Fonts
=====

Two type of fonts are supported by this driver fixed size bitmap fonts
converted from PC Bios images using the font_from_romfont utility and fixed or
proportional fonts converted from True-Type fonts using the font2bitmap
utility.

The rom fonts are available in 128 and 256 PC character sets in 8x8, 8x16, 16x6
and 16x32 pixel sizes. They written using the text method.

The True-Type fonts can be converted to any size as long as the widest
character is 256 pixels or less. They are written using the write method.

Pre-compiling the font files to .mpy files will significantly reduce the memory
required for the fonts.

Rom Font Conversion
-------------------

The `utils` directory contains the font_from_romfont.py program used to convert
PC BIOS bitmap fonts from the font-bin directory of spacerace's
https://github.com/spacerace/romfont repo.

The utility converts all romfont bin files in the specified -input-directory
(-i) and writes python font files to the specified -output-directory (-o).

Characters included can be limited by using the -first-char (-f) and -last-char
(-l) options.

Example:

    font_from_romfont -i font-bin -o fonts -f 32 -l 127


.. literalinclude:: fontformat.py
   :linenos:
   :language: python
   :caption: Example python font file.


True-Type Font Conversion
-------------------------


The `utils` directory contains the `font2bitmap.py` program used to convert
True-Type font into bitmap font modules. Use the -h option to see details of
the available options.  The `font2bitmap.py` program uses font handling classes
from Dan Bader blog post on using freetype
http://dbader.org/blog/monochrome-font-rendering-with-freetype-and-python and
the negative glyph.left fix from peterhinch's font conversion program
https://github.com/peterhinch/micropython-font-to-py.

The utility requires the python freetype module.

Example use:

- ./font2bitmap NotoSans-Regular.ttf 32 -s "0123456789ABCEDF"
- ./font2bitmap.py Chango-Regular.ttf 16 -c 0x20-0x7f


8x8 Rom Fonts
-------------

.. figure:: _static/vga1_8x8.png
   :align: center

   vga1_8x8.py: 128 Character 8x8 Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_8x8.png
   :align: center

   vga2_8x8.py: 256 Character 8x8 Font

|

8x16 Rom Fonts
--------------

.. figure:: _static/vga1_8x16.png
   :align: center

   vga1_8x16.py: 128 Character 8x16 Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_8x16.png
   :align: center

   vga2_8x16.py: 256 Character 8x16 Font

|

16x16 Rom Fonts
---------------

.. figure:: _static/vga1_16x16.png
   :align: center

   vga1_16x16.py: 128 Character 16x16 Thin Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga1_bold_16x16.png
   :align: center

   vga1_bold_16x16.py: 128 Character 16x16 Bold Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_16x16.png
   :align: center

   vga2_16x16.py: 256 Character 16x16 Thin Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_bold_16x16.png
   :align: center

   vga2_bold_16x16.py: 256 Character 16x16 Bold Font

|

16x32 Rom Fonts
---------------

.. figure:: _static/vga1_16x32.png
   :align: center

   vga1_16x32.py: 128 Character 16x32 Thin Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga1_bold_16x32.png
   :align: center

   vga1_bold_16x32.py: 128 Character 16x32 Bold Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_16x32.png
   :align: center

   vga2_16x32.py: 256 Character 16x32 Thin Font

|

.. figure:: _static/vga2_bold_16x32.png
   :align: center

   vga2_bold_16x32.py: 256 Character 16x32 Bold Font

|