MF Integrator: A Module for Converting METAFONT into Outline Font

• Main Authors: Ammar Ul Hassan, Jaeyoung Choi, Geunho Jeong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taiwan Association of Engineering and Technology Innovation 2018-07-01
• Series: Proceedings of Engineering and Technology Innovation
• Subjects: metafont; freetype; fontconfig; font processing
• Online Access: http://ojs.imeti.org/index.php/PETI/article/view/2637

METAFONT is a description language that generates TeX-oriented bitmap fonts which are not popular outside the TeX world. The number of fonts prepared with METAFONT are very small compared with outline fonts. Font libraries like FreeType, which are used to render fonts in outline and some bitmap formats doesn’t provide any support for METAFONT. A research, MFCONFIG module added an indirect support of METAFONT inside FreeType rasterizer but it has problems of performance and dependency. In this paper, we have proposed a module named MF Integrator for FreeType rasterizer. The proposed module overcome the problems of performance and dependency of MFCONFIG module. Authors tested proposed module with a client application which is used to display styled text on screen. Users can now take the benefits of METAFONT by using our proposed MF Integrator module.