Changing fonts

Previewing a specific font

You can display the complete character set of any valid font, using the xfd (X font displayer) client. This tool provides an excellent means of determining whether or not you might want to use a particular font for a client, an icon label, and so forth.

Once you have located a font that seems interesting, you can preview its characteristics using the following steps.

Enter the following command at the prompt in a scoterm window:

xfd -fn fontname
Click on the Next Page and Prev Page buttons to scroll through multiple screens, if necessary.
Click on a character's grid for information about that character.
Click on the Quit button when you have finished previewing the font.

Step 1: Running xfd

When running the xfd client, you must specify the font you want to preview with the -fn option, followed by the name of the desired font. You can enter the complete font name or use font name wildcards or a font alias.

NOTE: If the font name includes spaces, the name must be surrounded with asterisk characters (*) and enclosed in quotation marks. For example:

   xfd -fn "*new century schoolbook*"

The xfd client opens a window and displays the entire character set of the named font in a grid of boxes, each character in its own box. The characters are shown in increasing order from left to right, top to bottom. The full name of the font is displayed across the top of the window, even if you specified a font alias.

Example of xfd client

Step 2: Scrolling through multiple screens

Depending on the font you are previewing, it is possible that all of the font's characters may not fit in the xfd window at the same time. If the characters being displayed do not fit within the window, you can:

Scroll forward through multiple screens by clicking a mouse button on the Next Page button. When you reach the last available screen, Next Page becomes inactive.
Scroll back to the beginning screen by clicking a mouse button on the Prev Page button. When you return to the first screen, Prev Page becomes inactive.

Step 3: Displaying information on a character

You can display details about an individual character by clicking a mouse button on the grid containing the character. You are shown statistics about the character's width, left bearing, right bearing, ascent, and descent.

For more information on these statistics, see the xfd(XC) manual page.

Step 4: Quitting xfd

The xfd window remains on your screen until you click a mouse button on the Quit button, or type q or Q.