General

Fonts can be stored in a bitmap or an outline formats. Former uses pixel matrices for glyphs, while later uses Bezier curves and such - i.e. raster vs vector images. Bitmap formats are:

• BDF by Adobe.
• PCF by Xorg.
• PSF used by kernel.
• OTB. Outline formats are:
• PFA/PFB by Adobe.
• TTF by Apple and Microsoft.
• OTF by Microsoft. Other formats include:
• TeX may use own font formats.
• fontforge can use SDF.
• SVG can be used to describe fonts.

Nix

Many programs provide options to set fonts. Use fonts.packages to install a font globally.

Tools

fontconfig

• fc-list shows available fonts, fc-list : family shows available families.
• fc-query get info about a font.

fontforge

Font Manager

Pretty nice.

References

• Arch Wiki.