1libXfont - X font handling library for server & utilities
2---------------------------------------------------------
3
4libXfont provides the core of the legacy X11 font system, handling the index
5files (fonts.dir, fonts.alias, fonts.scale), the various font file formats,
6and rasterizing them.  It is used by the X display servers (Xorg, Xvfb, etc.)
7and the X Font Server (xfs), but should not be used by normal X11 clients.  X11
8clients access fonts via either the new APIs in libXft, or the legacy APIs in
9libX11.
10
11libXfont supports a number of compression and font formats, and the
12configure script takes various options to enable or disable them:
13
14- Compression types:
15
16  * gzip - always enabled, no option to disable, requires libz
17
18  * bzip2 - disabled by default, enable via --with-bzip2, requires libbz2
19
20- Font formats:
21
22  * builtins - copies of the "fixed" & "cursor" fonts required by the
23    X protocol are built into the library so the X server always
24    has the fonts it requires to start up.   Accessed via the
25    special 'built-ins' entry in the X server font path.  
26    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-builtins.
27
28  * freetype - handles scalable font formats including OpenType, FreeType,
29    and PostScript formats.  Requires FreeType2 library.
30    Can also be used to handle bdf & bitmap pcf font formats.  
31    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-freetype.
32
33  * bdf bitmap fonts - text file format for distributing fonts, described
34    in https://www.x.org/docs/BDF/bdf.pdf specification.  Normally
35    not used by the X server at runtime, as the fonts distributed
36    by X.Org in bdf format are compiled with bdftopcf when
37    installing/packaging them.  
38    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-bdfformat.
39
40  * pcf bitmap fonts - standard bitmap font format since X11R5 in 1991,
41    used for all bitmap fonts installed from X.Org packages.
42    Compiled format is architecture independent.
43    As noted above, usually produced by bdftopcf.  
44    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-pcfformat.
45
46  * snf bitmap fonts - standard bitmap font format prior to X11R5 in 1991,
47    remains only for backwards compatibility.  Unlike pcf, snf files
48    are architecture specific, and contain less font information
49    than pcf files.  snf fonts are deprecated and support for them
50    may be removed in future libXfont releases.  
51    Disabled by default, enable via --disable-snfformat.
52
53- Font services:
54
55  * xfs font servers - allows retrieving fonts as a client of an xfs server.
56    Enabled by default, disable via --disable-fc (font client).
57
58    If enabled, you can also use the standard libxtrans flags to
59    configure which transports can be used to connect to xfs:
60    
61        --enable-unix-transport  Enable UNIX domain socket transport
62        --enable-tcp-transport   Enable TCP socket transport (IPv4)
63        --enable-ipv6            Enable IPv6 support for tcp-transport
64        --enable-local-transport Enable os-specific local transport
65
66    (Change --enable to --disable to force disabling support.)  
67    The default setting is to enable all of the transports the
68    configure script can find OS support for.
69
70--------------------------------------------------------------------------
71
72All questions regarding this software should be directed at the
73Xorg mailing list:
74
75  https://lists.x.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
76
77The primary development code repository can be found at:
78
79  https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXfont
80
81Please submit bug reports and requests to merge patches there.
82
83For patch submission instructions, see:
84
85  https://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
86