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SETFONT(8) International Support SETFONT(8)
NAME
setfont - load EGA/VGA console screen font
SYNOPSIS
setfont [-O font+umap.orig] [-o font.orig] [-om cmap.orig] [-ou
umap.orig] [-N] [font.new ...] [-m cmap] [-u umap] [-C console] [-hH]
[-v] [-V]
DESCRIPTION
The setfont command reads a font from the file font.new and loads it
into the EGA/VGA character generator, and optionally outputs the pre-
vious font. It can also load various mapping tables and output the
previous versions.
If no args are given (or only the option -N for some number N), then a
default (8xN) font is loaded (see below). One may give several small
fonts, all containing a Unicode table, and setfont will combine them
and load the union. Typical use:
setfont
Load a default font.
setfont drdos8x16
Load a given font (here the 448-glyph drdos font).
setfont cybercafe -u cybercafe
Load a given font that does not have a Unicode map and provide
one explicitly.
setfont LatArCyrHeb-19 -m 8859-2
Load a given font (here a 512-glyph font combining several
character sets) and indicate that one's local character set is
ISO 8859-2.
FONT FORMATS
The standard Linux font format is the PSF font. It has a header
describing font properties like character size, followed by the glyph
bitmaps, optionally followed by a Unicode mapping table giving the
Unicode value for each glyph. Several other (obsolete) font formats
are recognized. If the input file has code page format (probably with
suffix .cp), containing three fonts with sizes e.g. 8x8, 8x14 and
8x16, then one of the options -8 or -14 or -16 must be used to select
one. Raw font files are binary files of size 256*N bytes, containing
bit images for each of 256 characters, one byte per scan line, and N
bytes per character (0 < N <= 32). Most fonts have a width of 8 bits,
but with the framebuffer device (fb) other widths can be used.
FONT HEIGHT
The program setfont has no built-in knowledge of VGA video modes, but
just asks the kernel to load the character ROM of the video card with
certain bitmaps. However, since Linux 1.3.1 the kernel knows enough
about EGA/VGA video modes to select a different line distance. The
default character height will be the number N inferred from the font
or specified by option. However, the user can specify a different
character height H using the -h option.
CONSOLE MAPS
Several mappings are involved in the path from user program output to
console display. If the console is in utf8 mode (see unicode_start(1))
then the kernel expects that user program output is coded as UTF-8
(see utf-8(7)), and converts that to Unicode (ucs2). Otherwise, a
translation table is used from the 8-bit program output to 16-bit Uni-
code values. Such a translation table is called a Unicode console map.
There are four of them: three built into the kernel, the fourth set-
table using the -m option of setfont. An escape sequence chooses
between these four tables; after loading a cmap, setfont will output
the escape sequence Esc ( K that makes it the active translation.
Suitable arguments for the -m option are for example 8859-1, 8859-2,
..., 8859-15, cp437, ..., cp1250.
Given the Unicode value of the symbol to be displayed, the kernel
finds the right glyph in the font using the Unicode mapping info of
the font and displays it.
Old fonts do not have Unicode mapping info, and in order to handle
them there are direct-to-font maps (also loaded using -m) that give a
correspondence between user bytes and font positions. The most common
correspondence is the one given in the file trivial (where user byte
values are used directly as font positions). Other correspondences
are sometimes preferable since the PC video hardware expects line
drawing characters in certain font positions.
Giving a -m none argument inhibits the loading and activation of a
mapping table. The previous console map can be saved to a file using
the -om file option. These options of setfont render mapscrn(8) obso-
lete. (However, it may be useful to read that man page.)
UNICODE FONT MAPS
The correspondence between the glyphs in the font and Unicode values
is described by a Unicode mapping table. Many fonts have a Unicode
mapping table included in the font file, and an explicit table can be
indicated using the -u option. The program setfont will load such a
Unicode mapping table, unless a -u none argument is given. The previ-
ous Unicode mapping table will be saved as part of the saved font file
when the -O option is used. It can be saved to a separate file using
the -ou file option. These options of setfont render loadunimap(8)
obsolete.
The Unicode mapping table should assign some glyph to the 'missing
character' value U+fffd, otherwise missing characters are not trans-
lated, giving a usually very confusing result.
Usually no mapping table is needed, and a Unicode mapping table is
already contained in the font (sometimes this is indicated by the
.psfu extension), so that most users need not worry about the precise
meaning and functioning of these mapping tables.
One may add a Unicode mapping table to a psf font using psfad-
dtable(1).
OPTIONS
-h H Override font height.
-m file
Load console map or Unicode console map from file.
-o file
Save previous font in file.
-O file
Save previous font and Unicode map in file.
-om file
Store console map in file.
-ou file
Save previous Unicode map in file.
-u file
Load Unicode table describing the font from file.
-C console
Set the font for the indicated console. (May require root per-
missions.)
-v Be verbose.
-V Print version and exit.
FILES
/lib/kbd/consolefonts is the default font directory. /lib/kbd/unimaps
is the default directory for Unicode maps. /lib/kbd/consoletrans is
the default directory for screen mappings. The default font is a file
default (or default8xN if the -N option was given for some number N)
perhaps with suitable extension (like .psf).
SEE ALSO
psfaddtable(1), unicode_start(1), loadunimap(8), utf-8(7), mapscrn(8)
11 Feb 2001 SETFONT(8)
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