# Dealing with Fonts

## Fonts

The `fnt2bdf` utility is included with Wine. It can be found in the `tools` directory. Links to the other tools mentioned in this document can be found on wine headquarters: http://www.winehq.org/development/

### How To Convert Windows Fonts

If you have access to a Windows installation you should use the `fnt2bdf` utility (found in the `tools` directory) to convert bitmap fonts (`VGASYS.FON`, `SSERIFE.FON`, and `SERIFE.FON`) into the format that the X Window System can recognize.

1. Extract bitmap fonts with `fnt2bdf`.

2. Convert `.bdf` files produced by Step 1 into `.pcf` files with `bdftopcf`.

3. Copy `.pcf` files to the font server directory which is usually `/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc` (you will probably need superuser privileges). If you want to create a new font directory you will need to add it to the font path.

4. Run `mkfontdir` for the directory you copied fonts to. If you are already in X you should run `xset fp rehash` to make X server aware of the new fonts. You may also or instead have to restart the font server (using e.g. `/etc/init.d/xfs restart` under Red Hat 7.1)

5. Edit the `~/.wine/config` file to remove aliases for the fonts you've just installed.

Wine can get by without these fonts but 'the look and feel' may be quite different. Also, some applications try to load their custom fonts on the fly (WinWord 6.0) and since Wine does not implement this yet it instead prints out something like;

    STUB: AddFontResource( SOMEFILE.FON )

You can convert this file too. Note that `.FON` file may not hold any bitmap fonts and `fnt2bdf` will fail if this is the case. Also note that although the above message will not disappear Wine will work around the problem by using the font you extracted from the `SOMEFILE.FON`. `fnt2bdf` will only work for Windows 3.1 fonts. It will not work for TrueType fonts.

What to do with TrueType fonts? There are several commercial font tools that can convert them to the Type1 format but the quality of the resulting fonts is far from stellar. The other way to use them is to get a font server capable of rendering TrueType (Caldera has one, there also is the free `xfstt` in `Linux/X11/fonts` on sunsite and mirrors, if you're on FreeBSD you can use the port in `/usr/ports/x11-servers/Xfstt`. And there is `xfsft` which uses the freetype library, see freetype description).

However, there is a possibility of the native TrueType support via FreeType renderer in the future (hint, hint :-)

### How To Add Font Aliases To `~/.wine/config`

Many Windows applications assume that fonts included in original Windows 3.1 distribution are always present. By default Wine creates a number of aliases that map them on the existing X fonts:

Windows font | ...is mapped to... | X font
"MS Sans Serif" | -> | "-adobe-helvetica-"
"MS Serif" | -> | "-bitstream-charter-"
"Times New Roman" | -> | "-adobe-times-"
"Arial" | -> | "-adobe-helvetica-"

There is no default alias for the "System" font. Also, no aliases are created for the fonts that applications install at runtime. The recommended way to deal with this problem is to convert the missing font (see above). If it proves impossible, like in the case with TrueType fonts, you can force the font mapper to choose a closely related X font by adding an alias to the [fonts] section. Make sure that the X font actually exists (with `xfontsel` tool).

    AliasN = [Windows font], [X font] <, optional "mask X font" flag>

Example:

    Alias0 = System, --international-, subst
    Alias1 = ...
    ...

Comments:

- There must be no gaps in the sequence `{0, ..., N}` otherwise all aliases after the first gap won't be read.

- Usually font mapper translates X font names into font names visible to Windows programs in the following fashion:

  X font | ...will show up as... | Extracted name
  --international-... | -> | "International"
  -adobe-helvetica-... | -> | "Helvetica"
  -adobe-utopia-... | -> | "Utopia"
  -misc-fixed-... | -> | "Fixed"
  -... | -> |
  -sony-fixed-... | -> | "Sony Fixed"
  -... | -> |

  Note that since `-misc-fixed-` and `-sony-fixed-` are different fonts Wine modified the second extracted name to make sure Windows programs can distinguish them because only extracted names appear in the font selection dialogs.

- "Masking" alias replaces the original extracted name so that in the example case we will have the following mapping:

  X font | ...is masked to... | Extracted name
  --international-... | -> | "System"

  "Nonmasking" aliases are transparent to the user and they do not replace extracted names.

