FontPixel: Opensource Pixel Fonts
bdfparser (Python)
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Font object

Font()

Syntax

Font(arg)

Examples

from bdfparser import Font
font = Font('tests/fonts/unifont-13.0.04.bdf')
# same as:
# font = Font(open('tests/fonts/unifont-13.0.04.bdf'))

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
argOptionalstring or pathlib path or file object<empty>File path as a string, or pathlib path, or file object, or leave it empty

Return value

Font object

Description

Initialize a Font object. Load the BDF font file if a file path string or a file object is present.

.headers

Syntax

.headers

Examples

font.headers
# {'bdfversion': 2.1, 'fontname': '-gnu-Unifont-Medium-R-Normal-Sans-16-160-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1','fbbx': 16, 'fbby': 16, 'fbbxoff': 0, 'fbbyoff': -2, 'pointsize': 16, 'xres': 75, 'yres': 75, 'metricsset': 0}
font.headers['fontname']
# '-gnu-Unifont-Medium-R-Normal-Sans-16-160-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1'

Type

dictionary (string as keys, integer or string as values)

Description

This attribute of a Font object represents the header information which is typically all the information before the STARTPROPERTIES line in the font file.

Font header’s names (keys), value types, and their descriptions in the BDF spec:

:::note Headers are to be distinguished from properties (props) which are inside the block between STARTPROPERTIES and ENDPROPERTIES lines in the font file.

Header names are defined in the spec, property names are not. :::

.props

Syntax

.props

Examples

font.props
# {'add_style_name': 'Sans Serif','average_width': '80','cap_height': '10',...,'weight_name': 'Medium','x_height': '8'}

Type

dictionary (string as keys, string as values)

Description

This attribute of a Font object represents the property infomation which is inside the block between STARTPROPERTIES and ENDPROPERTIES lines.

:::note Properties (props) are to be distinguished from headers which are typically all the information before the STARTPROPERTIES line in the font file.

Property names are not defined in the official spec, here is an unofficial list of commonly used properties. :::

.glyphs

Syntax

.glyphs

Type

dictionary (integer as keys, list as values)

Description

This attribute of a Font object represents the raw glyph data in the font.

:::note As raw data with values without their keys, you usually should not use it directly. Use other API methods instead, such as .glyph() and .iterglyphs(). :::

.load_file_path()

Syntax

.load_file_path(file_path)

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
file_pathRequiredstringN/APath of the BDF font file to load

Return value

The Font object itself, with font loaded

Description

Load the BDF font file in the file path.

Font(file_path) is equivalent to Font().load_file_path(file_path).

.load_file_obj()

Syntax

.load_file_obj(file_obj)

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
file_objRequiredfile objectN/Afile object of the BDF font file to load

Return value

The Font object itself, with font loaded

Description

Load the BDF font file object.

Font(file_object) is equivalent to Font().load_file_obj(file_object).

.length()

Syntax

.length()

Examples

l = font.length()
l2 = len(font)
l == l2  # True

Parameters

No parameters

Return value

(integer) Actual glyph count in the font

Description

The method always returns how many glyphs actually exist in the font. This could be different with the glyph count number next to the ‘CHARS’ keyword, if so, there would be a warning when the font is loaded.

font_obj.length() is equivalent to len(font_obj).

.iterglyphs()

Syntax

.iterglyphs(order, r)

Examples

# print all basic latin letters (A-Za-z)'s character and bitmap shape, in reverse order:
for glyph in font.iterglyphs(order=2 ,r=[(65, 90), (97, 122)]):
    print('Character "' + glyph.chr() + '"\'s shape:')
    print(glyph)
# remove `order=2 ,r=[(65, 90), (97, 122)]` to print all glyphs in the font in normal ascending order

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
orderOptionalinteger1-1: reverse order in the BDF font file
0: order in the BDF font file
1: ascending codepoint order
2: descending codepoint order
rOptionalSee belowNoneCodepoint range, see below

