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42 Bye Bye BDFs 42 Bye Bye BDFs
43 </h1> 43 </h1>
44 <div class="post-text"> 44 <div class="post-text">
45 <p>Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of <a href="https://pango.org">Pango</a>, one of the most widely used text rendering libraries, <a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/">announced</a> their plans for Pango 1.44.</p> 45 <p>Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of <a
46<p>Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over to <a href="https://harfbuzz.org">Harfbuzz</a>, an evolution of FreeType.</p> 46href="https://pango.org">Pango</a>, one of the most widely used text
47rendering libraries, <a
48href="https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/">announced</a>
49their plans for Pango 1.44.</p>
50<p>Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be
51moving over to <a href="https://harfbuzz.org">Harfbuzz</a>, an evolution
52of FreeType.</p>
47<p><em>Why?</em></p> 53<p><em>Why?</em></p>
48<p>In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch opentype metrics with ease).</p> 54<p>In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic,
49<p>Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a <code>bdf</code>/<code>pcf</code> bitmap font). Harfbuzz <em>does</em> support bitmap-only OpenType fonts, <code>otb</code>s. Convert your existing fonts over to <code>otb</code>s using <a href="https://fontforge.github.io">FontForge</a>. It is to be noted that applications such as <code>xterm</code> and <code>rxvt</code> use <code>xft</code> (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will remain unaffected by the update.</p> 55and provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch
50<p>Both <a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica">scientifica</a> and <a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie">curie</a> will soon ship with bitmap-only OpenType font formats.</p> 56opentype metrics with ease).</p>
57<p>Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use
58a <code>bdf</code>/<code>pcf</code> bitmap font). Harfbuzz <em>does</em>
59support bitmap-only OpenType fonts, <code>otb</code>s. Convert your
60existing fonts over to <code>otb</code>s using <a
61href="https://fontforge.github.io">FontForge</a>. It is to be noted that
62applications such as <code>xterm</code> and <code>rxvt</code> use
63<code>xft</code> (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will remain
64unaffected by the update.</p>
65<p>Both <a
66href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica">scientifica</a> and <a
67href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie">curie</a> will soon ship
68with bitmap-only OpenType font formats.</p>
51 69
52 </div> 70 </div>
53 71