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monobit

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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.
Monobit requires Python 3. Install through pip install monobit. Some formats or features require additional packages; see Dependencies below for a list. These
will be installed automatically if you use pip.
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.
monobit-convert --help
Display usage summary and command-line options
monobit-convert --help load --format=raw
Display usage summary and additional format-specific command-line options for conversion from raw binary.
monobit-convert 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.
monobit-convert roman.bdf to --format=hex
Read font from BDF file and write to standard output as Unifont HEX.
monobit-convert fixed.psf to fixed.png
Read font in PSF format and write to disk as image in PNG format.
monobit-convert --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
monobit-convert --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:~$ monobit-banner '| monobit. |' --font=VGASYS.FON

monobit-banner 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 monobit-banner --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
✔

8×16
multi-cell

hex

psf.2
✔
✔

any

binary

psf.1
✔

8xN

binary

cpi

✔

✔
8xN

binary

Dependencies

(P) – requires PIL, install with pip install Pillow.
(R) – requires reportlab, install with pip install reportlab.
The renderer additionally employs

  • uniseg
  • python-bidi
  • arabic-reshaper

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:



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