monobit 0.30.0

Tools for working with monochrome bitmap fonts.

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Tools for working with monochrome bitmap fonts

The monobit tools let you modify bitmap fonts and convert between several formats.

monobit's native format is yaff, a human-friendly, text-based visual format similar to the ones used by Roman Czyborra's hexdraw, Simon Tatham's mkwinfont and John Elliott's psftools. Details are given in the yaff font file format specification.

A a working Python 3 installation is required and some formats or features require additional packages to be installed; see Dependencies below.

monobit can be used as a Python package or as a command-line tool.

Usage examples

Convert utility

Here are some examples of how to use the conversion utility.

python3 convert.py -h

Display usage summary and command-line options

python3 convert.py --format=raw -h

Display usage summary and additional format-specific command-line options for conversion from raw binary.

python3 convert.py fixedsys.fon

Recognise the source file format from "magic bytes" or suffix (here, a Windows font) and write fonts to standard output in yaff format.

python3 convert.py roman.bdf to --format=hex

Read font from BDF file and write to standard output as Unifont HEX.

python3 convert.py fixed.psf to fixed.png

Read font in PSF format and write to disk as image in PNG format.

python3 convert.py --format=c to --format=bdf

Read font from standard input as C-source coded binary and write to standard output as BDF.

The converter transparently reads and writes gz, bz2, or xz-compressed font files and can read and write zip and tar archives. Some font formats contain multiple fonts whereas others can contain only one; the converter will write multiple files to a directory or archive if needed.

It is also possible to apply various transformations on the font before saving it. Check python3 convert.py --help for usage.

Banner utility

The banner utility renders text to standard output in a given font. This is similar to the ancient banner commands included in System-V and BSD Unixes.

For example, the banner at the top of this README was made with

me@bandit:~$ python3 banner.py '| monobit. |' --font=VGASYS.FON

banner.py has a number of rendering options - you can choose fonts, change the "ink" and "paper" characters, set a margin, scale text, and rotate by quarter turns. Check python3 banner.py --help for usage.

Supported formats

Format	Short Name	Version	Typical Extension	Native OS	Read	Write
monobit yaff	yaff		.yaff		✔	✔
hexdraw	hexdraw		.draw		✔	✔
GNU Unifont	hex		.hex		✔	✔
PC Screen Font	psf	1	.psf	MS-DOS	✔
PC Screen Font	psf	2	.psf .psfu	Linux	✔	✔
Raw binary	binary		.fnt .rom .f?? .ch8 .64c .chr		✔	✔
Bitmap image	image		.png .gif .bmp		✔ (P)	✔ (P)
PDF chart	pdf		.pdf			✔ (R)
C or C++ coded binary	c		.c .cpp .cc .h		✔	✔
JSON coded binary	json		.json		✔	✔
Python coded binary	python		.py		✔	✔
AngelCode BMFont	bmfont	Text	.fnt + images		✔ (P)	✔ (P)
AngelCode BMFont	bmfont	Binary	.fnt + images		✔ (P)
AngelCode BMFont	bmfont	XML	.fnt .xml + images		✔ (P)
AngelCode BMFont	bmfont	JSON	.json + images		✔ (P)	✔ (P)
X11/Adobe BDF	bdf		.bdf	Unix	✔	✔
Codepage Information	cpi	FONT	.cpi	MS-DOS	✔
Codepage Information	cpi	FONT.NT	.cpi	Windows NT	✔
Codepage Information	cpi	DRFONT	.cpi	DR-DOS	✔
kbd Codepage	kbd-cp		.cp	Linux	✔
DEC DRCS	dec-drcs			DEC VT	✔	✔
Amiga Font Contents	amiga-fc		.font	Amiga OS	✔
Amiga Font	amiga			Amiga OS	✔
FZX Font	fzx		.fzx	ZX Spectrum	✔	✔
Figlet	figlet		.flf	Unix	✔	✔
MacOS font	mac-dfont	FONT	.dfont .suit	MacOS	✔
MacOS font	mac-dfont	NFNT/FOND	.dfont .suit	MacOS	✔
MacOS font (AS/AD)	mac-rsrc	FONT	.rsrc	MacOS	✔
MacOS font (AS/AD)	mac-rsrc	NFNT/FOND	.rsrc	MacOS	✔
Windows resource	win-fnt	1.0	.fnt	Windows 1.x	✔
Windows resource	win-fnt	2.0	.fnt	Windows 2.x	✔	✔
Windows resource	win-fnt	3.0	.fnt	Windows 3.x	✔	✔
Windows font	win-fon	1.0 NE	.fon	Windows 1.x	✔
Windows font	win-fon	2.0 NE	.fon	Windows 2.x	✔	✔
Windows font	win-fon	3.0 NE	.fon	Windows 3.x	✔	✔
Windows font	win-fon	2.0 PE	.fon	Windows 2.x	✔
Windows font	win-fon	3.0 PE	.fon	Windows 3.x	✔

Font format features

Here is a comparison of what you can and cannot store in selected formats supported by monobit.

Format	Unicode	Unicode sequences	Encoding	MBCS	Multiple fonts	Cell size	Proportional	Kerning	Colour/antialiasing	Glyph representation
yaff	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	any	✔	✔		visual text
bmfont	✔		✔	✔		any	✔	✔	✔	image
bdf	✔		✔	✔		any	✔			hex
mac-*			✔	✔	✔	any	✔	✔	✔	binary
win-*			✔	✔	✔	any	✔			binary
hexdraw	✔					any	✔			visual text
amiga-*					✔	any	✔		✔	binary
fzx						any	✔			binary
figlet	✔					any	✔		✔	visual text
dec-drcs						>4xN				binary
hext	✔	✔				8xN	multi-cell			hex
hex	✔					8x16	multi-cell			hex
psf.2	✔	✔				any				binary
psf.1	✔					8xN				binary
cpi			✔		✔	8xN				binary

Dependencies

(P) - requires PIL, install with pip3 install Pillow.
(R) - requires reportlab, install with pip3 install reportlab.

Licence

monobit and the yaff specification are released under the Expat MIT licence.

Acknowledgements

monobit contains code from Simon Tatham's mkwinfont and dewinfont.

Other software

Other bitmap font tools you could use in conjunction with (or instead of) monobit include:

• FontForge
• Rebecca Bettencourt's Bits'n'Picas
• John Elliott's PSFTools
• Mark Leisher's gbdfed
• Simon Tatham's mkwinfont/dewinfont