Overview of font conversion from TTF (or OTF) fonts to Medley DISPLAYFONT via BDF

[MattHeffron]

How to convert ttf (or otf) font file to bdf and then displayfont.

Prerequisite

Install otf2bdf by the method appropriate to your environment.
Save the convert.txt to the same directory, rename it to convert.sh, and mark it as executable.

TTF (OTF) to BDF

Get the ttf (otf) file.
In bash (maybe other shells) invoke convert.sh:
./convert.sh pixel-size weight input-file-name output-file-name

• pixel-size : (integer) is the desired size of the bdf file. (The conversion may round that size. Some where I requested 14 got 15.)
• weight : override the weight in the file (e.g., Bold, Medium) (Some ttf internally have Book but should be Medium)
• input-file-name : the ttf or otf input file (I didn't try with any path; that's why to copy convert.sh to the same directory.)
• output-file-name : the basename of the output (bdf) file. This is optional. If not provided, it will be the basename of the input-file-name.

The actual bdf file generated will be the provided (or derived) output-file-name, a hyphen, the pixel-size, then .bdf.
(The pixel-size used here is the argument provided. It isn't adjusted for the rounding that may occur, as noted above. You may want to rename those bdf files to the actual converted size.)

BDF to Medley DISPLAYFONT

After you have generated the bdf files, start Medley full sysout.
In the exec enter:
(IL:FILESLOAD IL:READ-BDF)
Connect to the directory which contains the bdf files.
Decide where you want the DISPLAYFONT files to be located. It recommended that this not be located in the MEDLEYDIR hierarchy, so that any updating of Medley doesn't accidentally affect these.
Put the path to that location into IL:DISPLAYFONTDIRECTORIES system variable.
For each bdf file to convert:

(CL:LET ((FONT (BDF:READ-BDF "the bdf file name including the .bdf")))
  (BDF:WRITE-BDF-TO-DISPLAYFONT-FILES FONT "the destination directory"))

The DISPLAYFONT files will be written as the converted size, which may have been rounded from the specified size, as noted above. The name of those DISPLAYFONT files will reflect that.

That's it! You should be able to use IL:FONTCREATE to load the IL:FONTDESCRIPTOR; and TEdit should be able to use these new fonts.

NOTES

• These are DISPLAY fonts, only. Currently, there is no mechanism for using these in making a hardcopy file (e.g., PostScript or PDF).
• I used the static ttf files for the regular, bold, italic, and bold italic faces. I didn't see how to generate those from a variable font description file.
• There may be better ways to do this, but this is what I did that worked!

[MattHeffron]

Here are some zip files of some fonts I converted, most of them using the procedure above, and mostly in 10,12,15 point sizes.
ComicSans.zip
Monaco.zip 10 pt
UnifontJapanese.zip
CascadiaCode.zip
CascadiaCode.zip
DroidSansFallback.zip 19 pt
RobotoMono.zip
SourceCodePro.zip

Enjoy!

Edit: I replaced the .zip files as they included multiple copies from my testing of the process. I thought that I had cleaned up before the last run through.
Edited again: I discovered that there was a bug where the MIR font form was incorrectly identified as MRR and overwriting it. Sorry.
Bug fixed in PR #2132.

[pamoroso]

It works:

One thing to note is the toplevel directories of your .zip files named after font families should not be copied to the selected Medley font directory as is. Instead, only the contained subdirectories should be copied to the font directory.

[MattHeffron]

One thing to note is the toplevel directories of your .zip files named after font families should not be copied to the selected Medley font directory as is. Instead, only the contained subdirectories should be copied to the font directory.

In general, yes. However, they could be kept as is and just put all of those font family directory names into IL:DISPLAYFONTFILES.

[MattHeffron]

Attached .zips of DISPLAYFONT files were replaced again (see comment above). Sorry
Bug fixed in PR #2132.

[masinter]

re fonts: The "fonts" hierarchy needs some attention. The fonts we have were haphazardly curated from a variety of sources. In the repo ${MEDLEY}/fonts there are: adobe -- ? postscript widths? what are these? altofonts -- Are these used by anything? They weren't part of a venue/envos release? big -- these are fake fonts that I found looking for bigger fonts only to discover that they were just relabelled fonts for smaller sizes displayfonts -- Envos moved to a different font organization, releasing fonts organized into sub-categories in order to optimize loading fonts from floppies. other -- some other fonts that I didn't know where to put. Includes Dancer, Sigma, and Titan. https://LarryMasinter.net https://interlisp.org

…

On Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 12:58 PM Matt Heffron ***@***.***> wrote: How to convert ttf (or otf) font file to bdf and then displayfont. Prerequisite Install otf2bdf by the method appropriate to your environment. Save the convert.txt <https://github.com/user-attachments/files/19966613/convert.txt> to the same directory, rename it to convert.sh, and mark it as executable. TTF (OTF) to BDF Get the ttf (otf) file. In bash (maybe other shells) invoke convert.sh: ./convert.sh pixel-size weight input-file-name output-file-name - pixel-size : (integer) is the *desired* size of the bdf file. (The conversion *may* round that size. Some where I requested 14 got 15.) - weight : override the weight in the file (e.g., Bold, Medium) (Some ttf internally have Book but should be Medium) - input-file-name : the ttf or otf input file (I didn't try with any path; that's why to copy convert.sh to the same directory.) - output-file-name : the basename of the output (bdf) file. *This is optional.* If not provided, it will be the basename of the input-file-name. The actual bdf file generated will be the provided (or derived) output-file-name, a hyphen, the pixel-size, then .bdf. (The pixel-size used here is the argument provided. It isn't adjusted for the rounding that may occur, as noted above. You may want to rename those bdf files to the actual converted size.) BDF to Medley DISPLAYFONT After you have generated the bdf files, start Medley full sysout. In the exec enter: (IL:FILESLOAD IL:READ-BDF) Connect to the directory which contains the bdf files. Decide where you want the DISPLAYFONT files to be located. It recommended that this *not* be located in the MEDLEYDIR hierarchy, so that any updating of Medley doesn't accidentally affect these. Put the path to that location into IL:DISPLAYFONTDIRECTORIES system variable. For each bdf file to convert: (CL:LET ((FONT (BDF:READ-BDF "the bdf file name including the .bdf"))) (BDF:WRITE-BDF-TO-DISPLAYFONT-FILES FONT "the destination directory")) The DISPLAYFONT files will be written as the *converted* size, which may have been rounded from the specified size, as noted above. The name of those DISPLAYFONT files will reflect that. That's it! You should be able to use IL:FONTCREATE to load the IL:FONTDESCRIPTOR; and TEdit should be able to use these new fonts. *NOTES* - These are DISPLAY fonts, only. Currently, there is no mechanism for using these in making a hardcopy file (e.g., PostScript or PDF). - I used the *static* ttf files for the regular, bold, italic, and bold italic faces. I didn't see how to generate those from a *variable* font description file. *There may be better ways to do this, but this is what I did that worked! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2130>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAIQTK3FV6BVVSTPGEZDX2D237KWVAVCNFSM6AAAAAB4D4TSKKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ERDJONRXK43TNFXW4OZYGI3DCOBZGU> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>