Simon Tatham's Fonts Page

This page contains fonts and font utilities, written and/or maintained by Simon Tatham.

mkwinfont

mkwinfont is a small program that generates Windows bitmap fonts from a text description. Also supplied is dewinfont, which generates the text description files from the source fonts.

The programs are written in Python, so you will need the Python interpreter to run them. The Python interpreter can be downloaded from www.python.org.

Windows .FON files come in two different types: NE and PE. These stand for New Executable and Portable Executable (Windows font files have the same basic structure as Windows executables). NE is the old format that was used by Windows 3, and PE is the new 32-bit executable format used in Win95 and above. I believe fonts in PE format are not supported by anything below Windows NT. (So oddly, the "new" NE is the older of the two formats, and the "portable" PE is the one which doesn't work everywhere!) The mkwinfont script below generates NE fonts only, so they should work everywhere. The dewinfont script can untangle both NE and PE fonts, so you could use these scripts to convert a non-portable PE font into a portable NE one.

The files are provided for download here:

• mkwinfont
• dewinfont

and are redistributable under the MIT licence. (See the comment at the top of each script for details.)

Tektite

I originally constructed it from the font named "t" in the Slackware "kbd" package; this font in turn, according to a README in an old version of this package, was extracted from a DOS utility called VFONT, apparently created by clySmic Software. I'm therefore uncertain of the copyright status of this font. The original VFONT copyright said you could copy and distribute the VFONT program itself without charge but couldn't sell it; however no mention was made of derivative works. My Tektite font as distributed here is a derivative work: I've redrawn a couple of the uglier characters (notably the zero and the asterisk) and added a whole load of additional characters to make the font ISO-8859-1 compatible. I've mailed clySmic twice to ask about this, but they have never replied.

On the assumption that clySmic is either defunct or doesn't care about what I'm doing, I'm therefore offering my ultimately VFONT-derived fonts for download. If they ever contact me and request that I stop doing so, I will.

So, here are the Tektite files for download:

• tektite.fon is Tektite in the form of a Windows .FON bitmap font. Character encoding is Windows-1252 (the usual superset of ISO-8859-1), but also the bottom 32 glyphs contain the VT100 line-drawing character set (which makes it suitable for use with the "Font has XWindows encoding" option in PuTTY). Also tektite.fd, a textual font description in the format accepted by the mkwinfont script above.
• tektitec.fon is Tektite in the form of a Windows .FON bitmap font, but under the name "Terminal" so that DOS boxes are able to use it. Character encoding is CP437 (the old DOS encoding, with some multinational characters and a lot of line-drawing stuff). Also tektitec.fd, a textual font description in the format accepted by the mkwinfont script above.
• tektite.pcf.gz and tektite.pcf.Z (choose your preferred compression) are both Tektite in the form of an X bitmap font. The font name is "-clySmic-Tektite-Medium-R-Normal--15-140-75-75-C-90-ISO8859-1". Character encoding is the X adaptation of ISO-8859-1 (i.e. the bottom 32 glyphs contain the VT100 line-drawing characters). Also tektite.bdf, the textual BDF form of the font (suitable for input to the X utility bdftopcf).

fixed for Windows

Many X users swear by the font called "fixed" or "6x13". It's small but readable, and it allows a lot of terminal windows on screen at once.

Since I have scripts that can create Windows fonts from textual descriptions, inevitably I was asked to produce a Windows version of "fixed" for one of my friends. Here it is for download, in case anyone else wants it:

• fixed.fon is "fixed" in the form of a Windows .FON bitmap font. Character encoding is Windows-1252 (the usual superset of ISO-8859-1), but also the bottom 32 glyphs contain the VT100 line-drawing character set (which makes it suitable for use with the "Font has XWindows encoding" option in PuTTY). Also fixed.fd, a textual font description in the format accepted by the mkwinfont script above.
• fixedc.fon is "fixed" in the form of a Windows .FON bitmap font, but under the name "Terminal" so that DOS boxes are able to use it. Character encoding is CP437 (the old DOS encoding, with some multinational characters and a lot of line-drawing stuff). Also fixedc.fd, a textual font description in the format accepted by the mkwinfont script above.

All of the above

Unfortunately, you can't install two fonts called Terminal on your system, so the above files tektitec.fon and fixedc.fon are no use to you if you want your Command Prompt windows to be able to choose from both of Tektite and "fixed" in addition to the standard Windows fonts.

Therefore, here is a single combined .FON file, containing both of the above fonts under the name "Terminal".

• terminal.fon

(There is no separate .fd source file for this font: you generate it by applying mkwinfont to both of the above files tektitec.fd and fixedc.fd at the same time.)