How to generate bdf fonts

manojgnath

Can some one guide me how to generate BDF fonts? Is there any specif tools available to generate it. Is BDF fonts is going to support kern space

Werner Lemberg

FontForge can edit BDF files.  Note that this is dead technology – since more than 20 years...

Perhaps you mean something different?

Georg Seifert

There is a BDF plugin for Glyphs.app, too: https://github.com/schriftgestalt/BDFFileFormat

Thomas Phinney

BDF is an ancient bitmap font format from the 1980s.

FontLab’s BitFonter can generate BDF files. This is a tool we keep available only because there is so little else that does these functions—we no longer develop or maintain it, although we support it as best we can.

SiDaniels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyph_Bitmap_Distribution_Format No support for kerning in the format AFAIK. You can always maintain a kerning database for each strike size in a separate file. 

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

I miss BDF. I used it to make grayscale bitmaps to embed into TT fonts. Less than 20 years ago.

Jens Kutilek

There's also a Python BDF module. I haven't used it myself, though.

Jason Campbell

curious to know where this is still used. We think it's "dead", but that doesn't mean some electronic sign system isn't still using it?

SiDaniels

As recently as July of last year I advised some folks who were working on fonts for "feature phones" on a TTF to BDF conversion. 

manojgnath

Does BitFonter supports KERN SPACES to develop BDF Fonts  in Indic scripts like Devnagari, Bengali Telugu etc

manojgnath

Thank you every one for your valuable comment

Theunis de Jong

@Si, would that be something like this project? https://dbader.org/blog/monochrome-font-rendering-with-freetype-and-python

The code seems complete, apart from the BDF file specifics (which are not too daunting).