Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:12, 19 January 2014

Revision as of 06:58, 10 July 2014

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The '''Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format''' (BDF) by [[Adobe Systems|Adobe]] is a file format for storing [[bitmap font]]s. The content takes the form of a text file intended to be human- and computer-readable. BDF is typically used in [[Unix]] [[X Window]] environments. It washas largely eventuallybeen replaced by the [[Portable Compiled Format|PCF]] font format which wasis somewhat more efficient, and later by scalable fonts such as [[Opentype]] and [[Truetype]] fonts.

==Overview==

{{As of | 2013}} the current version of BDF is 2.2. No future revisions are anticipated. Earlier versions were referred to as the Character Bitmap Distribution Format.

The [[X Window]] Consortium adopted BDF 2.1 as a standard for X Window screen fonts, but has startedlargely movingmoved towardsto other standards such as PCF, Opentype, and Truetype.

Version 2.2 added support for non-Western writing. For example, [[glyph]]s in a BDF 2.2 font definition can specify rendering from top-to-bottom rather than simply left-to-right.