The codepoint range parameter r accepts:

  • None (default): all the glyphs in the font
  • integer. Examples:
    • 128 (Basic Latin / ASCII)
    • 0x100 (Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement / cp1250 / cp1251 / cp1252)
  • tuple of two integers. Examples:
    • (0, 127) (same as 128)
    • (0, 0xff) (same as 0x100)
    • (48, 57) (all numbers 0-9)
    • (65, 90) (all uppercase basic latin letters A-Z)
    • (97, 122) (all lowercase basic latin letters a-z)
    • (1328, 0x1032F)
  • list of tuples of two integers. Example:
    • [(65, 90), (97, 122)] (all basic latin letters A-Za-z)
    • [(0x2E80, 0x9FFF), (0xA960, 0xA97F), (0xAC00, 0xD7FF), (0xF900, 0xFAFF), (0xFE30, 0xFE4F), (0xFF00, 0xFFEF), (0x20000, 0x3134F)] (this is roughly all CJK characters in the Unicode)

See also Wikipedia article “Unicode block”

Return value

(iterator of Glyph objects/None) An iterator of glyphs as Glyph objects. Missing glyphs are replaced by None

Description

This method returns an iterator of all the glyphs (as Glyph objects) in the font (default) or in the specified codepoint range in the font, sorted by the specified order (or by the ascending codepoint order by default).

.itercps()

Syntax

.itercps(order, r)

Examples

for codepoint in font.itercps():
    print(codepoint)

Parameters

See .iterglyphs()’s “Parameters” section

Return value

(iterator of integers) An iterator of the codepoints of glyphs

Description

This method is almost identical to .iterglyphs(), except it returns an iterator of glyph codepoints instead of an iterator of Glyph objects.

.glyph()

Syntax

.glyph(character)

Examples

# get glyph "a" and print its shape:
glyph_a = font.glyph('a')
print(glyph_a)

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
characterRequiredstringN/ACharacter (a one-character string) of the glyph you need

Return value

  • Glyph object
  • None if the glyph does not exist in the font

Description

Get a glyph (as Glyph object) by its character.

.glyphbycp()

Syntax

.glyphbycp(codepoint)

Examples

# get glyph "a" whose codepoint is 97:
glyph_a = font.glyphbycp(97)

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
codepointRequiredintegerN/ACodepoint of the glyph you need

Return value

  • Glyph object
  • None if the glyph does not exist in the font

Description

Get a glyph (as Glyph object) by its codepoint.

.lacksglyphs()

Syntax

.lacksglyphs(string)

Examples

# This font only has latin and arabic support
testfont = Font('tests/fonts/unifont-13.0.04-for-test.bdf')
testfont.lacksglyphs('Bé H好Δiب')  # ['好', 'Δ']
testfont.lacksglyphs('Bé Hiب')  # None

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
stringRequiredstringN/Astring (one or more characters)

Return value

  • (list of strings) list of missing glyph(s)’ characters
  • None if all the glyphs in your string exist in the font

Description

Check if there is any missing glyph and gets these glyphs’ character.

.draw()

Syntax

.draw(string, linelimit, mode, direction, usecurrentglyphspacing, missing)

Examples

# draw 'Bdf Hi' to a bitmap:
font.draw('Bdf Hi')
# each glyph could be wider when mode=0:
font.draw('Bdf Hi', mode=0)
# right to left:
font.draw('مرحبا', direction='rl')
# each line has 30 pixels instead of 512 by default:
font.draw('Bdf Hi', linelimit=30)

# This font only has latin and arabic support
testfont = Font('tests/fonts/unifont-13.0.04-for-test.bdf')
# You can optionally specify the missing glyphs' replacement
# instead of a 0-width-and-height empty glyph by default
testfont.draw('Bé H好Δi的',
  missing={'glyphname': 'missing glyph', 'codepoint': 0, 'bbw': 16, 'bbh': 16, 'bbxoff': 0, 'bbyoff': -2, 'swx0': 1000, 'swy0': 0, 'dwx0': 16, 'dwy0': 0, 'swx1': None, 'swy1': None, 'dwx1': None, 'dwy1': None, 'vvectorx': None, 'vvectory': None, 'hexdata': ['0000', '0000', '0000', '3ff8', '3018', '2828', '2448', '2288', '2108', '2288', '2448', '2828', '3018', '3ff8', '0000', '0000']}
)  # the missing replacement is "⌧" ("x" in a rectangle box)

