1 2013-12-15: Release 6.3.20131215
3 This version introduces unihex2png and unipng2hex, two Perl scripts
4 that Andrew Miller wrote based upon Paul Hardy's unihex2bmp.c and
5 unibmp2hex.c programs. These new scripts allow conversion between
6 the Unifont .hex format and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files
7 for graphical editing. With this addition, more graphics programs
8 can be used to edit Unifont glyphs.
10 unihex2png and unipng2hex also support glyphs that are 24 or 32
11 pixels tall, in addition to Unifont's default 16 pixels tall.
12 Roman Czyborra's hexdraw and hex2bdf Perl scripts were modified
13 to also support glyphs that are 16, 24, or 32 pixels tall. These
14 changes have not been fully tested, and at this point are considered
17 There are no plans to add this multi-height support to unihex2bmp.c
20 The package now contains a "doc/" directory, with documentation
21 in Texinfo format. Files in the "man/" directory were updated
22 for consistency, especially in noting that all programs are
23 covered under GPLv2+ now.
25 In addition to "unifont-*.*" font files, this package now also creates
26 "unifont_sample-*.*" files. These "Unifont Sample" fonts contain
27 combining circles, and four-digit hexadecimal glyphs for unassigned
28 code points and Private Use Area glyphs. Because of the inclusion
29 of combining cirlces, "Unifont Sample" font versions are only intended
30 for illustrating individual glyphs, not for general-purpose writing.
31 The two generated fonts are unifont_sample-*.bdf and unifont_sample-*.ttf.
32 The TTF file contains SBIT glyphs, not outlined TrueType glyphs like
35 The font versions (BDF, PCF, and TTF) now contain copyright and
36 version information. This will help identify outdated versions
37 of a font in the future. hex2bdf now accepts a version string and
38 a copyright string as command line arguments.
40 To simplify this package supporting two versions of Unifont
41 ("Unifont" and "Unifont Sample"), hex2bdf now accepts a font name
42 as a command line argument. This will streamline adding additional
43 fonts in the future as part of this same package. Note that the
44 old XLFD font name "unifont" has now been capitalized to "Unifont".
46 Many XLFD properties have been added to the BDF version of Unifont
47 in addition to font version and copyright XLFD properties. At least
48 some of these are carried over to the PCF version during conversion
49 with bdftopcf. This has solved an issue with grub-mkfont and FreeType
50 for converting the PCF font into a GRUB version.
52 Some glyphs were redrawn: the Capricorn sign, several CJK Radicals
53 Supplement ideographs, and several Armenian letters. The Armenian
54 letters were modified with the new unihex2png and unipng2hex programs.
56 Further details are in the ChangeLog file.
58 2013-10-20: Release 6.3.20131020
60 This is the first release as part of the GNU Project.