Fontconfig-2.2.1

Introduction to Fontconfig

The Fontconfig package is a library for configuring and customizing font access.

Package information

Note: The numbering system of Fontconfig is unusual. The beta versions of the package are numbered with a 9x in the last portion of the release number. This means that 2.2.90 is a beta release and the most current release is of the form 2.2.1

Installation of Fontconfig

Install Fontconfig by running the following commands:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc &&
make &&
make install

Configuring Fontconfig

Configuration Information

The configuration file for Fontconfig is /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. Generally you do not want to edit this file. To put a new font directory in the configuration, update the file, /etc/fonts/local.conf with your local information. The default location of fonts in Fontconfig is:

  • /usr/share/fonts

  • ~/.fonts

Because we have not built XFree86 yet, put the following directory entries into /etc/fonts/local.conf:

  • <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF</dir>

  • <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1</dir>

  • <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype</dir>

The Fontconfig program will automatically search the above directories and all subdirectories for needed fonts.

Note: X also includes an internal (and older) version of Fontconfig and unless it is explicitly disabled when building XFree86, the internal version is created leaving two slightly incompatible libraries on your system. It is recommended that you only install one version.

Contents

The Fontconfig package contains the libfontconfig library, fc-cache, and fc-list.

Description

fc-cache

fc-cache is a command to create font information caches.

fc-list

fc-list is a command to list fonts.