  Wine discards an alias when it sees that the native X font is available.

- If you do not have access to Windows fonts mentioned in the first paragraph you should try to substitute the "System" font with nonmasking alias. The `xfontsel` application will show you the fonts available to X.

      Alias.. = System, ...bold font without serifs

Also, some Windows applications request fonts without specifying the typeface name of the font. Font table starts with Arial in most Windows installations, however X font table starts with whatever is the first line in the `fonts.dir`. Therefore Wine uses the following entry to determine which font to check first.

Example:

    Default = -adobe-times-

Comments:

It is better to have a scalable font family (bolds and italics included) as the default choice because mapper checks all available fonts until requested height and other attributes match perfectly or the end of the font table is reached. Typical X installations have scalable fonts in the `../fonts/Type1` and `../fonts/Speedo` directories.

### How To Manage Cached Font Metrics

Wine stores detailed information about available fonts in the `~/.wine/cachedmetrics.[display]` file. You can copy it elsewhere and add this entry to the [fonts] section in your `~/.wine/config`:

    FontMetrics = <file with metrics>

If Wine detects changes in the X font configuration it will rebuild font metrics from scratch and then it will overwrite `~/.wine/cachedmetrics.[display]` with the new information. This process can take a while.

### Too Small Or Too Large Fonts

Windows programs may ask Wine to render a font with the height specified in points. However, point-to-pixel ratio depends on the real physical size of your display (15", 17", etc...). X tries to provide an estimate of that but it can be quite different from the actual size. You can change this ratio by adding the following entry to the [fonts] section:

    Resolution = <integer value>

In general, higher numbers give you larger fonts. Try to experiment with values in the 60 - 120 range. 96 is a good starting point.

### "FONT_Init: failed to load ..." Messages On Startup

The most likely cause is a broken `fonts.dir` file in one of your font directories. You need to rerun `mkfontdir` to rebuild this file. Read its manpage for more information. If you can't run `mkfontdir` on this machine as you are not root, use `xset -fp xxx` to remove the broken font path.

## Setting up a TrueType Font Server

Follow these instructions to set up a TrueType font server on your system.

1. Get a freetype source archive (`freetype-X.Y.tar.gz` ?).

2. Read docs, unpack, configure and install

3. Test the library, e.g. `ftview 20 /dosc/win95/fonts/times`

4. Get `xfsft-beta1e.linux-i586`

5. Install it and start it when booting, e.g. in an rc-script. The manpage for `xfs` applies.

6. Follow the hints given by williamc@dai.ed.ac.uk

7. I got `xfsft` from http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/progindex.html. I have it running all the time. Here is `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/config`:

       clone-self = on
       use-syslog = off
       catalogue = /c/windows/fonts
       error-file = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/fs-errors
       default-point-size = 120
       default-resolutions = 75,75,100,100

   Obviously `/c/windows/fonts` is where my Windows fonts on my Win95 C: drive live; could be e.g. `/mnt/dosC/windows/system` for Win31.

   In `/c/windows/fonts/fonts.scale` I have:

       14
       arial.ttf -monotype-arial-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       arialbd.ttf -monotype-arial-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       arialbi.ttf -monotype-arial-bold-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       ariali.ttf -monotype-arial-medium-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       cour.ttf -monotype-courier-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       courbd.ttf -monotype-courier-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       courbi.ttf -monotype-courier-bold-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       couri.ttf -monotype-courier-medium-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       times.ttf -monotype-times-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       timesbd.ttf -monotype-times-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       timesbi.ttf -monotype-times-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       timesi.ttf -monotype-times-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
       symbol.ttf -monotype-symbol-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-microsoft-symbol
       wingding.ttf -microsoft-wingdings-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-microsoft-symbol

   In `/c/windows/fonts/fonts.dir` I have exactly the same.

   In `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XF86Config` I have

       FontPath "tcp/localhost:7100"

   in front of the other `FontPath` lines. That's it! As an interesting by-product of course, all those web pages which specify Arial come up in Arial in Netscape ...

8. Shut down X and restart (and debug errors you did while setting up everything).

9. Test with e.g. `xlsfont | grep arial`