** will list the available options.

**-version** will display the current version of **pfaedit** (a six digit string containing the date stamp of the source files).

**-nosplash** will not display the splash screen.

The **-display** flag must be followed by a display-name argument (localhost:0) and allows you to specify the display.

The **-depth** flag must be followed by an integer specifing a pixel depth supported by the current X server. **pfaedit** will attempt to find a visual that matches this depth, and if found will use it.

The **-vc** flag must be followed by either the name of a visual class or an integer enumerating a visual class. **pfaedit** will attempt to find a visual that matches this class, and if found will use it.

The **-cmap** flag must be followed by one of the strings: "Current", "Copy", or "Private". It gives the user some control over how colormaps are handled on 8bit screens. If you select "Current", **pfaedit** will attempt to allocate its colors in the current (shared) colormap. It probably won't get everything it wants. If you specify "Copy" then **pfaedit** will allocate what it can and then copy the current colormap. This means it can make use of cells other programs are using. If you specify "Private" then **pfaedit** will create a new colormap and fill it up with exactly what it likes. **pfaedit** will attempt to find a visual that matches this depth, and if found will use it.

**-sync** flag will make X synchronous. This is mostly for debugging. It slows X down.

The **-keyboard** flag must be followed by one of the keywords "ibm", "mac", "sun" or "ppc". If specified **pfaedit** will alter its menus to display modifier keys appropriate for that system. (ppc assumes you have a mac keyboard and are running SuSe linux. The mappings are different from those used by X on Mac OS/X. Annoying).

If a *fontname* is given, **pfaedit** will open a font view looking at each font you selected. This may be a binary or ascii PostScript type1 font (.pfa or .pfb extensions) or one of pfaedit's spline font database files (.sfd extension), or even a PostScript type 0 font (.ps extension, though the encoding will probably be lost here), a true type font (.ttf), an opentype font (.otf), a CID-keyed font (.cid, .otf) or a bitmap font (.bdf).

Without flags or arguments, **pfaedit** will open a file picker dialog and allow you to browse your disk to find the appropriate font file, or create a new one.

## ENVIRONMENT

If any of the following environment variables exist, they are used by **pfaedit**:

- BROWSER

  Specifies the name of a browser program for examining documentation.

- AUTOTRACE

  Specifies the location of the autotrace program.

## FILES

- *~/.PfaEdit/autosave/*

  crash recovery directory

- */usr/share/pfaedit/\*.ui*

  translations for the user interface

- */usr/share/doc/pfaedit/\*.html*

  optional location for online documentation.

- *\*.cidmap*

  "encoding" files for Adobe's cid formats\
   from http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/cidmaps.tgz

## SEE ALSO

The pfaedit user manual, at *http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/*

## AUTHOR

George Williams

## BUGS

No doubt many. But unknown (and ever changing). See *http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/#known-bugs* for a current list.