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.

       Note: if a font has more than 256 glyphs, only 8 out of 16 colors can be used simultaneously. It can make console perception worse (loss of
       intensity and even some colors).

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 bit-
       maps,  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  uni-
       code_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 Unicode values. Such a translation table is called a Unicode
       console	map.  There are four of them: three built into the kernel, the fourth settable 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  transla-
       tion.

       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 draw-
       ing 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) obsolete. (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 previous 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 psfaddtable(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 permissions.)

       -v     Be verbose.

       -V     Print version and exit.

NOTE

       PC video hardware allows one to use the "intensity" bit either to indicate brightness, or to address 512 (instead of  256)  glyphs  in  the
       font. So, if the font has more than 256 glyphs, the console will be reduced to 8 (instead of 16) colors.

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)