Solaris X Window System Developer's Guide

Available Font Formats

Fonts from different vendors come in different formats. Table 4–1 and Table 4–2 list the various font formats, their vendors, and the associated file types supported by the Solaris environment. Table 4–1 lists outline fonts; Table 4–2 lists bitmap fonts.

Table 4–1 Outline Font Formats

Font Format 

Vendor 

File Type 

TrueType 

Various foundries 

.ttf

Type1 (ASCII) 

Adobe and various foundries 

.pfa

Type1 (binary)  

Adobe and various foundries 

.pfb

Type 3 

Adobe and various foundries 

.ps

Speedo 

Bitstream 

.spd

F3 

SunSoft 

.f3b

Table 4–2 Bitmap Font Formats

Font Format 

Vendor 

File Type 

Portable compiled format 

MIT 

.pcf

Bitmap distribution format 

Adobe 

.bdf

Big Endian prebuilt format 

Adobe (for sparc) 

.bepf

Little Endian prebuilt format 

Adobe (for IA and ppc) 

.lepf

The fonts provided by the Solaris X server are located in the /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts directory. For more information on the directory structure, see Locating Fonts.

The Solaris environment is configured so that most X11 fonts are also available in DPS (see Table 4–3). DPS supports a slightly different set of fonts than those supported by X11.

Table 4–3 Font File Availability

Font Format 

Available in X11 

Available in DPS 

TrueType 

Yes 

Yes 

Type1 outline fonts-ASCII 

Yes 

Yes 

Type1 outline fonts-binary 

Yes 

Yes 

Type 3 

Yes 

Yes 

Speedo 

Yes 

No 

F3 

Yes 

Yes 

Portable compiled format 

Yes 

Yes 

Bitmap distribution format 

Yes 

No 

Big Endian prebuilt format 

No 

Yes 

Little Endian prebuilt format 

No 

Yes

Optional Font Package

Fonts needed by end-user applications are installed with the End-User Cluster. However, some unusual applications may need fonts in the Developer Cluster. For these applications, the package to add is the SUNWxwoft package. It is not necessary to install the entire Developer Cluster.