
Using 16-bit BDF fonts with Exceed
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Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk> -- 1999-08-17

Here are some notes for using ISO 10646-1 BDF fonts with the Exceed
X11 Server for MS-Windows from Hummingbird Communications Ltd. Exceed
requires fonts to be installed in the Microsoft FON format and not in
the BDF or PCF formats that are used by Unix X11 servers.

The original Microsoft FON format was only designed for 8-bit fonts.
Exceed uses customized FON format which is compatible with Microsoft's
FON format but contains additional information for X clients such as
font properties and character metrics. This format supports 16-bit X
fonts (for Microsoft Windows a 16-bit X font in HCL FON format looks
like a set of 8-bit fonts). BDF and PCF fonts must be converted into
HCL FON format and included in the font database before they can be
used with Exceed.

Xconfig provides all necessary tools for this operation (just open
Xconfig->Font->Compile Fonts dialog box, click Help and follow the
instructions).

In more detail, installing a BDF font under Exceed works roughly as
follows:

 1. Create a directory in your exceed_directory/font and call it anything
    you want (in this example we call it "extra"). So we created the
    directory exceed/font/extra.
 2. Transfer the uncompressed BDF file into the directory we just
    created, so that we have a file exceed/font/extra/6x13.bdf.
 3. Open xconfig and go to Font.
 4. Click on Compile Fonts.
 5. Find your exceed/font/extra directory in the directory tree and
    select List Files of Type: as *.BDF.
    You will see your 6x13.bdf file and will be able to select it.
 6. Click on compile.
 7. Now if you go to the directory where the file is, you can move it
    to your extra directory and remove .bdf file.
 8. Go to xconfig and double click on the fonts icon.
 9. Click on the ADD button.
10. Click on browse and find your extra directory.
11. Give it a name that you would like to be shown in the font database.
12. Make sure that Directory selected and Status set to Keep.
13. Click on OK.
14. Click on Rebuild Database and click on Done.

Special thanks to Joyce Kam <joyce@hcl.com> and George Halpert
<george@hcl.com> from Hummingbird Communications Ltd.
<support@hcl.com> for providing the above information.

I am not an Exceed user myself, so if you have specific problems with
following the above instructions you might want to contact
<support@hcl.com> directly. Please let me know if you have any
suggestion for making this description more useful.

Update [2005-01-14]: Arnaud Desitter <arnaud.desitter@ouce.ox.ac.uk>
reported that Exceed 9.0 now comes preinstalled with the 6x13 font

  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1

in the file misc/6x13u.fon.
