This is a simple library that can be used to read PSF format fonts (Linux console fonts). With this library, you can render text on the screen without using overly complicated TTF fonts. This library works with both type 1 and type 2 PSF fonts. It can also read gzipped fonts if built with zlib support (default).

Full credit to the original author → prushik better know as maintainer of betteros.org (no pun intended).

This library is made to be useful for people who want to use it for what it was meant to do. If you are not one of those people, then don't get mad.

The purpose of this library is to read files in the PC Screen Font format (PSF) and prepare the data so that it can be displayed on the screen. PC Screen Fonts are very useful fonts, particularly on Linux machines. Because PSF is a bitmap font format, it is not scalable, and hence not perfect for all applications. However, it can be rendered much faster than vector fonts and most applications do not require font scaling. Plus, on Linux computers, these fonts are already present (Linux Console Fonts), meaning that they do not need to be distributed with your Linux software. Also, the format is very simple can be read with low overhead, which is what this library aims to do. This library is useful in applications such as small game. since these typically do not require scalable fonts. Many other lightweight applications may benefit from this library as well due to its small size and simplicity.

Linux Console Fonts are typically gzipped, so the library must be built with zlib support in order to work with some stock Linux distributions (Ubuntu).

• native

make
make install

• cross-compile

export CC=${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc
export SYSROOT=<path_to_sdk_sysroot>
make

If you wish to install in a different location, use the PREFIX environment variable while installing. If you want to build without zlib support, then add "-DNO_ZLIB" to the CFLAGS environment variable while compiling.

If you wish to compile without libc support, add "-DNO_CLIB" to CFLAGS. This requires disabling zlib as well. This assumes you have an implementation of several functions including memcpy and several syscall functions. Examples are included in amd64_syscalls.s and mem.s, although some versions of gcc also provide a usable built-in memcpy implementation.

• native

make install
make example

• cross-compile

export CC=${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc
export SYSROOT=<path_to_sdk_sysroot>
make install
make example-dist

# then copy "dist/" to your target machine and run "showpsf.sh" script

Run binary:

./showpsf #use "font.psf" in CWD

--or--

./showpsf <font_name.psf> #pass [arg] as PSF font

Add "-DINPUT_STR" to show chars only passed by kbd inputs, otherwise display all glyphs (default).

Include psf.h in your application. It is possible to link dynamically, but this is not recommended for releases, linking statically or including libpsf.c in your project is the recommended usage since it avoids adding a runtime dependency.

API documentation is found in the file called API.