t1lib font generator for Linux

t1lib is a library written in C which implements functions for generating bitmaps from Adobe Type 1 fonts. It uses most internal parts of the Type 1 rasterizer provided with X11R5 and newer but tries avoid the disadvantages known from that rasterizer. Although most people would use the rasterizer under X11, having X11 is not necessary at all.

The rasterizer is implemented as a shared or static library to be linked to the programs that want to use Type 1 fonts. In addition to this library there is a test-program called xglyph which, as the name indicates, requires X11. It can be used to show most of the features of the library. xglyph can be run out of the box without doing any X11 configuration like setting resources.

• t1lib is completely independent of X11 (although the program xglyph needs X11)
• Fonts are made known to library by means of a font database file at runtime
• Searchpaths for all types of input files are configured by means of a configuration file at runtime
• Characters are rastered as they are needed
• Characters and complete strings may be rastered by a simple function call
• When rastering strings, pairwise kerning information from AFM files may optionally be taken into account
• If AFM files are missing, AFM info can be generated online and AFM files can be dumped from Type 1 font files.
• An interface to ligature-information of AFM files is provided.
• Rotation and arbitrary affine transformation is supported.
• There's support for extending and slanting fonts.
• New encoding vectors may be loaded at runtime and fonts may be reencoded using these encoding vectors
• Antialiasing is implemented using 5 or 17 levels of gray including black and white.
• Strings may be underlined, overlined or overstriked.
• outlines may be extracted and manipulated arbitrarily including nonlinear transformations.
• Font subsetting is easily possible and completely automated.

Web site: http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/rmz/t1lib/t1lib.html