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> Font attributes in X Window System and XLFD</TITLE
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CLASS="SECT1"
><H1
CLASS="SECT1"
><A
NAME="XLFD"
>Font attributes in X Window System and XLFD</A
></H1
><P
>	As was said earlier, each font in X Window system has a number
	of attributes and a full name, also known as X Logical Font
	Description (XLFD), which lists all of these attributes and therefore
	is quite long.  Typical font name looks like this
	<TABLE
BORDER="0"
BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
><PRE
CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING"
>	  -adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--12-120-75-75-m-70-iso8859-1
	</PRE
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
>
      </P
><P
>	This name consists of 14 fields, showing the values of 14 parameters
	of the font, separated by dashes. 
      </P
><P
>	While such a name gives a complete information about the font,
	it is somewhat overwhelming, especially since not all of this
	parameters are actually useful. To make life a little bit
	easier, you can use wildcard <SPAN
CLASS="KEYSYM"
>*</SPAN
> in the font
	name; for example, the previous font can also be referred to
	as
	<TABLE
BORDER="0"
BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0"
WIDTH="100%"
><TR
><TD
><PRE
CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING"
>	  -adobe-courier-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
	</PRE
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
>
	As usual, <SPAN
CLASS="KEYSYM"
>*</SPAN
> matches any value; if there are
	several fonts matching the given name, the system will pick
	the first matching one. In this particular example, most
	probably there is only one font matching this name, so this
	name is unambiguous.
      </P
><P
> 
	Below we list those of the  font's 14 attributes which are actually
	useful:
	<P
></P
><UL
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> 
              <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>foundry</B
></TT
> &#8212; font
	      foundry, the company or individual which made the font
	      (in our example, <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>adobe</TT
>) 
          </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>family</B
></TT
> &#8212; font
	      family, the popular nickname of the font (in our
	      example, <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>courier</TT
>) 
          </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> 
              <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>weight</B
></TT
> &#8212; font weight (in our
	      example, <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>medium</TT
>). Admissible values:
              bold, medium, etc. 
	  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>slant</B
></TT
> &#8212; font
              slant (in our example, <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>(r)oman</TT
>,
              i.e. unslanted). Admissible values: (i)talics,
              (o)blique, (r)roman, etc.  
          </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>pixelsize</B
></TT
> &#8212; the
              number of pixels vertically in a character (in our
              example, 12) </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>pointsize</B
></TT
> &#8212;
              approximate point size of the font, measured in tenths
              of a point. In the example above, point size is 120,
              that is, 12 points. One point is equal to 1/72 of an
              inch, which is the common convention in English and
              American typesetting.  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> horizontal and vertical
               <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>resolutions</B
></TT
> in dots per inch
               &#8212; in the example above, both are 75 dpi.
	    </P
><P
>	      Note that point size, pixel size, and vertical resolution are
	      related: for fonts with resolution 75dpi, point size is
	      approximately equal to (pixel size)*10; for fonts with resolution
	      100dpi, point size is approximately equal to (pixel size)*7.
	    </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>spacing</B
></TT
> &#8212;
              describes variance of character sizes in the
              font. Allowed values are (m)onospaced, (c)haracter cell
              (in both of these spacings, all characters have the same
              width) and proportional (characters have varying
              sizes). Proportional fonts usually look nicer. 
              </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> character set <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>registry</B
></TT
>
              and <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>encoding</B
></TT
> &#8212; these two
              parameters, commonly referred to as <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>character
              set</B
></TT
>, or <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>charset</B
></TT
> for
              short, describe what set of symbols (or what alphabet)
              this font represents. There is a number of possible
              charsets. Some of the most popular ones include:
	      <P
></P
><UL
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
>		    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>iso8859-1</I
>, also known as
		    Latin 1 &#8212; this character set includes all
		    the symbols found on the keyboard, i.e. Latin
		    letters, punctuation marks, numbers, symbols such
		    as @ or $. It also includes some special symbols,
		    such as the copyright sign, and a number of
		    accented letters, thus covering the needs of most
		    Western European languages (to be precise,
		    Afrikaans, Basque, Catalan, Danish, Dutch,
		    English, Faeroese, Finnish, French, Galician,
		    German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian,
		    Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, and Swedish).
		  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
>		    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>iso8859-7</I
> &#8212; includes Latin and
		    Greek alphabets 
		  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
>		    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>iso8859-8</I
> &#8212; includes Latin and
		    Hebrew alphabets 
		  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
>		    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>koi8-r</I
> &#8212; includes Latin and
		    Cyrillic alphabets 
		  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
>		    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>big5.eten.3.10-1</I
> &#8212; Chinese
		    (Big5 encoding) 
		  </P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>gb2312.1980-0</I
>
		    &#8212; Chinese (GB encoding) 
		</P
></LI
><LI
STYLE="list-style-type: bull"
><P
> 
                    <I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>jisx0208.1983-0</I
> &#8212; Japanese
		</P
></LI
></UL
>


	    </P
></LI
></UL
>
      </P
><P
>	The remaining font attributes (<TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>Set Width</B
></TT
>,
	<TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>Additional Style</B
></TT
>, and <TT
CLASS="GUILABEL"
><B
>Average
	Width</B
></TT
>) are rarely used and therefore we skip their
	description.
      </P
><P
>	Full XLFD specifications are included in technical documentation for
	the X Window system and can be found online at <A
HREF="ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.4/xc/doc/hardcopy/XLFD"
TARGET="_top"
>    
	  ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.4/xc/doc/hardcopy/XLFD</A
>; most probably,
	you will never need it.
    </P
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