For simple usage, see write and load.

other methods: baseline, height, set_xspacing_scale, set_yspacing_scale, text_extents

struct file_head
{
unsigned INT32 cookie;   - 0x464f4e54
unsigned INT32 version;  - 1
unsigned INT32 chars;    - number of chars
unsigned INT32 height;   - height of font
unsigned INT32 baseline; - font baseline
unsigned INT32 o[1];     - position of char_head's
} *fh;
struct char_head
{
unsigned INT32 width;    - width of this character
unsigned INT32 spacing;  - spacing to next character
unsigned char data[1];   - pixmap data (1byte/pixel)
} *ch;

version 2:


On-disk syntax (everything in N.B.O), int is 4 bytes, a byte is 8 bits:

pos
0   int cookie = 'FONT';     or 0x464f4e54
4   int version = 2;         1 was the old version without the last four chars
8   int numchars;            Always 256 in this version of the dump program
12   int height;              in (whole) pixels
16   int baseline;            in (whole) pixels
20   char direction;          1==right to left, 0 is left to right
21   char format;             Font format
22   char colortablep;        Colortable format
23   char kerningtablep;      Kerning table format

24   int offsets[numchars];   pointers into the data, realative to &cookie.
[colortable]
[kerningtable]

At each offset:


0   int width;               in pixels
4   int spacing;             in 1/1000:th of a pixels
8   char data[];             Enough data to plot width * font->height pixels
Please note that if width is 0, there is no data.

Font formats:
id type
0 Raw 8bit data
1 RLE encoded data,  char length, char data,   70% more compact than raw data
2 ZLib compressed data                         60% more compact than RLE

Colortable types:
0 No colortable                 (the data is an alpha channel)
1 24bit RGB with alpha         (index->color, 256*4 bytes, rgba)
2 8bit Greyscale with alpha    (index->color, 256*2 bytes)

Kerningtable types:
0 No kerning table
1 numchars*numchars entries, each a signed char with the kerning value
2 numchar entries, each with a list of kerning pairs, like this:
int len
len * (short char, short value)
**! 

METHOD

Image.Font.baseline

SYNTAX

int baseline()

RETURNS

font baseline (pixels from top)

SEE ALSO

height and text_extents

METHOD

Image.Font.create

SYNTAX

void create(string filename)

DESCRIPTION

Loads a font file to this font object. Similar to load().

METHOD

Image.Font.height,
Image.Font.text_extents

SYNTAX

int height()
array(int) text_extents(string text, ...)

DESCRIPTION

Calculate extents of a text-image, that would be created by calling write with the same arguments.

ARGUMENTS

argument(s)	description
string text, ...	One or more lines of text.

RETURNS

an array of width and height

SEE ALSO

write, height and baseline

METHOD

Image.Font.load

SYNTAX

object|int load(string filename)

DESCRIPTION

Loads a font file to this font object.

ARGUMENTS

argument(s)	description
string filename	Font file

RETURNS

zero upon failure, font object upon success

SEE ALSO

write

METHOD

Image.Font.write

SYNTAX

object write(string text, ...)

DESCRIPTION

Writes some text; thus creating an image object that can be used as mask or as a complete picture.

ARGUMENTS

argument(s)	description
string text, ...	One or more lines of text.

RETURNS

an Image.Image object

SEE ALSO

text_extents, load, Image.Image->paste_mask and Image.Image->paste_alpha_color