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
stringRequiredstringN/AThe words, the setences, the paragraphs you want to draw
linelimitOptionalinteger512Maximum pixels per line (row)
modeOptionalinteger10: uses ffb, glyphs will be fixed-width (monospace) and -height
1: uses dwidth horizontally, dwidth1 vertically
directionOptionalstring'lrtb'Writing direction. See below
usecurrentglyphspacingOptionalbooleanFalseUseful when direction='rl'. For example, font.draw('a的', direction='rl') will misplace the wider “的” on the narrower “U” because normally we use the previous glyph’s spacing (dwidth). You can use font.draw('a的', direction='rl', usecurrentglyphspacing=True) to use the current one and solve the problem
missingOptionaldictionary or Glyph objectAn empty glyph with glyphname 'empty', codepoint 8203, hexdata [] and metrics all 0The missing glyphs will be replaced by this one. It can be a dictionary of glyph meta information, or a Glyph object

direction:

  • 'lrtb' or 'lr': left to right, lines from top to bottom (most common direction)
  • 'lrbt': left to right, lines from bottom to top
  • 'rltb' or 'rl': right to left, lines from top to bottom (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu)
  • 'rlbt': right to left, lines from bottom to top
  • 'tbrl' or 'tb': top to bottom, lines from right to left (Chinese traditionally)
  • 'tblr': top to bottom, lines from left to right
  • 'btrl' or 'bt': bottom to top, lines from right to left
  • 'btlr': bottom to top, lines from left to right

Return value

Bitmap object

Description

Draw (render) the glyphs of the specified words / setences / paragraphs (as a string), to a Bitmap object.

:::note

See the missing parameter if you need to handle potentially missing glyphs.

:::

.drawcps()

Syntax

.drawcps(cps, linelimit, mode, direction, usecurrentglyphspacing, missing)

Examples

# this is the same as `font.draw('Bdf Hi')`
font.drawcps([66, 100, 102, 32, 72, 105])

Parameters

NameR/OTypeDefault ValueDescription
cpsRequirediterable of integersN/Aiterable (list, generator or any other iterable) of codepoints

For the rest of the parameters (linelimit, mode, direction and usecurrentglyphspacing), see .draw()’s “Parameters” section

Return value

Bitmap object

Description

Draw the glyphs of the specified codepoints, to a Bitmap object.

This method is almost identical to .draw(), except in the first parameter, it uses iterable of codepoints instead of string

.drawall()

Syntax

.drawall(order, r, linelimit, mode, direction, usecurrentglyphspacing)

Examples

# draw all glyphs in the font, linelimit is 512 pixels by default:
font.drawall()
# change linelimit
font.drawall(linelimit=700)

Parameters

For parameters order and r, see .iterglyphs()’s “Parameters” section

For the rest of the parameters (linelimit, mode, direction and usecurrentglyphspacing), see .draw()’s “Parameters” section

Those parameters have the same names, meanings, optional-ness (they are all optional), types and default values as the ones in .iterglyphs() and .draw(), except one thing: mode is 0 by default (mode=0: the glyphs will have the same width and height)

Return value

Bitmap object

Description

Draw all the glyphs in the font (default) or in the specified codepoint range in the font, sorted by the specified order (or by the ascending codepoint order by default), to a Bitmap object.

This method is like a combined version of .iterglyphs()/.itercps() and .draw()/.drawcps().

:::note Read the section for Bitmap’s .tobytes() to know how to output your bitmap to BMP / PNG / JPEG files. :::